I apologize to the fans of William P. Young who may have been misled by the title to this post. Young wrote a book entitled The Shack. It is an excellent and thought-provoking book. However, the shack to which I refer in this post is a different shack.

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I’m guessing that most of you would have played “Hide and Go Seek” or “Hide and Seek” at some point in your childhood. The game is fairly simple. One person is designated to be “it.” That person closes his/her eyes and counts to the agreed upon number while others go and hide. It’s the job of “it” to find the ones hiding.

Of course, wth “Hide and Go Seek,” the more players, the merrier. It’s not as fun with just two people. My brother and I used to play a modified version that might be called “Hide and Jump Out and Scare the Willies Out of the Other.” One of us would randomly hide in the house and jump out and scare the other (a fight usually ensued). Of course, “scaring the willies” out of someone usually worked better at night or when mom and dad weren’t home. Or better yet, outside at night when mom and dad weren’t home.

If we did have more than two people and we played “hide and go seek” outside, there is one place where we could hide and be guaranteed that we would never be found: the shack.

Yes, the shack. The shack was a small wooden storage shed behind our house in the corner of the backyard. It was different from the structure we called the “storage room” in that the shack was detached from the house. The shack was isolated in the corner of the yard. The storage room was attached to the end of the house on the other side of the carport.

The shack must have been there when mom and dad bought the house from the original owners when my brother and I were very young. Some of the contents of the shack must have also come with the house. Quite simply, there was a lot of dusty old stuff in the shack. Likely, the most valuable contents were my dad’s fishing rods and reels which were laid across some boards just under the ceiling. When you walked into the shack, you could see the rods and reels above your head. The only other useful items were the lighted reindeer that were placed in the front yard at Christmas.

Let’s just say the shack was a pretty scary place. The door to the shack had a doorknob but it didn’t work. So, there was an unlocked padlock that you would lift from the clasp to open the door. Also, the door stuck. You really had to yank it to get it open. The shack had a single light bulb inside that did not illuminate much of anything when it was turned on. But you better believe that I turned that light on as soon as I got the door open.

Needless to say, my brother and I only went into the shack when absolutely necessary…which would have been when dad told us to go there. And I’m sure we grumbled the whole way, out of his earshot, of course.

Now, as scary as the enclosed portion of the shack was, it was not nearly as scary as the opened portion on the backside. To this day, I am not sure of all the contents. There were old pieces of lumber and other odds and ends. But quite frankly, it really didn’t matter what was there because no one ever went there.

I just knew there had to be a snake back there. I believe I convinced myself that I saw one at some point. I had no doubt that if I had hidden in that part of the shack while playing “hide and go seek,” no one would have come looking. And the snakes would have gotten to me before anyone found me.

In essence, the shack became wasted space. Anything that was usable in the shack could have easily been moved to the storage room attached to the house. Anything else in the shack was so old or obsolete that it would have been useless. After some point, we just didn’t pay much attention to it. The azaleas and other plants grew unsupervised beside the shack. That increased, in my mind, the probability of running into a snake.

For me, and I would suppose for the rest of the family, the shack became irrelevant or just too scary to visit. It was no longer needed. I looked through hundreds of family photos and did not see one picture of the shack. But in a way, that’s not surprising.

As I am sure you can tell, the shack was not my favorite place. However, it hasn’t been the only scary shack in my life.

Being relatively confined while sheltered in place for weeks on end allows one to think on these things. How many of us have an emotional “shack” inside us? How many of us have an emotional place where no one else wants to go? Where others are scared to go? Do we have personal shacks that scare other people away?

Certainly you know of what I speak. For instance, you’ve heard someone say, “I just don’t talk politics with ________________. They get too angry.” Or, “I can’t talk theology with _________________. It’s just no use.” These are just two examples. The list is long.

It’s likely we all have “shacks” within us. Most, if not all, of us have “hot buttons” that others can press that will send us into orbit. But the question is, should we? Seriously, what good does it do for us? Or, more appropriately, what good does it take from us?

If I get so angry or irrational when I am approached about a subject that others become scared to approach me, what have I done to myself? If I cannot be approached, what does that do to others? In short, I have rendered part of myself as useless. That part of me serves no good purpose. It becomes irrelevant. It becomes more and more isolated.

At some point, my personal shack gets filled with dusty old junk that means nothing to anyone else…junk that’s been there so long that some wonder how it got there in the first place. My personal shack keeps me from being whole. It takes up valuable space that could be used for better purposes. Friendships are lost. Family members become estranged because of personal, emotional shacks.

I wonder what would have happened if our family had cleaned out that old shack in our backyard. It could have been repurposed for a variety things. It could have been a structure that was inviting instead of scary and foreboding. It may have turned into a place that we wanted to visit instead of dreading. We could have even torn it down and used the ground under it for a better purpose.

We may have missed our opportunity to make better use of that old shack. But we still have an opportunity to help ourselves. What if each of us decided to clean up our personal shacks?

What if we decided that our friendships and our relationships were more important than our personal shacks? What if we repurposed our personal shacks into space that was more inviting to others? What if verbal attacks over certain “issues” once again became civil conversations?

Maybe there’s a silver lining to “shelter in place.” It may be this is the best time to clean out the shack.