The Shack

Jesus directs Mack to follow a pathway toward the cliffs near the waterfall, so he walks alone down the path, following even when it leads him through the rock face and into a dark tunnel beyond. There he finds a single chair and sits down before noticing the presence of a woman sitting at a desk nearby, beautiful and regal in her aspect. The woman talks about Mack’s children, noting that Mack loves his children as God does—being “especially fond” of each one. Mack, however, is bothered by the comparison, and when prodded he objects with anger, implying that what happened to Missy shows that God does not love all his children well. The woman tells Mack that they are there not only to discuss Mack’s children, but for Mack to sit in judgment over others. He says he can’t do it, but she insists, pointing out that he often does sit in judgment over others, as in the case of his feelings toward Missy’s murderer. The conversation escalates to the point where Mack accuses God of being to blame for the whole thing. Finally, the woman presents him with the judgment he must pronounce: “You must choose two of your children to spend eternity in God’s new heavens and new earth, but only two. […] And you must choose three of your children to spend eternity in hell” (161-62). Mack realizes that he cannot sit in judgment the way that he imagined God should be able to, and he protests that he would rather give himself up to death and eternal damnation than choose between his children. The woman answers, “Now you sound like Jesus. You have judged well, Mackenzie. I am so proud of you!” (163).

In the chapter’s final scene, the woman brings Mack to the back of the waterfall, where he can see into what appears to be a heavenly world in which his children are all playing together. The four living children are only there in their dreams, but Missy is actually there, and she runs over to the waterfall and communicates to Mack that she’s okay and that she loves him. Then a voice calls her back to the group of children, and she returns to find Jesus there, leaping into his embrace. This vision, says the woman, is what judgment is all about: not punishment or destruction, but setting everything right again.

When Mack reemerges, he finds Jesus again and they discuss what happened. Jesus identifies the woman in the judgment scene as Sophia, a personification of God’s wisdom (not another person of the Trinity, but part of the mystery of Sarayu’s being). Jesus also confirms that he was there with Mack’s children in the vision; even more, he was with Missy during her kidnapping and murder. They walk back across the lake together, and Mack asks if his vision of Missy was a glimpse of heaven because it didn’t look like the golden streets he learned about. Jesus replies that traditional images of heaven are symbolic portrayals of the beauty of his bride, the church, united to him in eternity. Though the church might not look beautiful from a human point of view, Jesus explains that it is not the institutions that constitute his bride but the relationships of all people with him and with one another. He then broadens the point:

Institutions, systems, ideologies, and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere, and interaction with all of it is unavoidable. But I can give you freedom to overcome any system of power in which you find yourself […]. Together, you and I can be in it and not of it (181).

Mack walks back up to the cabin and has another talk with Papa. With the background of his experience with Sophia fresh in his mind, he is now able to talk to Papa about Missy and her death. He wants to make sure that Missy was not just a pawn in God’s plan to work transformation in Mack’s heart. She answers that she doesn’t work that way: “Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies” (185). In their discussion about how God works in Mack’s life, they touch on Mack’s decision to keep his trip to the shack a secret from Nan. Mack initially says he did it so Nan wouldn’t get hurt, but they both know this is a lie: His real reason was to protect himself from the emotions that come from being in a real relationship. Mack, says Papa, is afraid of emotions, both his own and others’.

With a conviction of his own guilt and unworthiness, Mack wonders if the fact that God is using this conviction to bring Mack back to faith explains why God allows evil in the world. Papa replies again that although she can do her work even in the midst of humanity’s sin and evil, sin is not part of her purpose: “My purposes are only and always an expression of love. I purpose to work life out of death, to bring freedom out of brokenness and turn darkness into light. What you see as chaos, I see as a fractal” (191). God allows evil in the world because it is the price of loving the creation enough to give it the ability to choose either sin or loving relationship, but it is not the evil of the world but Jesus who expresses God’s purposes.

Mack takes a canoe and paddles around the lake, but he is startled when Sarayu suddenly appears in the canoe with him. She says that she has always been there with him, which leads him to reflect on how to discern her presence even when he can’t see her. Some of his spiritual blindness, he realizes, is based on the fear of emotions that Papa identified in him. Sarayu explains that emotions are the soul’s colors but that most human emotions arise from their perceptions of how things ought to be, which in turn are shaped by paradigms of thought that people do not even fully recognize. To get to the root of what emotions mean, people need to discern both the perceptions that give rise to feelings as well as the underlying paradigms that make people expect things to be a certain way. Mack brings up the role of the Bible in human life as an example of a paradigm he used to think he could follow; however, following it as a list of rules has not worked out well for him. Sarayu explains that the Bible is not meant to be used as a list of rules but as an invitation to relationship with God.

Back at the cabin, Mack has a chat with Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu around the table. They continue the thread of reflections on the Bible, and the others tell Mack that far from rules for how to be righteous, the rule-based sections of scripture aim to show humans that they cannot possibly be righteous on their own and to encourage them to trust God’s love to make them righteous instead. Sarayu explains that while humans tend to conceive of their relationship with God in terms like “responsibility” and “expectations,” God’s relationship with people is built on verbs, not nouns—the actions of loving, growing, and becoming united with God. This active sense of being and relationship lies at the heart of God’s relationship with humans: “If I simply gave you a responsibility, I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met […]” (205). Papa backs up this point by saying that while humanity puts expectations upon itself and its own behavior, God never deals with humans in terms of expectations of how they will live. Instead, knowing already how they will choose to live, God comes alongside them and continually offers the chance to turn from their own ways and choose a relationship of love instead. At the end of the discussion, Sarayu offers to give Mackenzie a gift of seeing as they see, and she touches his eyes.