The Shack (2)

I just read William P. Young’s The Shack. It’s an extraordinary book. In it, Young paints a portrait of the three persons of the Trinity through the conversations that God has with a man who is mourning the death of his young daughter and has been on a difficult and painful journey to find meaning in his life once again. There were several big epiphanies for me. One is God’s ability to be bound by self-imposed limits. God’s ability to experience “limits” does not suggest any lessening of God’s power and omnipotence. The limits are simply another expression of God’s love for humanity and the desire to better experience humanity through these limits. Another epiphany relates to the intimate relationship among the three persons of the Trinity as, for instance, when “Papa,” a female figure who portrays the person of God the Father, reveals deep scars on her wrists, a result of “Papa’s” immediate and intimate connectedness with Jesus and the crucifixion. Perhaps the most amazing epiphany for me is the portrayal of the Holy Spirit though the character known as “Sarayu,” a twinkling, sparkling, almost wave-based being who speaks to the protagonist as easily as “Papa” or Jesus does.

This book helped to explode the fairy tale images I may have had about God. It revealed to me a God who is not involved in changing the outcomes that happen as a result of human actions but who definitely IS fully engaged in trying to establish a relationship with every human being so that each person can experience God’s love and manifest that love in relationship with others. Read The Shack. It will be a revelation no matter what your current beliefs.

-- Pat Jones