St. John Trip, Day 6

We are five days into the sheetrocking and today finished all of the lower ceilings, round altar wall, shrines, lower faces of the beams, all the "triangles", and walls. These are the two youngest monks at the monastery who got the obedience to help me with the sheetrock. They are putting up the last sheet of drywall in one of the wings of the cruciform; the altar would be to the right of the picture the narthex and entry is to the left. (I am in the opposite wing taking the picture.)
This is what Ross called the "stealth drywall". He and Brother Eamon did all the tiny triangles around the beams, and the bottom sides of all the beams. It took them about 50 hours, and not because they were particularly slow, there's just that many of them.
This is the view of the altar from the narthex door. It is 6:00pm. We just finished cleaning the jobsite up, sweeping the floors and moving the rest of the sheetrock to stage it for doing the dome. Before we left for the night, Fr. Jeremy, Brother Eamon, Ross and I stood in the chanter's places and sang "Shine, Shine O Jerusalem". A fitting end to the week.

Tomorrow I start on the mud work on what we've completed. Monday the contractor will bring scaffolding so we can begin the dome.
It is truly humbling to think I'm building places where people will be worshipping God for generations, where saints will be formed. I often wonder why I am called and permitted to work on these projects. I wonder what I'd be doing if I had not been fired from my ministry job 27 years ago. But, as I mentioned about the "will of God for our life", I know enough now about the providence of God to know that I am still in the middle of the story, and I really don't know if this is the final purpose and goal of my life and vocation.

Regardless of the end of the story, I know I'm in my final chapters, and I repent of all the times I cursed the day I thought I was forced into becoming a construction worker. And when I can't move my fingers, and I can't get up off my knees or up a scaffold without something popping or creaking, when I sound like my old dog, and wonder why I couldn't be 20 years younger doing this... I remember God always gave people their hardest jobs when they are old. I plan on asking about that some day.