Quotes from the Shack

·           I often find that getting head issues out of the way first makes the heart stuff easier to work on later…when your ready. (pg 93, The Shack)

·           ­       Just because I know you’re too curious to go, does that reduce your freedom to leave? (pg 94, The Shack)

·           ­       Only I (love) can set you free, Mackenzie, but freedom can never be forced….I don’t understand?...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 understand that Freedom is an incremental process. (pg 95, The Shack)

·           ­       When all you see is pain, perhaps then you loose sight of me (love). (pg 96, The Shack)

·           ­       Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around…. You, on the other hand, were created to be loved. So for you to live as if you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around. Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wings and removing its ability to fly. If left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place. (pg 97, The Shack)

·           ­       The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and then call that god. (pg 97, The Shack)

·           ­       Remember that choosing to stay on the ground is a choice to facilitate a relationship; to honor it. Mackenzie, you do this yourself. You don’t play a game or color a picture with a child to show that your superiority. Rather, you choose to limit yourself so as to facilitate and honor that relationship. You will even lose a competition to accomplish love. It is not about winning and losing, but about love and respect……… We have limited ourselves out of respect for you, we are not bringing to mind, as it were, our knowledge of your children. As we are listening to you , it is as if this is the first time we have known about them, and we take great delight in seeing them through your eyes.( love sometimes means forgetting what you know to see the world thorough the recipient of your loves eyes and getting exited about the interaction) (pg 106, The Shack)

·           ­       Relationships are never about power. And one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit one-self – to serve… give. (pg 106, The Shack)

·           ­       It is quite simple really. Being always transcends appearance – that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simply know longer matter. (pg 112, The Shack)

·           ­       As odd as it sounds, Mack learned to fly inside of his dreams to fly like this; to lift off the ground supported by nothing – no wings, no aircraft of any sort, just himself. Beginning flights more accurately, a dread of falling. Stretching his flights to a foot or to and eventually higher increased his confidence, as did his discovery that cracking wasn’t painful at all but only a slow motion bounce. In time, he learned to ascend into the clouds cover vast distances, and land gently. (pg 116, The Shack)

·           ­       Sadness is a wall between two gardens – Kahlil Gibran (chapter 4 quote)

·           ­       I’m not asking you to believe anything, but I will tell you that you’re going to find this day a lot easier if you simply accept what is, instead of trying to fit it into your preconceived notions – God (pg 119, The Shack)

·           ­       “I am not who you think I am, Mackenzie. I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you form the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.” – God (pg 120, The Shack)

·           ­       Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same. (pg 122, The Shack)

·           ­       “Mac, we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command or ‘great chain of being’ as your ancestors termed it. What you’re seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don’t need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us. Actually, this is your problem, not ours.” – God (pg 122, The Shack)

·           ­       Once you have a hierarchy you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or a system of order that destroys relationship rather that promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart form power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you. (pg 123, The Shack)

·           ­       Don’t confuse adaptation for intention, or seduction for reality…..So then we have been seduced into this preoccupation with authority? (pg 123, The Shack)

·           ­       When you chose independence over relationship. You [become] a danger to each other. Others become objects to be manipulated or managed for our own happiness. Authority. As you usually think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want. (pg 123, The Shack)

·           ­       In your world [points system] the values of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system, whether political, economic, social, or religious – any system actually. First one person, and then a few, and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of that system. In one form or another, this lies behind every struggle for power, every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The ‘will to power and independence’ has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal… It is the human paradigm… It is like water to fish, so prevalent that is goes unseen and unquestioned. It is the matrix; a diabolical scheme in which you are hopelessly trapped even while completely unaware of its existence… If you had truly learned to regard each other’s concerns as significant as your own. There would be no need for hierarchy. (pg 124, The Shack)

·           ­       Whenever we protect ourselves with power… you are yielding to the matrix not us [love, truth, etc] (pg 124, The Shack)

·           ­       Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown. – Unknown (Chapter 8 quote)

·           ­       Broken humans center their lives around things that seem good to them but that will neither fill them nor free them. They are addicted to power, or the illusion of security that power offers. When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted. In their disappointment, they either become softened toward [love, truth, etc] or they become bolder in their independence. [if they could only see the truth] (pg 125, The Shack)

·           ­       [We] try to make sense of the world in which we live based on a very small and incomplete picture of reality. It is like looking at a parade through the tiny knothole of hurt, pain, self-centeredness, and power, and believing you are on your own and insignificant. All of these contain powerful lies. You see pain and death as ultimate evils and God [love] as the ultimate betrayer, or perhaps, at best, as fundamentally untrustworthy….The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think that I [love] was good. If you know that I [love] was good and that everything – the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives – is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me [love]. (pg 126, The Shack)

·           ­       You cannot produce trust just like you cannot ‘do’ humility. It either is or is not/ trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me. (pg 126, The Shack)

·           ­       For now I just want you to be with me and discover that our relationship is not about performance or you having to please me. I’m not a bully. Not some self centered demanding little deity insisting on my own way. I am good, and I desire only what is best for you. You cannot find that through guilt or condemnation or coercion, only through a relationship of love. And I do love you. (pg 127, The Shack)

·           ­       We are not justifying it. We are redeeming it. (pg 127, The Shack)

·           ­       A fractal…something considered simple and orderly that is actually composed of repeated patterns no matter how magnified. A fractal is almost infinitely complex. (pg 129, The Shack)

·           ­       As they walked. The growling in his stomach slowly began to subside. And he relaxed what he hadn’t realized he had been clenching. (pg 123, The Shack) (pg 129, The Shack)

·           ­       It is not the work but the purpose that makes it special. (pg 131, The Shack)

·           ­       A created being can only take what already exists and from it fashion something different. (pg 131, The Shack)

·           ­       For any created being, autonomy is lunacy. Freedom involves trust and obedience inside a relationship of love. (pg 132, The Shack)

·           ­       Many of these so-called bad plants, like this one, contain incredible properties for healing or are necessary for some of the most magnificent wonders when combined with something else. Humans have a great capacity for declaring something good or evil .without truly knowing. (pg 133, The Shack)

·           ­       When something happens to you, how do you determine whether it is good or evil?... Something is good when I like it – when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of security. Conversely. Id call something evil that causes me pain or costs me something I want…. So it is pretty subjective then…I guess it is. (pg 134, The Shack)

·           ­       Then it is you who determines good and evil. You become the judge. 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 arguments ensue and even wars break out. (pg 13, The Shack)

·           ­       And if there is no reality of good that is absolute, then you have lost any basis for judging. It is just language, and one might as well exchange the world good for the world evil…. I can see now that I spend most of my time and energy trying to acquire what I have determined to be good, whether it’s financial security or health or retirement or whatever. And I spend a huge amount of energy and worry fearing what I’ve determined to be evil… It allows you to play god in your independence. That’s why a part of you prefers not to see me. And you don’t need me at all to create you list of good and evil. But you do need love if you have any desire to stop such an insane lust for independence … You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me. To do that you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness…Evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good. Just as we sue the word darkness to describe the absences of light or death to describe the absence of Live. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to light and god; they do not have any actual existence. 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 form me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart form me, you can only dray upon yourself. That is death because you have separated yourself from me: life. (pg 136, The Shack)

·           ­        But I don’t have the right to… Complete a sentence without being interrupted? No, you don’t. Not in reality. But as long as you think you do, you will surly get ticked off when someone cuts you off, even if it is God. (pg 137, The Shack)

·           ­       And well you should, Mackenzie, because this garden is your soul. This mess is you! Together you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart. And it is wild and beautiful and perfectly in process. To you it seems like a mess, but to, me I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive – a living fractal. (pg 138, The Shack)

·           ­       You imagine. Such a powerful ability, the imagination! That power alone makes you so like us. But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel task master. IF I may prove my case, do you think humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future...Present… Where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination, in the present, in the past, or in the future? (pg 141, The Shack)

·           ­       It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can’t. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn’t even real, nor will it ever be real, you try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make planes and contingencies to avoid what you fear. (pg 143, The Shack)

·           ­       To force my will on you, is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy. (pg 145, The Shack)

·           ­       Exactly! When I am your life, submission is the most natural expression of my character and nature, and it will be the most natural expression of your new nature within relationships. (pg 146, The Shack)

·           ­       The woman’s desire – and the word is actually her ‘turning’. So the woman’s turning was not to the works of her hands but to the man, and his response was to rule “over” her, to take power over her, to become the ruler. Before the choosing, she found her identity, her security, and her understanding of good and evil only in me as she did man… By re-turning. By turning back to me, By giving up your ways of power and manipulation and just come back to me, women , en general, will find it difficult to turn from a man and stop demanding that he meets their needs, provides security, and protects their identity, and return to me. Men in general, find it very hard to turn form the works of their hands, their won quests for power and security and significance, and return to me… Women turned from us to another relationship, while men turned to themselves and the ground. The world, in many ways, would be a much calmer and gentler place if women ruled. There would have been far fewer children sacrificed to the gods of greed and power….Then they would have fulfilled that role better…. Better, maybe, but it still wouldn’t have been enough. Power in the hands of independent humans, be they men or women, does corrupt. Mack, don’t you see how filling roles is the opposite of relationship? []… remember, I am not about performance and fitting into man-made structures; I am about being. As you grow in relationship with me, what you do will simply reflect who you really are.  (pg 147-148, The Shack)

·           ­       In some sense every parent dose love their children… but some parents are too broken to love them well and others are barely able to love them at all, you should understand that. (pg 154, The Shack)

·           ­       So many believe that it is love that grows, but is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing. (pg 155, The Shack)

·           ­       Judging requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge. (pg 159, The Shack)

·           ­       Normal is a myth. (pg 170, The Shack)

·           ­       The darkness hides the true size of fears and lies and regrets… The truth is they are more shadow than reality, so they seem bigger in the dark. When the light shines into the places they live inside you, you start to see them for what they are. (pg 174, The Shack)

·           ­       You have to take the time to prepare the soil if you want it to embrace the seed. (pg 176, The Shack)

·           ­       As well intentioned as it might be, you know that religious machinery can chew up people… An awful lot of what is done in my name has nothing to do with me and is often, even if unintentional, very contrary to my purposes…. I don’t create institutions – never have never will…. What about marriage? Marriage is not an institution. It’s a relationship. Like I said, I don’t create institutions; that’s an occupation for those who want to play God. So no, I’m not very fond of politics or economics either. And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about. What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human faces that is not related to one of those three…. Put simply, these terrors are tools that many use to prop up their illusions of security and control. People are afraid of uncertainty, afraid of the future. These institutions, these structures and ideologies, are all a vain effort to create some sense of certainty and security where there isn’t any. It’s false. Systems cannot provide you security, only [love] can. (pg 179, The Shack)

·           ­       “It’s simple, Mack. It’s all about relationships and simply sharing life. What we are doing right now – just doing this – and being open and available to others around us. My church is all about people and life is all about relationships. You can’t build it. It’s my job and I’m actually pretty good at it,” God said with a chuckle. …..Mack then thought it seemed too simple. (pg 178, The Shack)

·           ­       It’s extremely hard to rescues someone unless they are willing to trust you…That’s all I ask of you. When you start to sink, let me rescues you….Let me show you. Just keep giving me the little bit you have, and together we’ll watch it grow. (pg 180, The Shack)

·           ­       All I want form you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It’s not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without agenda. (pg 181, The Shack)

·           ­       Mack, the world system is what it is. Institutions, systems, ideologies, and all the vain, futile efforts of humanity that go with them are everywhere and interaction with all of it is unavoidable. But I can give you freedom to overcome any system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social, or political. You will grow in the freedom to be inside or outside all kinds of systems and to move freely between and among them. Together, you and I can be in it and not of it…Remember, the people who know me are the ones who are free to live and love without any agenda. (pg 181, The Shack)

·           ­       Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you. (pg 182, The Shack)

·           ­       Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being. (Chapter 13 quote, The Shack)

·           ­       Lies are one of the easiest places for survivors to run. It gives you a sense of safety, a place where you only have to depend on yourself. But it’s a dark place, isn’t it? (pg 187, The Shack)

·           ­       Lies are a little fortress; inside them you can feel safe and powerful. Through your little fortress of like you try to run your life and manipulate others. But the fortress needs walls. So you build some. These are the justifications for you lies. You know, like you are doing this to protect someone you love, to keep them form feeling pain. Whatever works, just so you feel okay about the lies. (pg 187, The Shack)

·           ­       Faith does not grow in the house of certainty. (pg 189, The Shack)

·           ­       People are tenacious when it comes to the treasure of their imaginary independence. They hoard and hold their sickness with a firm grip. They find their identity and worth in their brokenness and guard it with every ounce of strength they have. No wonder grace has such little attraction. In that sense you have tried to lock the door of your heart form the inside…. There are many folk like you, Mackenzie, who end up locking themselves into a very small place with a monster that will ultimately betray them, that will not fill or deliver what they thought it would. Imprisoned with such a terror, they once again have the opportunity to return to me (love). The very treasure the trusted will become their undoing. (pg 189, The Shack)

·           ­       But, if I understand what you’re saying, the consequences of our selfishness are part of the process that brings us to the end of our delusions, and helps us find you. That is why you don’t stop every evil? (pg 190, The Shack)

·           ­       God is a verb. (Chapter 14 quote, The Shack)

·           ­       Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception – what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of you paradigms – what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn’t make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. (pg 197, The Shack)

·           ­       Responsibilities and expectations are the bases of guilt and shame and judgment, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value. (pg 206, The Shack)

·           ­       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 no r trust me… and to that degree you will life in fear. (pg 206, The Shack)