The Shack (12 page)

“Really?” said Mack, still shaking his head, and not sure if he really believed that. “So now what am I supposed to do?”

“You’re not
supposed
to do anything. You’re free to do whatever you like.” Jesus paused and then continued, trying to help by giving Mack a few suggestions. “I am working on a wood project in the shed; Sarayu is in the garden; or you could go fishing, canoeing, or go in and talk to Papa.”

“Well, I sort of feel obligated to go in and talk to him, uh, her.”

“Oh,” now Jesus was serious. “Don’t go because you feel obligated. That won’t get you any points around here. Go because it’s what you
want
to do.”

Mack thought for a moment and decided that going into the cabin actually was what he wanted to do. He thanked Jesus, who smiled, turned, and headed off to his workshop, and Mack stepped across the deck and up to the door. Again, he was alone, but after a quick look around, he carefully opened it. He stuck his head in, hesitated, and then decided to take the plunge.

“God?” he called, rather timidly and feeling more than a little foolish.

“I’m in the kitchen, Mackenzie. Just follow my voice.”

He walked in and scanned the room. Could this even be the same place? He shuddered at the whisper of lurking dark thoughts and again locked them out. Across the room a hallway disappeared at an angle. Glancing around the corner into the living room, his eyes searched out the spot near the fireplace, but there was no stain marring the wood surface. He noticed that the room was decorated tastefully, with art that looked like it had been either drawn or handcrafted by children. He wondered if this woman treasured each of these pieces, like any parent who loves her children would. Maybe that was how she valued anything that was given to her from the heart, the way children seemed to give so easily.

Mack followed her soft humming down a short hallway and into an open kitchen-dining area, complete with a small four-seat table and wicker-backed chairs. The inside of the cabin was roomier than he had expected. Papa was working on something with her back to him, flour flying as she swayed to the music of whatever she was listening to. The song obviously came to an end, marked by a couple of last shoulder and hip shakes. Turning to face him, she took off the earphones.

Suddenly Mack wanted to ask a thousand questions, or say a thousand things, some of them unspeakable and terrible. He was sure that his face betrayed the emotions he was battling to control, and then in a flash of a second he shoved everything back into his battered heart’s closet, locking the door on the way out. If she knew his inner conflict, she showed nothing by her expression—still open, full of life, and inviting.

He inquired, “May I ask what you’re listening to?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Sure.” Now Mack was curious.

“West Coast Juice. Group called Diatribe and an album that isn’t even out yet called
Heart Trips.
Actually,” she winked at Mack, “these kids haven’t even been born yet.”

“Right,” Mack responded, more than a little incredulous. “West Coast Juice, huh? It doesn’t sound very religious.”

“Oh, trust me, it’s not. More like Eurasian funk and blues with a message, and a great beat.” She sidestepped toward Mack as if she were doing a dance move and clapped. Mack stepped back.

“So God listens to funk?” Mack had never heard “funk” talked about in any properly righteous terms. “I thought you would be listening to George Beverly Shea or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—you know, something churchier.”

“Now see here, Mackenzie. You don’t have to be lookin’ out for me. I listen to everything—and not just to the music itself, but the hearts behind it. Don’t you remember your seminary classes? These kids ain’t saying anything I haven’t heard before; they’re just full of vinegar and fizz. Lots of anger and, I must say, with some good reason too. They’re just some of my kids, showin’ and spoutin’ off. I am especially fond of those boys, you know. Yup, I’ll be keeping my eye on ’em.”

Mack struggled to keep up with her, to make some sense of what was happening. None of his old seminary training was helping in the least. He was at a sudden loss for words and his million questions had all seemed to abandon him. So he stated the obvious.

“You must know,” he offered, “calling you Papa is a bit of a stretch for me.”

“Oh, really?” She looked at him in mock surprise. “Of course I know. I always know.” She chuckled. “But tell me, why do
you
think it’s hard for you? Is it because it’s too familiar for you, or maybe because I am showing myself as a woman, a mother, or . . .”

“No small issue there,” Mack interrupted with an awkward chuckle.

“Or, maybe it’s because of the failures of your
own
papa?”

Mack gasped involuntarily. He wasn’t used to having deep secrets surface so quickly and openly. Instantly guilt and anger welled up and he wanted to lash out with a sarcastic remark in response. Mack felt as if he were dangling over a bottomless chasm and was afraid if he let any of it out, he would lose control of everything. He sought for safe footing, but was only partially successful, finally answering through gritted teeth, “Maybe, it’s because I’ve never known
anyone
I could really call Papa.”

At that she put down the mixing bowl that had been cradled in her arm and, leaving the wooden spoon in it, she turned toward Mack with tender eyes. She didn’t have to say it; he knew she understood what was going on inside of him, and somehow he knew she cared about him more than anyone ever had. “If you let me, Mack, I’ll be the Papa you never had.”

The offer was at once inviting and at the same time repulsive. He had always wanted a Papa he could trust, but he wasn’t sure he’d find it here, especially if this one couldn’t even protect his Missy. A long silence hung between them. Mack was uncertain what to say, and she was in no hurry to let the moment pass easily.

“If you couldn’t take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?” There, he’d said it—the question that had tormented him every day of
The Great Sadness.
Mack felt his face flush angry red as he stared at what he now considered to be some odd characterization of God, and he realized his hands were knotted into fists.

“Mack, I’m so sorry.” Tears began to trail down her cheeks. “I know what a great gulf this has put between us. I know you don’t understand this yet, but I am especially fond of Missy, and you too.”

He loved the way she said Missy’s name and yet he hated it coming from her. It rolled off her tongue like the sweetest wine and even through all the fury still raging in his mind he somehow knew she meant it. He
wanted
to believe her and slowly some of his rage began to subside.

“That’s why you’re here, Mack,” she continued. “I want to heal the wound that has grown inside of you, and between us.”

To gain some control, he turned his eyes toward the floor. It was a full minute before he had enough to whisper without looking up. “I think I’d like that,” he admitted, “but I don’t see how . . .”

“Honey, there’s no easy answer that will take your pain away. Believe me, if I had one, I’d use it now. I have no magic wand to wave over you and make it all better. Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.”

Mack was glad they were stepping back from the edge of his ugly accusation. It had scared him how near he had come to being totally overwhelmed by it. “I think it’d be easier to have this conversation if you weren’t wearing a dress,” he suggested and attempted a smile, as weak as it was.

“If it were easier, then I wouldn’t be,” she said with a slight giggle. “I’m not trying to make this harder for either of us. But
this
is a good place to start. I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later . . . when you’re ready.”

She picked up the wooden spoon again, dripping with some sort of batter. “Mackenzie, I am neither male nor female, even though both genders are derived from my nature. If I choose to
appear
to you as a man or a woman, it’s because I love you. For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.”

She leaned forward as if to share a secret. “To reveal myself to you as a very large, white grandfather figure with flowing beard, like Gandalf, would simply reinforce your religious stereotypes, and this weekend is
not
about reinforcing your religious stereotypes.”

Mack almost laughed out loud and wanted to say, “You think? I’m over here barely believing that I’m not stark raving mad!” Instead, he focused on what she had just said and regained his composure. He believed, in his head at least, that God was a Spirit, neither male nor female, but in spite of that, he was embarrassed to admit to himself that all his visuals for God were very white and very male.

She stopped talking, but only long enough to put away some seasonings into a spice rack on a ledge by the window and then turned to face him again. She looked at Mack intently. “Hasn’t it always been a problem for you to embrace me as your father? And after what you’ve been through, you couldn’t very well handle a father right now, could you?”

He knew she was right, and he realized the kindness and compassion in what she was doing. Somehow, the way she had approached him had skirted his resistance to her love. It was strange, and painful, and maybe even a little bit wonderful.

“But then,” he paused, still focused on staying rational, “why is there such an emphasis on you being a Father? I mean, it seems to be the way you most reveal yourself.”

“Well,” responded Papa, turning away from him and bustling around the kitchen, “there are many reasons for that, and some of them go very deep. Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don’t misunderstand me, both are needed—but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absence.”

Mack turned away a bit bewildered, feeling he was already in over his head. As he reflected, he looked through the window at a wild looking garden.

“You knew I would come, didn’t you?” Mack finally spoke quietly.

“Of course I did.” She was busy again, her back to him.

“Then, was I free
not
to come? Did I not have a choice in the matter?”

Papa turned back to face him, now with flour and dough in her hands. “Good question—how deep would you like to go?” She didn’t wait for a response, knowing that Mack didn’t have one. Instead she asked, “Do you believe you are free to leave?”

“I suppose I am. Am I?”

“Of course you are! I’m not interested in prisoners. You’re free to walk out that door right now and go home to your empty house. Or, you could go down to The Grind and hang out with Willie. Just because I know you’re too curious to go, does that reduce your freedom to leave?”

She paused only briefly and then turned back to her task, talking to him over her shoulder. “Or, if you want to go just a wee bit deeper, we could talk about the nature of freedom itself. Does freedom mean that you are allowed to do whatever you want to do? Or we could talk about all the limiting influences in your life that actively work against your freedom. Your family genetic heritage, your specific DNA, your metabolic uniqueness, the quantum stuff that is going on at a subatomic level where only I am the always-present observer. Or the intrusion of your soul’s sickness that inhibits and binds you, or the social influences around you, or the habits that have created synaptic bonds and pathways in your brain. And then there’s advertising, propaganda, and paradigms. Inside that confluence of multifaceted inhibitors,” she sighed, “what is freedom really?”

Mack just stood there not knowing what to say.

“Only I can set you free, Mackenzie, but freedom can never be forced.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Mack. “I don’t even understand what you just told me.”

She turned back and smiled. “I know. I didn’t tell you so that you would understand right now. I told you for later. At this point, you don’t even comprehend that freedom is an incremental process.” Gently reaching out, she took Mack’s hands in hers, flour covered and all, and looking him straight in the eyes she continued, “Mackenzie, the Truth shall set you free and the Truth has a name; he’s over in the wood-shop 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.”

“How can you really know how I feel?” Mack asked, looking back into her eyes.

Papa didn’t answer, only looked down at their hands. His gaze followed hers and for the first time Mack noticed the scars in her wrists, like those he now assumed Jesus also had on his. She allowed him to tenderly touch the scars, outlines of a deep piercing, and he finally looked up again into her eyes. Tears were slowly making their way down her face, little pathways through the flour that dusted her cheeks.

“Don’t ever think that what my son chose to do didn’t cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark,” she stated softly and gently. “We were there
together.”

Mack was surprised. “At the cross? Now wait, I thought you
left
him—you know—’My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’“ It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in
The Great Sadness.

“You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what
he felt
at that moment, I never left him.”

“How can you say that? You abandoned him just like you abandoned me!”

“Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you.”

“That makes no sense to me,” he snapped.

“I know it doesn’t, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?”

When Mack did not respond, she turned back to her cooking so as to offer him a little needed space. She seemed to be preparing a number of dishes all at once, adding various spices and ingredients. Humming a haunting little tune, she put the finishing touches on the pie that she had been making and slid it into the oven.