The Shack & Laminin

My newly formed book club that I love just finished the Shack. We met for pizza at Campisi's in Southlake Town Square. The food was soooo yummy and I had the best time sipping wine and talking about our book.

A borrowed synopsis of the book:

William Young wrote The Shack for his children and did not actually intend to publish it. Two of his friends, Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, read the novel and were so moved by it that they started a company to publish the book. It has steadily increased in popularity and has peaked as high as #5 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

At the beginning of the novel we meet a man named Mackenzie Phillips (Mack), a man with a disturbing and sad past. After running away from an abusive father and living a wandering, solitary life, he is now married with three wonderful kids. His life is stable, happy, and fulfilled. The problems that haunted his past are distant memories. Then one day on a camping trip with his children the unthinkable happens: his youngest daughter, Missy, is kidnapped and later found murdered. The ensuing months surpass any pain Mack has felt before. He is plagued with guilt and self-blame. He slowly begins to rebuild the life he had with his family before Missy died, but he is a shell of the man he once was. Through his mourning he becomes acutely aware of the lack of faith he has in God. His wife, he freely admits, has faith that he envies, but his relationship with God has never been like hers. She calls God “Papa”; he cannot imagine feeling that intimate with God.

One day he receives a postcard from God inviting him to meet him at a shack in the woods, the very place his daughter was killed years before, and Mack accepts. The rest of the novel is the record of Mack’s conversation with God at the shack. God does not fit the conceptions Mack has held in his mind for so long. He is surprised, refreshed, and the wounds and doubts, which he calls The Great Sadness, that have plagued him since Missy’s murder are healed and so is his relationship with God.

Just a few of the topics we discussed:

• The authority of the Trinity. In the book, the fictional characters of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit explain to Mack that they are all equal. They tell Mack that there is no hierarchy to the Trinity, no one person submits to another, they all exist in perfect love for one another. We know that they are all one, so it would make sense they are all equal since God is one person. However in the biblical picture, love and submission are not exclusive, but simultaneously upheld in both the Trinity and human relationships. Consider Jesus’ prayer to his Father in the Garden, “Not my will, but yours be done (Luke 22:42)” and elsewhere, “the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19).” Likewise speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, “He will glorify me…” (John 16:14). Those are clear statements of voluntary submission within the context of a loving relationship, so this was interesting and fascinating to me to discuss.

• Mack feels his daughter's murder is unforgivable. Through his conversations with God, Mack learns this is something he must do. What things would we consider unforgivable? How can we judge what is unforgivable when God forgives anything when we seek him for forgiveness?

• Did the fact that God was represented as a woman bother us? We unanimously decided no. We all said that it was strange at first, but it is a fictional story and God had to appear to Mack as a woman because of the failed relationship he had with his father. He had a hard time viewing God as a father because of the shortcomings of his own father.

• On page 134 Mack and Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) have a discussion about the things we consider to be good and evil. Through this conversation Mack begins to understand that his idea of what is good or bad is subjective, depending on whether it is good or bad to him personally, based on how it affects him. Sarayu explains that all things God can make good. This is very difficult concept for Mack to understand after losing his daughter to n unthinkable crime. Is this true in our own lives? Do we rely on God's goodness when bad things happen to us or people we love? And how subjective are we about what is bad or good...

• In Chapter 12, Jesus and Mack walk across the lake on the water. When they are ready to head back, Mack eager to return, begins to walk out into the lake. He looks to the far side and each step he takes he finds he is standing deeper in the water. He glances back at Jesus and knows he has nothing to worry about. With each following step he rises on the water until he is walking on the water. How many times in our lives do we plunge ahead with life choices or things we want to do of our own accord only to glance back to make sure Jesus is still there? Do we do everything with him in mind or do we sometimes act so eager that we try to do things on our own and only look back when we realize we are in trouble?

All in all, it was a great book for discussion and we had a lot of fun sharing our favorite parts of the book with one another. We all discussed there were things we didn't agree with and things we loved. But the most important thing is this; this book is a work of fiction. Only the Bible is the inherent word of God. So we enjoyed it for what it was; a story.

During our discussion, the topic of Laminin came up and well as fractals. They both have to do with God's awesome and amazing design and purpose being revealed in nature. Both are amazing.

This video about Laminin is INCREDIBLE! Check it out!