The Nail

Last week I did a small project resealing a porch roof. I get called
in to do these things from time to time. I've been doing roofing
projects of all kinds since my early teens. My favorite job of all
time was one where I simply had to make my way around a building roof
with a chain saw and cut all the support beams until the whole thing
just collapsed into the foundation, the dream job of some sixteen
year olds. The building was getting demolished anyway.
But this job was just a simple matter of spreading pitch. Goes on
kind of like paint but in an hour it's tar. Then in a few days it's
rock hard. It was the kind of job that is short, sweet, and easy
money. With mother natures blessing the new coat had plenty of time
to set before the test of rain came along and rain it did.
The roof had been a waterfall just before the new coat. But with it,
it went from being a flood hazard to the Niagara trickle.
I had put the pitch on rather heavy after redoing all the seam work.
The entire roof sealed up perfectly. All except for one small nail
hole. A shingle nail that had been punched through the woodwork, Gods
knows how long ago, was the only place on the newly covered roof that
still dripped water. But that one tiny little drip could cause
hundreds of dollars in wood damage over time. The invisible hole
would drip every time enough water got to it and direct that moister
straight into the very bones of the porch, eventually rotting it away.
This roof was built from treated wood, covered in tar strips,
shingled, seam sealed, and then pitched over but that one flaw, that
one tiny hole, that one imperfection could destroy the whole thing
given enough time and weathering. And in this we find a lesson.
That roofing nail, although completely inconspicuous from it's many
brothers and sisters was hammered into the roof in such a way that it
became an imperfection rather than a characteristic. A simplistic,
unseen flaw that could end up destroying the entire structure over
time was covered up and hidden away from everything but time and
weathering. By the time it was discovered gross damage had already
been done to all the materials surrounding it, damage that would
spread if given the chance or more ignorance.
Humans are the very same way and we treat ourselves much like the
roofers of the past treated this nail. We see something or we do
something wrong, even the tiniest of mistakes, and instead of fixing
the problem we simply cover it up or try to hide it. Before you know
it we are feeling the effects of that flaw in our character and we
see it seeping through to many other aspects of our lives. All the
while thinking we are in control of it. We covered it up. We hid it
from the world. If we ignore it, it will go away after a while.
But it never does.
More times than not we don't realize that until it is too late and
the damage has been done. And now instead of having one little secret
or one little flaw, now instead of one mistake or one bad choice, we
have a wealth of other problems that will cost us much more in the
end. All because we thought that one tiny nail, one small hole in the
structure of our being, could be covered up and hidden. But when life
brings us rain, that tiny hidden hole becomes a rotting problem that
the entire world can see.
Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has flaws. These are the very
details that make us both unique and mortal. It is a common bond we
all share yet we always seem to be ashamed of them. But just like
that nail, no matter what you do to try and cover it up and hide it,
if you don't except it, deal with it, and fix it properly it will
cause you a lot of other problems and rot away your soul.

Angel Snowden - 2006