Progress Is in the Eye of the Beholder

This is now the end of the fourth day of the work in the house. Not just "on" the house, but "in" it. The pictures posted three days ago give you something of an idea of what's going on (or coming off), and one should expect there would have been progress after four days of work. Yes, there has been. By now every room in the house (except the kitchen and the two bathrooms) has had plaster knocked off the walls; a fine layer of grit covers everything. I covered my desk with sheets to protect my computer and printer from flying debris. That worked; it also means that what is underneath the sheet is covered with "filtered" debris. A large piece of plastic would have been better, but I didn't have one. We already look forward to cleaning the house, which may be progress, in a sense, for me. I admit that housecleaning is not one of those activities I really go for; even I have my limits, however. Walking over little pieces of plaster, and wiping dust off everything exceeds my limits.

The experience that comes to mind that most reminds me of this (except when we did all this sort of work in previous phases of the remodelling) is the time when I was about 7 or 8, and our house in Colorado got filled with sand from a dust storm. Mom made us go to the back bedroom and eat our sandwiches (no pun intended) and keep our glasses of milk covered with a napkin to keep the dirt out.

Progress? I look up and see wires dangling from outlets and boxes in the walls. At least the wires have been run through the conduits, but I haven't got the phone lines reconnected. What with extensions upstairs and lines to the computer and the fax, I find myself staring at the tangled balls of little colored wires left by the phone company inside the connector boxes. I study the tangled webs carefully before I cut the lines, so when I move the outlets and switch box, I can put the lines back into an order that works. Tomorrow I will do that. Today we have no phone. That, too, may progress. If not progress, it's a freedom of sorts.

Visually, our present surroundings are dreary and discouraging. But we look at the situation with other eyes: we see what has been done, and more importantly, we see by the eyes of faith what the freshly painted rooms will look like, free of exposed wires running around the baseboards and doorframes . That's what living the Christian life by faith is all about, too. The Apostle Paul wrote about his experiences that were on the whole a trouble to him. He said he was often perplexed, persecuted and cast down, but in the end it was a light affliction to him. He could say that because he set his sights on the things that are unseen, rather than seen; on the eternal, rather than the temporal; on what will be, rather than what is. (2 Cor. 4:8-18) When my life looks like a mess, I remember who the Master Builder is, and I take courage. Progress is in the eye of the beholder.