The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

by William Paul Young

The thing is, he usually makes uncomfortable sense in a world where most folks would rather just hear what they are used to hearing, which is often not much of anything.

Mack once told me that he used to speak his mind more freely in his younger years, but he admitted that most of such talk was a survival mechanism to cover his hurts; he often ended up spewing his pain on everyone around him. He says that he had a way of pointing out people’s faults and humiliating them while maintaining his own sense of false power and control. Not too endearing.

You don’t realize how smart Mack is unless you happen to eavesdrop on a dialogue he might be having with an expert. I’ve been there when suddenly the language being spoken hardly resembles English, and I find myself struggling to grasp the concepts spilling out like a tumbling river of gemstones. He can speak intelligently about most anything, and even though you sense he has strong convictions, he has a gentle way about him that lets you keep yours.

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships, so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

Mack likes to say that they all got their good looks from him, “’cause Nan still has hers.”

The last few years have been, how might I put this, remarkably peculiar. Mack has changed; he is now even more different and special than he used to be. In all the time I have known him he has been a rather gentle and kind soul, but since his stay in the hospital three years ago, he has been… well, even nicer. He’s become one of those rare people who are totally at home in their own skin. And I feel at home around him like I do with nobody else. When we go our separate ways it seems that I have just had the best conversation of my life, even though I usually have done most of the talking. And with respect to God, Mack is no longer just wide, he has gone way deep. But the dive cost him dearly.

You know that place: where there is just you alone—and maybe God, if you believe in him. Of course, God might be there even if you don’t believe in him. That would be just like him. He hasn’t been called the Grand Interferer for nothing.

Two roads diverged in the middle of my life, I heard a wise man say I took the road less traveled by And that’s made the difference every night and every day —Larry Norman (with apologies to Robert Frost)

There was a pause at the other end. “Actually, I don’t remember you askin’ a question. What’s wrong with you, Mack? Still smoking too much dope or do you just do that on Sunday mornings to make it through the church service?” At this she started to laugh, as if caught off guard by the brilliance of her own sense of humor.

chinook

We routinely disqualify testimony that would plead for extenuation. That is, we are so persuaded of the rightness of our judgment as to invalidate evidence that does not confirm us in it. Nothing that deserves to be called truth could ever be arrived at by such means. —Marilynne Robinson, The Death of Adam

There are times when you choose to believe something that would normally be considered absolutely irrational. It doesn’t mean that it is actually irrational, but it surely is not rational. Perhaps there is suprarationality: reason beyond the normal definitions of fact or data-based logic; something that makes sense only if you can see a bigger picture of reality. Maybe that is where faith fits in.

Jesus looked over at Papa, obviously trying with some difficulty to maintain the perception of a very serious exterior. “Does that make sense to you, Abba? Frankly, I haven’t a clue what this man is talking about.”