All You Need is Love!

(AKA Em's long-awaited post on The Shack). I finally finished The Shack and I have to say...although the writing was quite painful at times, the content was not as distasteful as I'd feared. I'm actually impressed that anyone bothered to take the time to try to address the complexities of the holy trinity and what that might mean to people on a more personal level. And, I even quite liked the scene where Jesus takes Mac walking over the river with him. I'd never really thought about what it would actually feel like to do that, but after reading that part, I really wished that I could walk on water.

I have been talking to God in my head since I was a little kid, "Are you there God? It's me, Em." Having a personal relationship with God probably comes a little too easily to me, I'm sure there are times that he/she/it wishes I would just pipe down, already. I have to admit that Jesus and the holy spirit are a little harder for me. I'm not against them, obviously, it's just for some reason, my logical mind has a harder time accepting them and welcoming them in. So I could understand someone wanting to make them more accessible. Father Gaestel would probably pass out if he heard me say that, but there it is. The bigger issue to me about this book, though is that I think it misses the point about the nature of faith. Faith is a strange and wonderful thing to me, partly because it's so illogical and inexplicable. The author of The Shack almost got it right. He used the analogy of a flying dream for something else, entirely. But it occurred to me that that is exactly how I've always thought of faith. It's something that's there for you...it surrounds you at all times, but the more you try to grasp it or force it and make it into something concrete, the more it escapes you. That was my big problem with the book...it just felt like it was trying too hard to force something into lasting solidity that is only ever meant to be ephemeral.

Also, although the book wasn't nearly as preachy as I had feared, I don't think I could really recommend it to anyone. There's still a whiff of Christian pushiness to it, especially at the end when there are about 20 entries asking you to forward the book to other friends. I also, in general, am not a big fan of material about kids coming to harm. That's not really a complaint about the book, just a personal preference, but the central conceit of the book makes it hard for me to recommend it.

So...there you go, love. Those are my 2 cents on this subject. Again, Father Gaestel would probably pass out, but all in all, I think I like John Lennon's sentiment the best. Cheers!