Thoughts to ponder from The Shack before I abandon it entirely

p. 95

Papa “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”

p. 124

Jesus picked up the conversation. “As the crowning glory of Creation, you were made in our image, unencumbered by structure and free to simply ‘be’ in relationship with me and one another. If you had truly learned to regard each other’s concerns as significant as your own, there would be no need for hierarchy.”

….

Sarayu “We have come full circle, back to one of my initial statements: You humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that relationship could exist apart from hierarchy. So you think that God must relate inside a hierarchy like you do. But we do not.”

Papa “we want to share with you the love and joy and freedom and light that we already know within ourself. We created you, the human, to be in face-to-face relationship with us, to join our circle of love. As difficult as it will be for you to understand, everything that has taken place is occurring exactly according to this purpose, without violating choice or will.”

p.125

Papa “There are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather than to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can only be understood within each person’s story. I am not evil. You are the ones who embrace fear and pain and power and rights so steadily in your relationships. But your choices are not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome.

p. 126

like trying to look at a parade through a knothole; flaw= you don’t trust that I am good

p.134-5

About people who think the Garden of Eden is a myth: “Their mistake isn’t fatal. Rumors of glory are often hidden inside of what many consider myths and tales.”

Mack “I guess I would say that something is good when I like it- when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of security. Conversely, I’d call something evil that causes me pain or costs me something that I want.”

“So it’s pretty subjective then.”

“I guess it is.”

“And how confident are you in your ability to discern what indeed is good for you, or what is evil?”

“To be honest,” Mack said, “ […] I’m not really sure I have any logical ground for deciding what is actually good or evil, except how something or someone affects me […] All seems quite self-serving and self-centered, I suppose. And my track record isn’t very encouraging either. Some things I initially thought were good turned out to be horribly destructive, and some things that I thought were evil, well, they turned out…”

He hesitated before finishing his thought, but Sarayu interrupted. “Then it is you who determines good and evil. And to make things more confusing, that which you determine to be good will change over time and circumstance. And then beyond that and even worse, there are billions of you each determining what is good and what is evil. So when your good and evil clashes with your neighbor’s, fights and ensue and even wars break out… And if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost all basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for evil.”

p. 136

“I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me.. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life… [It could mean] that in one instance, the good may be the presence of cancer or the loss of income- or even a life.”