A friend told me you get to decide who you invite to dine with you at the table: hope, despair, joy, fear, etc... Who have I been inviting? Whom would I prefer to dine with?
I read The Shack a few years ago and was shocked at how much I adored it. I couldn't find the exact quote I was looking for, but found this summary here. What I see as a mess, the Lord sees as a beautiful work in progress.
Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) shows Mack a messy, fractal garden. The garden is full of colors, herbs, flowers, plants. Mack describes it as a “chaos in color”…”confusing, stunning, and incredibly beautiful.” As they walk, Sarayu picks various herbs and plants and flowers, giving them to Mack and creating a bouquet.
She then gives Mack some garden tools and leads him to a secluded patch of absolute beauty—breathtaking. She asks for his help in clearing the patch because she wants to plant something else here instead. Stunned at her request to destroy something so beautiful, he joins her in clear-cutting the beautiful patch of garden. Their conversation turns to the topic of Good and Evil where Sarayu makes the comment, “You humans, so little in your own eyes. You are truly blind to your own place in the Creation. Having chosen the ravaged path of independenc, you don’t even comprehend that you are dragging the entire Creation along with you.” She also states that “humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil, without truly knowing.” She begins to question Mack about his ability to really know what is good for him or what is evil. He says a lot of it is based on how something or someone effects him…that somethings he thought were good turned out to be bad, and visa-versa. They continue to work and dialogue together.
Sarayu tells Mack that Evil is simply the absence of God, much like Darkness is simply the absence of Light, and Death, the absence of Life. That Evil and Darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good..that they do not actually have any existence. Light and Good actually exist. So by Mack removing himself from God plunges him into darkness. That is death because he has separated himself from God: Life.
The conversation turns towards Mack daughter, Missy, and he asks if she had the right to be protected. Sarayu says, “No Mack. A child is protected because she is loved, not because she has a right to be protected.” This floors Mack. She continues, “Rights are where survivors go, so they don’t have to work out relationships…” that “Jesus didn’t hold on to any rights; he willingly became a servant and lives out of his relationship with Papa. He gave up everything, so that by his dependent life he opened a door that would allow you to live free enough to give up your rights.”
Papa then arrives. Mack says how, though the garden is a mess, he somehow feels strangely comfortable in it. Papa and Sarayu smile at each other. Sarayu says, “And well you should, Mackenzie, because this garden is your soul—thismess is you! Together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart. And its wild and beautiful and perfectly in process. To you it seems messy, but to me, I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive—a living fractal.” Mack crumbled. He looked at his garden and it really was a mess, but incredible and wonderful at the same time.
The chapter ends with Mack walking up to the workshop to look for Jesus so they can go for a walk…
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