The Great Garage Laboratory Day
Edward Hays
The Old Hermit's Almanac
Forest of Peace Publishing Co.

Garage is a borrowed British word referring to a room on the wing of a house or a separate building near a house in which a car or cars are parked.  Popular at the end of the twentieth century as a place for sales of unwanted belongings…it is also useful as a laboratory for new inventions.

In 1896 Henry Ford begin experimenting with his gasoline engine in his kitchen.  Needing more room, he soon moved to a garage shed in Detroit.  Similarly, Walt Disney move to Hollywood in 1923 to live with his uncle.  He begin his first cartoon film work in his uncle's garage in Los Angeles. Likewise, C. E. Woolman began his aerial crop-dusting business in a former gas station garage in 1920. From cotton field dusting he moved on to carrying mail and passengers.  He named is new company Delta Air Service and later redecorated the garage as a lounge for his passengers.

Silicon Valley begin in a garage rented in 1938 by William Hewlett and David Packard. Their experiments with an audio oscillator moved on to computers.  In 1940 Ruth and Eliotte Handler rented a garage to make giftware with Lucite, the new plastic innovation.  In that garage in 1938, Ruth dreamed up the Barbie doll, and the Mattel Toy Company was born. In 1975, Stephen Wozinak moved into Steve Job's garage to produce their personal computer;  it became the first headquarters of Apple Computer. Buddy Holly and the Crickets created rock and roll in a garage in Lubbock, Texas.  In Pleasantville, New York, DeWitt and Lila Wallace rented a garage-apartment and began writing and editing Reader's Digest.

The next time you go into your garage, pause a moment and look at it with new eyes.  Perhaps the spirit of some new invention, toy or household produce, music or movie, magazine or new company is just waiting to be created.

This National Celebrate Your Garage Day provides an opportunity to reflect on using that space for more than parking your car and storing your equipment - consider making it sacred space.  A stable, the ancient, great-grandmother shed of today's garage, was also the birthplace of God's new creation, Jesus Christ, the birthplace of a new covenant.  If you need a place to reinvent your prayer life or to visit with God about new ideas for how to reinvent your life, consider spending some quality time in your garage.

Reflection
Just as you might have to clean out your garage in order to make space for your new project.
You will need to clean out your mind to make room for thoughts of God. crsr