Two Sheds In Two Days

Monday, I hammered apart our old, rusted out metal garden shed.

Years ago, when I should have torn it down, instead I posted a sign on the door saying, “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” — the same notice Dante found engraved on a rock at the mouth of the Inferno.

I thought that was funny, and it was easier to post a sign on the door than to clean out and tear down the old shed.

Tuesday, I disassembled a newer shed at my daughter Jennifer’s home, loaded the parts on a trailer and brought them to my house to reassemble as our new(er) garden shed.

This morning I intended to write a clever diary posting about the spiritual implications of the word shed as both a noun and a verb.

My dictionary says the root of the word means something like to separate or set apart. Shed as a noun refers to a small, building likely used to set things apart for storage; shed as a verb also relates to setting something aside — The cat shed hair all over my favorite chair, or blood shed is common on Friday nights in Jacksonville, or a geological watershed separates water flowing in different directions.

I intended to write about one of my happiest days when Alva, my mother-in-law, took me to an archaeological dig in a Maryland corn field and we excavated a farm shed from the 1500s. Apparently an epidemic wiped out the farm family suddenly and their storage shed crumbled to dust leaving all the treasures they had stored in it buried beneath the corn field.

And I intended to tie this stuff together with the words of Christ when He said, “This is my blood which is shed for many”.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was stretching my point. My thought process on this is just too contrived.

If faith is real and valid, no artificial arrangement is proper.

Who needs contrived religion?

My sheds are rickety old buildings with useless stuff I’m too stingy to let go of, buildings where rats and spiders and roaches dwell.

Sheds have no spiritual implication — unless I really contrive something.

I’d be lying to say otherwise.

I can't honestly make more out of this than there really is.

Therefore, I’ve got nothing this morning.