The Shack (26 page)

Mack thought about that for a moment. “I guess so . . . Whatever . . . See? Mush.”

When the others stopped laughing, Mack continued. “You know how truly grateful I am for everything, but you’ve dumped a whole lot in my lap this weekend. What do I do when I get back? What do you expect of me now?”

Jesus and Papa both turned to Sarayu, who had a fork full of something halfway to her mouth. She slowly put it back down onto her plate and then answered Mack’s confused look.

“Mack,” she began, “you must forgive these two. Humans have a tendency to restructure language according to their independence and need to perform. So when I hear language abused in favor of rules over sharing life with us, it is difficult for me to remain silent.”

“As it must,” added Papa.

“So what exactly did I say?” asked Mack, now quite curious.

“Mack, go ahead and finish your bite. We can talk as you eat.”

Mack realized that he too had a fork halfway to his mouth. He gratefully took the bite as Sarayu began to speak. As she did, she seemed to lift off her chair and shimmer with a dance of subtle hues and shades and the room was faintly filling with an array of aromas, incense-like and heady.

“Let me answer that by asking you a question. Why do you think we came up with the Ten Commandments?”

Again Mack had his fork halfway to his mouth, but took the bite anyway while he thought of how to answer Sarayu.

“I suppose, at least I have been taught, that it’s a set of rules that you expected humans to obey in order to live righteously in your good graces.”

“If that were true, which it is not,” Sarayu countered, “then how many do you think lived righteously enough to enter our good graces?”

“Not very many, if people are like me,” Mack observed.

“Actually, only one succeeded—Jesus. He not only obeyed the letter of the law but fulfilled the spirit of it completely. But understand this, Mackenzie—to do that he had to rest fully and dependently upon me.”

“Then why did you give us those commandments?” asked Mack.

“Actually, we wanted you to give up trying to be righteous on your own. It was a mirror to reveal just how filthy your face gets when you live independently.”

“But as I’m sure you know there are many,” responded Mack, “who think they are made righteous by following the rules.”

“But can you clean your face with the same mirror that shows you how dirty you are? There is no mercy or grace in rules, not even for one mistake. That’s why Jesus fulfilled all of it for you—so that it no longer has jurisdiction over you. And the Law that once contained impossible demands—Thou Shall Not . . .—actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.”

She was on a roll now, her countenance billowing and moving. “But keep in mind that if you live your life alone and independently, the promise is empty. Jesus laid the demand of the law to rest; it no longer has any power to accuse or command. Jesus is both the promise and its fulfillment.”

“Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?” Mack had now completely stopped eating and was concentrating on the conversation.

“Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful.”

“You can’t be serious! You’re messing with me again,” moaned Mack.

“Child,” interrupted Papa, “you ain’t heard nuthin’ yet.”

“Mackenzie,” Sarayu continued, “those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control.”

“Is that why we like the law so much—to give us some control?” asked Mack.

“It is much worse than that,” resumed Sarayu. “It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainty out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.”

“Whoa!” Mack suddenly realized what Sarayu had said. “Are you telling me that responsibility and expectation are just another form of rules we are no longer under? Did I hear you right?”

“Yup,” Papa interjected again. “Now we’re in it—Sarayu, he is all yours!”

Mack ignored Papa, choosing instead to concentrate on Sarayu, which was no easy task.

Sarayu smiled at Papa and then back at Mack. She began to speak slowly and deliberately. “Mackenzie, I will take a verb over a noun anytime.”

She stopped and waited. Mack wasn’t at all sure about what he was supposed to understand by her cryptic remark and said the only thing that came to mind. “Huh?”

“I,” she opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, “I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active, and moving. I am a being verb.”

Mack still felt like he had a blank stare on his face. He understood the words she was saying, but it just wasn’t connecting yet.

“And as my very essence is a verb,” she continued, “I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules: something growing and alive dies. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but if the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless ‘I am,’ there are no verbs, and verbs are what makes the universe alive.”

“And,” Mack was still struggling, although a glimmer of light seemed to begin to shine into his mind. “And, this means what, exactly?”

Sarayu seemed unperturbed by his lack of understanding. “For something to move from death to life you must introduce something living and moving into the mix. To move from something that is only a noun to something dynamic and unpredictable, to something living and present tense, is to move from law to grace. May I give you a couple examples?”

“Please do,” assented Mack. “I’m all ears.”

Jesus chuckled and Mack scowled at him before turning back to Sarayu. The faintest shadow of a smile crossed her face as she resumed.

“Then let’s use your two words: responsibility and expectation. Before your words became nouns, they were first my words, nouns with movement and experience buried inside of them; the ability to respond and expectancy. My words are alive and dynamic—full of life and possibility; yours are dead, full of law and fear and judgment. That is why you won’t find the word responsibility in the Scriptures.”

“Oh boy,” Mack grimaced, beginning to see where this was going. “We sure seem to use it a lot.”

“Religion must use law to empower itself and control the people who they need in order to survive. I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful. Because I am your ability to respond, I have to be present in you. If I simply gave you a
responsibility,
I would not have to be with you at all. It would now be a task to perform, an obligation to be met, something to fail.”

“Oh boy, oh boy,” Mack said again, without much enthusiasm.

“Let’s use the example of friendship and how removing the element of life from a noun can drastically alter a relationship. Mack, if you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking. That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens if I change that ‘expectancy’ to an ‘expectation’—spoken or unspoken? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend.”

“Or,” noted Mack, “the responsibilities of a husband, or a father, or employee, or whatever. I get the picture. I would much rather live in expectancy.” “As I do,” mused Sarayu.

“But,” argued Mack, “if you didn’t have expectations and responsibilities, wouldn’t everything just fall apart?”

“Only if you are of the world, apart from me and under the law. Responsibilities and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. You know well what it is like not to live up to someone’s expectations.”

“Boy, do I!” Mack mumbled. “It’s not my idea of a good time.” He paused briefly, a new thought flashing through his mind. “Are you saying you have no expectations of me?”

Papa now spoke up. “Honey, I’ve never placed an expectation on you or anyone else. The idea behind expectations requires that someone does not know the future or outcome and is trying to control behavior to get the desired result. Humans try to control behavior largely through expectations. I know you and everything about you. Why would I have an expectation other than what I already know? That would be foolish. And beyond that, because I have no expectations, you never disappoint me.”

“What? You’ve never been disappointed in me?” Mack was trying hard to digest this.

“Never!” Papa stated emphatically. “What I do have is a constant and living expectancy in our relationship, and I give you an ability to respond to any situation and circumstance in which you find yourself. To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that degree you neither know me nor trust me.”

“And,” interjected Jesus, “to that degree you will live in fear.”

“But,” Mack wasn’t convinced. “But don’t you want us to set priorities? You know: God first, then whatever, followed by whatever?”

“The trouble with living by priorities,” Sarayu spoke, “is that it sees everything as a hierarchy, a pyramid, and you and I have already had that discussion. If you put God at the top, what does that really mean and how much is enough? How much time do you give me before you can go on about the rest of your day, the part that interests you so much more?”

Papa again interrupted. “You see, Mackenzie, I don’t just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day.”

Jesus now spoke again. “Mack, I don’t want to be first among a list of values; I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life—your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities-is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being.”

“And I,” concluded Sarayu, “I am the wind.” She smiled hugely and bowed.

There was silence while Mack collected himself. He had been gripping the edge of the table with both hands as if to hold on to something tangible in the face of such an onslaught of ideas and images.

“Well, enough of all this,” stated Papa, getting up from her chair. “Time for some fun! You all go ahead while I put away the stuff that’ll spoil. I’ll take care of the dishes later.”

“What about devotion?” asked Mack.

“Nothing is a ritual, Mack,” said Papa, picking up a few platters of food. “So tonight, we are doing something different. You are going to enjoy this!”

As Mack stood up and turned to follow Jesus to the back door, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around. Sarayu was standing close, looking at him intently.

“Mackenzie, if you would allow me, I would like to give you a gift for this evening. May I touch your eyes and heal them, just for tonight?”

Mack was surprised. “I see well enough, don’t I?”

“Actually,” Sarayu said apologetically, “you see very little even though for a human you see fairly well. But just for tonight, I would love you to see a bit of what we see.”

“Then by all means,” Mack agreed. “Please touch my eyes and more if you choose.”

As she reached her hands toward him, Mack closed his eyes and leaned forward. Her touch was like ice, unexpected and exhilarating. A delicious shiver went through him and he reached up to hold her hands to his face. There was nothing there, so he slowly began to open his eyes.

15

A F
ESTIVAL OF
F
RIENDS

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and

put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with

you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not

just live in a world but a world lives in you.

—Frederick Buechner,
Telling the Truth

W
hen Mack opened his eyes he had to immediately shield them from a blinding light that overwhelmed him. Then he heard something.

“You will find it very difficult to look at me directly,” spoke the voice of Sarayu, “or at Papa. But as your mind becomes accustomed to the changes, it will be easier.”

He was standing right where he had closed his eyes, but the shack was gone as well as the dock and shop. Instead he was outside, perched on the top of a small hill under a brilliant but moonless night sky. He could see that the stars were in motion, not hurriedly but smoothly and with precision, as if there were grand celestial conductors coordinating their movements.

Occasionally, as if on cue, comets and meteor showers would tumble through the starry ranks, adding variation to the flowing dance. Then Mack saw some of the stars grow and change color as if they were turning nova or white dwarf. It was as if time itself had become dynamic and volatile, adding to the seeming chaotic but precisely managed heavenly display.