The Shack

by William Paul Young

  Mack was glad they were stepping back from the edge of his ugly accusation. How near he had come to being totally overwhelmed by it had scared him. “I think it’d be easier to have this conversation if you weren’t wearing a dress,” he suggested and attempted a smile, as weak as it was.

  “If it were easier, then I wouldn’t be,” she said with a slight giggle. “I’m not trying to make this harder for either of us. But this is a good place to start. I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later… when you’re ready.”

  She again picked up the wooden spoon, which was dripping with some sort of batter. “Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to appear to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me ‘Papa’ is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.”

  She leaned forward as if to share a secret. “To reveal myself to you as a very large, white grandfather figure with flowing beard, like Gandalf, would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes, and this weekend is not about reinforcing your religious stereotypes.”

  Mack almost laughed out loud and wanted to say, “You think? I’m over here barely believing that I’m not stark-raving mad!” Instead, he focused on what she had just said and regained his composure. He believed, in his head at least, that God was Spirit, neither male nor female, but in spite of that, he was embarrassed to admit to himself that all his visuals for God were very white and very male.

  She stopped talking, but only long enough to put some seasonings in a spice rack on a ledge by the window before turning to face him again. She looked at Mack intently. “Hasn’t it always been a problem for you to embrace me as your Father? And after what you’ve been through, you couldn’t very well handle a father right now, could you?”

  He knew she was right, and he realized the kindness and compassion in what she was doing. Somehow, the way she had approached him had skirted his resistance to her love. It was strange and painful and maybe even a little bit wonderful.

  “But then”—he paused, still focused on staying rational—“why is there such an emphasis on you being a Father? I mean, it seems to be the way you most reveal yourself.”

  “Well,” responded Papa, turning away from him and bustling around the kitchen, “there are many reasons for that, and some of them go very deep. Let me say for now that we knew once the creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed—but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

  Mack turned away, a bit bewildered and feeling he was already in over his head. As he reflected, he looked through the window at a wild-looking garden.

  “You knew I would come, didn’t you?” Mack finally spoke quietly.

  “Of course I did.” She was busy again, her back to him.

  “Then was I free not to come? Did I not have a choice in the matter?”

  Papa turned back to face him, now with flour and dough in her hands. “Good question—how deep would you like to go?” She didn’t wait for a response, knowing that Mack didn’t have one. Instead, she asked, “Do you believe you are free to leave?”

  “I suppose I am. Am I?”

  “Of course you are! I’m not interested in prisoners. You’re free to walk out that door right now and go home to your empty house. Or you could go down to The Grind and hang out with Willie. Just because I know you’re too curious to go, does that reduce your freedom to leave?”

  She paused only briefly and then turned back to her task, talking to him over her shoulder. “Or, if you want to go just a wee bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself. Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul’s sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there’s advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors,” she said, sighing, “what is freedom really?”

  Mack just stood there, not knowing what to say.

  “Only I can set you free, Mackenzie, but freedom can never be forced.”

  “I don’t understand,” replied Mack. “I don’t even understand what you just told me.”

  She turned back and smiled. “I know. I didn’t tell you so that you would understand right now. I told you for later. At this point, you don’t even comprehend that freedom is an incremental process.” Gently reaching out, she took Mack’s hands in hers, flour-covered and all, and looking him straight in the eyes, she continued, “Mackenzie, the truth shall set you free and the truth has a name; he’s over in the woodshop right now covered in sawdust. Everything is about him. And freedom is a process that happens inside a relationship with him. Then all that stuff you feel churnin’ around inside will start to work its way out.”

  “How can you really know how I feel?” Mack asked, looking back into her eyes.

  Papa didn’t answer, only looked down at their hands. His gaze followed hers and for the first time Mack noticed the scars on her wrists, like those he now assumed Jesus also had on his. She allowed him to tenderly touch the scars, outlines of a deep piercing, and he finally looked up again into her eyes. Tears were slowly making their way down her face, little pathways through the flour that dusted her cheeks.

  “Don’t ever think that what my Son chose to do didn’t cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark,” she stated softly and gently. “We were there together.”

  Mack was surprised. “At the cross? Now wait, I thought you left him—you know—‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ ” It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness.

  “You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him.”

  “How can you say that? You abandoned him just like you abandoned me!”

  “Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you.”

  “That makes no sense to me,” he snapped.

  “I know it doesn’t, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: when all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?”

  When Mack did not respond, she turned back to her cooking so as to offer him a little needed space. She seemed to be preparing a number of dishes all at once, adding various spices and ingredients. Humming a haunting little tune, she put the finishing touches on the pie she had been making and slid it into the oven.

  “Don’t forget, the story didn’t end in his sense of forsakenness. He found his way through it to put himself completely into my hands. Oh, what a moment that was!”

  Mack leaned against the counter, somewhat bewildered. His emotions and thoughts were all jumbled. Part of him wanted to believe everything Papa was saying. That would be nice! But another part was objecting rather loudly, This can’t possibly be true!

  Papa reached for the kitchen timer, gave it a little twist, and placed it on the table in front of them. “I’m not who you think I am, Mackenzie.” Her words weren’t angry or defensive.

  Mack looked at her, looked at the timer, and sighed. “I feel totally lost.”

  “Then let’s see if we can find you in this mess.”

  Almost as if on cue, a blue jay landed on the kitchen windowsill and began strutting back and forth. Papa reached into a tin on the counter and, sliding the window open, offered Mr. Jay a mixture of grains that she must have kept just for that purpose. Without any hesitation, and with a seeming air of humility and thankfulness, the bird walked
straight to her hand and began feeding.

  “Consider our little friend here,” she began. “Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around.” She paused to let Mack think about her statement. “You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around.”

  Mack nodded his head, not so much in full agreement, but more as a signal that at least he understood and was tracking. That seemed simple enough.

  “Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly. Not something I want for you.”

  There’s the rub. He didn’t feel particularly loved at the moment.

  “Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.” She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. “And if it’s left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.”

  Mack was silent. Strangely, the silence was not that uncomfortable. Mack looked at the little bird. The bird looked back at Mack. He wondered if it was possible for birds to smile. At least Mr. Jay looked as if he was, even if only sympathetically.

  “I’m not like you, Mack.”

  It wasn’t a put-down; it was a simple statement of fact. But to Mack it felt like a splash of cold water.

  “I am God. I am who I am. And unlike you, my wings can’t be clipped.”

  “Well that’s wonderful for you, but where exactly does that leave me?” Mack blurted out, sounding more irritated than he would have liked.

  Papa began stroking the little bird, brought him up close to her face, and said, “Smack-dab in the center of my love!” as the two cuddled nose-to-beak.

  “I’m thinking that bird probably understands that better than I do” was the best Mack could offer.

  “I know, honey. That’s why we’re here. Why do you think I said, ‘I’m not like you’?”

  “Well, I really have no idea. I mean, you’re God and I’m not.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but she ignored it completely.

  “Yes, but not exactly. At least not in the way you’re thinking. Mackenzie, I am what some would say ‘holy, and wholly other than you.’ The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and then calling that God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I’m not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above and beyond all that you can ask or think.”

  “I’m sorry, but those are just words to me. They don’t make much sense.” Mack shrugged.

  “Even though you can’t finally grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.”

  “You’re talking about Jesus, right? Is this going to be a let’s-try-to-understand-the-Trinity sort of thing?”

  She chuckled. “Sort of, but this isn’t Sunday school. This is a flying lesson. Mackenzie, as you might imagine, there are some advantages to being God. By nature I am completely unlimited, without bounds. I have always known fullness. I live in a state of perpetual satisfaction as my normal state of existence,” she said, quite pleased. “Just one of the perks of me being me.”

  That made Mack smile. This lady was fully enjoying herself, all by herself, and there wasn’t an ounce of arrogance to spoil it.

  “We created you to share in that. But then Adam chose to go it on his own, as we knew he would, and everything got messed up. But instead of scrapping the whole creation, we rolled up our sleeves and entered into the middle of the mess—that’s what we have done in Jesus.”

  Mack was hanging in there, trying his best to follow her train of thought.

  “When we three spoke ourselves into human existence as the Son of God, we became fully human. We also chose to embrace all the limitations this entailed. Even though we have always been present in this created universe, we now became flesh and blood. It would be like this bird, whose nature it is to fly, choosing only to walk and remain grounded. He doesn’t stop being a bird, but it does alter his experience of life significantly.”

  She paused to make sure Mack was still tracking. While there was a definite cramp forming in his brain, he voiced an “Okay…?” inviting her to continue.

  “Although by nature he is fully God, Jesus is fully human and lives as such. While never losing the innate ability to fly, he chooses moment-by-moment to remain grounded. That is why his name is Immanuel, ‘God with us,’ or ‘God with you,’ to be more precise.”

  “But what about all the miracles? The healings? Raising people from the dead? Don’t those prove that Jesus was God—you know, more than human?”

  “No, it proves that Jesus is truly human.”

  “What?”

  “Mackenzie, I can fly, but humans can’t. Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it to the uttermost—the first to absolutely trust my life within him, the first to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence.”

  “So when he healed the blind?”

  “He did so as a dependent, limited human being trusting in my life and power to be at work within him and through him. Jesus, as a human being, had no power within himself to heal anyone.”

  That came as a shock to Mack’s religious system.

  “Only as he rested in his relationship with me, and in our communion—our co-union—could he express my heart and will into any given circumstance. So, when you look at Jesus and it appears that he’s flying, he really is… flying. But what you are actually seeing is me, my life in him. That’s how he lives and acts as a true human, how every human is designed to live—out of my life.

  “A bird is defined not by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are defined not by their limitations, but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.”

  Mack felt the onset of information overload. So he pulled up a chair and just sat down. This would take some time to comprehend. “So does this mean that you were limited when Jesus was on Earth? I mean, did you limit yourself only to Jesus?”

  “Not at all! Although I have only been limited in Jesus, I have never been limited in myself.”

  “There’s that whole Trinity thing, which is where I kind of get lost.”

  Papa laughed a long, rich belly laugh that made Mack want to join in. She set the little bird down on the table next to Mack, turned to open the oven, and gave the pie that was baking a quick little look. Satisfied that everything was fine, Papa then pulled up a chair alongside him.

  Mack looked at the little bird, who, amazingly, was content to just sit there with them. The absurdity of it all gave Mack a chuckle.

  “To begin with, that you can’t grasp the wonder of my nature is rather a good thing. Who wants to worship a God who can be fully comprehended, eh? Not much mystery in that.”

  “But what difference does it make that there are three of you, and you are all one God? Did I say that right?”

  “Right enough.” She grinned. “Mackenzie, it makes all the difference in the world!” She seemed to be enjoying this. “We are not three gods, and we are not talking about one god with three attitudes, like a man who is a husband, father, and worker. I am one God and I am three persons, and each of the three is fully and entirely the one.”

  The “huh?” Mack had been suppressing finally surfaced in all its glory.

  “Never mind that,” she continued. “What’s important is this: if I were simply one God and only one person, then you would find yourself in this
creation without something wonderful, without something essential even. And I would be utterly other than I am.”

  “And we would be without…?” Mack didn’t even know how to finish the question.

  “Love and relationship. All love and relationship is possible for you only because it already exists within me, within God myself. Love is not the limitation; love is the flying. I am love.”

  As if in response to her declaration, the timer dinged and the little bird took off and flew out the window. Watching the jay in flight took on a whole new level of delight. Mack turned back to Papa and just stared at her in wonder. She was so beautiful and astonishing, and even though he was feeling a little lost and even though The Great Sadness still attended him, he felt himself settling down somewhat into the safety of being close to her.

  “You do understand,” she continued, “that unless I had an object to love—or, more accurately, a someone to love—if I did not have such a relationship within myself, then I would not be capable of love at all? You would have a god who could not love. Or maybe worse, you would have a god who, when he chose, could love only as a limitation of his nature. That kind of god could possibly act without love, and that would be a disaster. And that is surely not me.”

  With that, Papa stood up, went to the oven door, pulled out the freshly baked pie, set it on the counter, and, turning around as if to present herself, said, “The God who is—the I am who I am—cannot act apart from love!”

  Mack knew that what he was hearing, as hard as it was to understand, was something amazing and incredible. It was as if her words were wrapping themselves around him, embracing him and speaking to him in ways beyond just what he could hear. Not that he actually believed any of it. If only it were true. His experience told him otherwise.

  “This weekend is about relationship and love. Now, I know you have a lot you want to talk to me about, but right now you’d better go wash up. The other two are on their way in for supper.” She began to walk away but paused and turned back.