Life vs. Blog Showdown

I can't believe it has been over a month since I started painting repo'd houses.

I ended up missing all of Holy Week, including Pascha services.  I put in a 14 hour day on Holy Saturday, got home at about 8:30pm and had to be back on the job by 7:00AM on Sunday morning to finish it in time for carpet layers and to start another job on Monday morning.  I took a day off on Mother's Day to visit my Mom in northern Arizona, and today is my second day off in almost 7 weeks. Not that I'm complaining....

During the last two and a half years there have been weeks that I had no work at all and most weeks I had less than 15  billable hours.  But during that time I got to build a Church for our Mission and for St. John's Monastery and a dormitory and chapel for St. Anthony's Monastery.    As much time off as I had, I didn't lose any weight, however.

As cool as it was to have a real Church building for our Mission, a few months ago QT Gas Stations bought the land that our Church was on.   We couldn't afford another piece of land or to move the building, so this is what became of our Church. 

Now we're renting a chapel from a Coptic Church and looking for another office/warehouse space to move into again.  "God works in mysterious ways" is probably the only thing anyone can really say about that without trying to rationalize it, spiritualize it, or become cynical or despondent. 

But that's not the point. The point is, I've had a LOT of time on my hands for the last couple years and no time on my hands for the last couple months.  When I have a lot of spare time it is easier to find time to be "holy", well... do things that make me at least look holy, and to tell everyone about it on the blog.  The Church benefits from my unemployment, my skills and, yes, even my ego.

The last couple months I've been working for about a third of what I used to make but getting three or four times the billable hours. I've found I'm getting up and down 24 foot extention ladders a lot slower than I used to. I've found that gravity gets stronger after 8 hours of painting baseboards. I've found that it is easier to get up and down ladders if I don't have to carry a Whopper with cheese, large fries and a Coke with me in the afternoon. I've found that cleaning gutters buys groceries just like painting a wall does. I've found pride comes before a fall and lack of pride comes before a meal. I've found I'm still the same person whether I am unemployed, under-employed, broke, rich or busy climbing the 30 steps of the Ladder of Divine Ascent for Lent or climbing a 24 foot fiberglass ladder for ten bucks an hour.  I've found that neither exhaustion is more sacred than the other.

I've also found as hard as I think my work has been there are other people working harder for less. I haven't had to do this yet for minimum wages. Yes, that is a running chainsaw in his hands.

So all in all, all is good.  Or is it, "All is well"?  Or perhaps it is both.  Even when it doesn't feel good and seems like it isn't going well.  God works in mysterious ways.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.