As I write this, trucks and construction vehicles are once more on the street outside my window.
There is engine noise, of course, and the bangs and clangs of heavy shovels and the persistent beeps warning people when the vehicles are going in reverse.
I’m thrilled.
The trucks today are adding topsoil and grass seed to parts of the parkway that were damaged last year during a sewer installation project.
I can’t speak to why the city decided to start installing a storm sewer in a street with a school in the last week of August, the very week students returned to classes, but that’s what happened.
As summer turned to fall, we — and the kids on the playground — watched crews dig out a trench in the middle of the street, install a concrete pipe at least 4 feet in diameter, and cover it up again.
They had just poured concrete around the middle of the pipe when the first snow fell in November; it was during a later thaw that they finished installing new curbs and gutters.
That left us with a drivable but unfinished surface all winter on a street that carries both school drop off and pickup traffic every day and is a frequently used shortcut between bigger arterial streets.
By spring, there were places that went beyond uneven, with drops of six inches or more where the concrete ended and the gravel began.
That’s all over now. Two weeks ago, the road was graded again and paved; it now has a surface that is smoother than it has been in the more than quarter-century since I’ve lived here. The grass is being restored. Soon we won’t have to check the signs posted on the trees to find out whether we can park next to our house every day.
That’s all an added bonus to the apparent improvement to flooding in the neighborhood from the installation of the storm sewer.
So, yes, I’m thrilled. Thrilled that the project got done, and thrilled that it is almost over. It has been disruptive: loud and dusty, with traffic disruptions and damage to the trees next to our house and, for a time, puddles big enough for ducks to paddle around in the alley behind our garage while it was waiting to be resurfaced.
But that’s the way of things; change is always disruptive and inconvenient and often difficult, even when the ultimate outcome is good. That’s one reason it can be so hard to make changes, even changes for the better: No one wants to go through the trouble.
We see it even in Scripture, most notably with the rich man who approached Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew and went away sad, because following Jesus would mean giving up too much. Gaining salvation, it seems, would be too much trouble.
Maybe we should all think about the things we need to change in our lives, what we could do to be better disciples, and aren’t doing. How much trouble would it be? Maybe, if we think about it, it will be worth it.