The Shack (William P. Young) quotes

"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."

"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."

"Consider our little friend here," she began. "Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around." She paused to let Mack a about her statement. "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."

"But what about all the miracles? The healings? Raising people from the dead? Doesn't that prove that Jesus was God - you know, more than human?"
"No, it proves that Jesus is truly human."
"What?"
"Mackenzie, I can fly, but humans can't. Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it to the uttermost - the first to absolutely trust my live within him, the first to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence."

"Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image."

"Who wants to worship a God who can be fully comprehended, eh?"

"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."

"As he rounded the trees, he saw for the first time a magnificent garden and orchard somehow contained within a plot of land hardly larger than an acre. For whatever reason, Mack had expected a perfectly manicured and ordered English garden. This was not that!
It was chaos in color. His eyes tried unsuccessfully to find some order in this blatant disregard for certainty. Dazzling sprays of flowers were blasted through patches of randomly planted vegetables and herbs, vegetation the likes of which Mack had never seen. It was confusing, stunning and incredibly beautiful.
"From above it's a fractal." Sarayu said over her shoulder with an air of pleasure.
"A what?" asked Mack absentmindedly, his mind still trying to grapple with and control the pandemonium of sight and the movements of hues and shades. Every step he took changed whatever patterns he for an instant thought he had seen, and nothing was like it had been.
"A fractal... something considered simple and orderly that is actually composed of repeated patterns no matter how magnified. A fractal is almost infinitely complex. I love fractals, so I put them everywhere."
"Looks like a mess to me," muttered Mack under his breath.
Sarayu stopped and turned to Mack, her face glorious. "Mack! Thank you! What a wonderful compliment!" She looked around at the garden. "That is exactly what this is - a mess. But," she looked back at Mack and beamed, "it's still a fractal, too.""

""I can see now," confessed Mack, "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." Mack sighed deeply."

""Mackenzie, evil is a word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light of death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence.""

""Have you noticed that even though you call me Lord and King, I have never really acted in that capacity with you? I've never taken control of your choices or forced you to do anything, even when what you were about to do was destructive or hurtful to yourself and others.""

"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."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"Behind the desk sat a tall, beautiful, olive-skinned woman with chiseled Hispanic features, clothed in a darkly colored flowing robe. She sat as straight and regal as a high court judge. She was breathtakingly stunning.
"She is beauty.," he thought. "Everything that sensuality strives to be, but falls painfully short." In the dim light it was difficult to see where her face began, as her hair and robe framed and merged into her visage. Her eyes glinted and glistened as if they were portals into the vastness of the starry night sky, reflecting some unknown light source within her."

""You are wise in the ways of real love, Mackenzie. So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing.""

"Grace doesn't depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colours."

"Nobody knows what horrors I have saved the world from 'cuz people can't see what never happened."

"Love that is forced is no love at all."

"Honey, let me tell you one of the reasons that it makes no sense to you. It's because you have such a small view of what it means to be human. You and this Creation are incredible, whether you understand that or not. You are wonderful beyond imagination. Just because you make horrendous and destructive choices does not mean you deserve less respect for what you inherently are - the pinnacle of my Creation and the center of my affection."

"Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions."

"I see. And how is that working for you?"

""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 the fulfillment."
"Are you saying that 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.""

"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."

""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.""

""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.""

"Each relationship between two persons is absolutely unique. That is why you cannot love two people the same. It simply is not possible. You love each person differently because of who they are and the uniqueness that they draw out of you. And the more you know another, the richer the colors of that relationship."

"Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver," answered Papa, "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly."

"Just say it out loud. There is power in what my children declare."

"Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again."

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Writing tutorial

Ernest Hemingway: "Write drunk; edit sober"

Aristoteles

"We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions." - Aristoteles

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristoteles