The Shack

I wrote about serendipity a little while ago. I seem to be on some kind of quest although I'm only now really aware of it. It probably happened before deciding to go to London, but it became clearer sitting in the chapel in Westminster Abbey and even at my brief visit to Stonehenge. Hints of it have been showing up for quite a while. Some of the reading I've done lately has caused me to reflect in a way the author may not have intended (initially, Murakami). It might even go back to when I once more delved into the work of Virginia Woolf.

There's an old Chinese expression that says: When the student is ready, the teacher appears. It has happened to me in the past, and I know I have been that teacher at times, too. I don't know how to read the original Chinese, but I wonder if it might not translate as clearly into teacher as we might think, such as, an actual physical teacher. Maybe the teacher is present but in something that he or she has created, such as a book, if the teacher is an author, or maybe the universe, if the teacher is God. There are books that serve that purpose, I would hope, in everyone's life. They often come along when you're ready to read them but maybe you weren't even aware you were looking for them. Maybe it's more like, when the reader is ready the book appears. Some of those books are quite popular and are shared by many people. Some don't reach large groups but create a ripple effect from the few that do find them. Moby Dick was one of those early ones for me. So was The Old Man and the Sea. Much later, Jonathan Livingston Seagull was one. Then there was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. More recently, Ishmael was the book. I believe The Shack by William P. Young, may also be one of those books. Driven much by way of mouth, the book has, a year after its publication, become a number one best seller on the NYT trade paperback fiction list, and at Barnes & Noble and Border's. I read about the book Tuesday in an article in the NYT. I bought it yesterday and have now read it, finishing it tonight while sitting on an old beach chair watching night fall on the ocean at the Hollywood Beach. Mr. Young wrote it for his family. Others read it and felt it deserved a wider audience. According to the NYT article, Christian publishers rejected it because it was too controversial (in the book, the main character meets God, all three persons of God, in an old shack, where something horrible had happened several years before that had permanently clouded the man's life and his relationship with God--oh, God is a large African American woman); secular publishers rejected it because it was too Christian. The author and his two friends pooled $15,000 and published it themselves. It has sold perhaps a million copies now. It will probably be made into a movie (please don't let it be Whoopee Goldberg that plays God).

It is necessary to read this book to appreciate it. It's better to not give many details away in talking about it. I could see why orthodox Christian religions wouldn't care for it too much. At one point in a discussion between Mack, the main character, and Jesus (well, you know, God), Jesus says, "An awful lot of what is done in my name has nothing to do with me and is often, even if unintentional, very contrary to my purposes." Mack responds to that with, "You're not too fond of religion and institutions?" Jesus' response to that is, "I don't create institutions--never have, never will." We might wonder, what would we say to God and ask God if we had a weekend alone with Him? Mack doesn't necessarily ask what we might consider the big questions, but maybe that's because he realizes how unimportant they really are. He is hurting terribly, both from his childhood and from something terrible that happened in that very spot, four years before. He blames God for that, as well as himself, and wants to know the answer to some universal questions about pain and suffering, good and evil, and how all this fits in to God's plan (if there is a plan) and could possibly be a manifestation of His supposed love for us. The answers aren't always easy to hear, understand, or accept. This may put this book in the same company as The Book of Job, the work of Melville (Moby Dick and The Confidence Man), Rabbi Kushner (When Bad Things Happen to Good People), and a plethora of other writers and thinkers. Will all readers like and accept the answers? That depends on the reader. It is a decidedly Christian book, which may turn off non-Christians, but the question they might want to ask is what actually does it mean to be a Christian, and who really is Jesus? The answer has very little to do with doctrine and scripture and definitely not televangelists.

It's a beautiful book, one that will bring joy and tears to the reader. I will be reading it again. Ultimately, it is a book about love. There is a website for the book if you care to read more about it or order the book.