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Description edit
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
The novel is set in the American Northwest. The main character is Mackenzie Philips, a father of five, called "Mack" by his family and friends.
Four years prior to the main events of the story, Mack takes his three youngest children on a camping trip to Multnomah Falls and Wallowa Lake...
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(warning: may contain spoilers)
People edit
- Mackenzie "Mack" Allen Philips: A man with a great sadness. And is usually daydreaming. Has lost his daughter to a serial killer and has to deal with that on his own, as he is afraid that talking about it will hurt his family even more. One day he receives a letter in the mail from Papa, whom his wife calls God. He ventures out to the shack to see what is going on, and spends a weekend with God, and two other forms of God as well. He looks in and discovers that in order for him to deal with this "Great Sadness", he must learn to let his daughter move on.
- Melissa "Missy" Anne Philips: Mack's daughter
- Sarayu: Holy Spirit, part of the Trinity
- Papa (aka Elousia): Father God, part of the Trinity
- Jesus: Son of God, part of the Trinity
- Sophia: Personification of Wisdom
- Kate Phillips: Mack's Daughter
- Nanette "Nan" Phillips: Mack's Wife
- Willie: Mack's Friend
- Josh Phillips: Mack's Son
- Emil Ducette: Friend of Mack during the eventful camping trip. From Colorado. Law Enforcement Agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement
- Tommy Dalton: Law enforcement officer that becomes a friend when Missy goes missing
- Sarah Madison: Jesse's wife and becomes a friend during that eventful camping trip. From Canada. Change Management Consultant.
- Jesse Madison: Sarah's husband and becomes Mack's friend during the eventful camping trip. Canadian. Human Resource Consultant.
- Vicki Ducette: Emil's wife. From Colorado. Housewife.
- Tony: Mailman
- Agent Samantha "Sam" Wikowsky: An FBI agent who is working to find Mack's daughter.
- Amber Ducette: Emil and Vicki's daughter. She and Josh have a long distance relationship.
Quotes edit
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“Esta história deve ser lida como se fosse uma oração, a melhor forma de oração, cheia de ternura, amor, transparência e surpresas. Se você tiver que escolher apenas um livro de ficção para ler este ano, leia A cabana.”
Michael W. Smith -
“Honestly, don't you enjoy punishing those who disappoint you?”
Mack -
“It seemed that direct communication with God was something exclusively for the ancients and uncivilized, while educated Westerners' access to God was mediated and controlled by the intelligentsia.”
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“It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.”
Papa -
“Nobody wanted God in a box, just in a book.”
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“Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.”
Papa -
“For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning.”
Papa -
“Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship.”
Papa -
“Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same.”
Papa -
“Remember this, humans are defined not by their limitations, but by intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image.”
Papa -
“Love is not the limitation; love is the flying.”
Papa -
“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 or death to describe the absence of life.”
Sarayu -
“A child is protected because she is loved, not because she has a right to be protected.”
Sarayu -
“Such a powerful ability, the imagination.”
Jesus -
“I am especially fond of you.”
God -
“I suppose that since most of our hurts come though relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in form the outside.”
Willie -
“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 no longer matter.”
Jesus -
“Mackenzie, 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 your're seeing here is relationship without any overlay of power. We don't need power over the other becuase we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us. Actually, this is your problem not ours.”
Sarayu -
“Humans are so lost and damaged that to you it is almost incomprehensible that people could work or live together without someone being in charge.”
Sarayu -
“It's one reason why experiencing true relationship is so difficult for you. Once you ahve 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 comand or a system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart from power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship that we intended for you.”
Jesus -
“When you choose independence over relationship, you become a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulatedor managed for your own happiness. Authority, as you usulaly think of it, is merely the excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want.”
Sarayu -
“You see, 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 trun against the false powers they trusted. In their disappointment, they eitehr become softened toward me or they become bolder in their independence. If you could only see how all this ends and what we will achieve wthout the violation of one human will - then you would understand. One day you will!”
Sarayu -
“You imagine. Such a powerful ability, the imagination! That power alone make syou so like us. But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel taskmaster. If I may prove my case, do you think humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future?”
Jesus -
“Not unlike most people. When I dwell with you, I do so in the present - I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”
Jesus -
“Because you don't believe. You don't know that we love you. The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good no know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it; you talk about it, but you don't know it.”
Jesus -
“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?”
Jesus -
“To force my will on you is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationship are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.”
Jesus -
“Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships fo love and respect.”
Jesus -
“Because we want you to join us in our circle of relationship. I don't want slaves to my will; I want brothers and sisters who will share life with me.”
Jesus -
“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? We want male and female to be counterparts, face-to-face equals, each unique and different, distinctive in gender but complementary, and each empowered uniquely by Sarayu from whom all true power and authority orginates. Remember, I am not about performance and fitting into man-made structure; I am about being. As you grown in relationship with me, what you do wil simply reflect who you really are.”
Jesus -
“Our desire was to create a being that had a fully equal and powerful counterpart, the make and the female. But your independence wit its quest for power and fulfillment actually destroys the relationship your heart longs for.”
Jesus -
“It's all part of the training of grace. If the universe contained only one human being, timing would be rather simple. But add just one more, and, well, you know the story. Each choice ripples out through time and relationships, bouncing off of other choices. And out of what seem to be a huge mess, Papa weaves a magnificant tapestry. Only Papa can work all this out, and she does it with grace.”
Jesus -
“Pearls, Mack. The only precious stone made by pain, suffering and - finally - death.”
Jesus -
“Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat.”
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“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.”
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“Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.”
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“The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themxselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness thay can perceive, which often isn't much, and then calling that God.”
"God"
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Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.”
Highlighted by 2406 Kindle customers -
Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself—to serve.
Highlighted by 2204 Kindle customers -
When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?”
Highlighted by 2113 Kindle customers -
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.”
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“To force my will on you,” Jesus replied, “is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.”
Highlighted by 1827 Kindle customers -
“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.”
Highlighted by 1802 Kindle customers -
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 your paradigms—what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn’t make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe. The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. But even then, you don’t want to trust them more than me.”
Highlighted by 1746 Kindle customers -
Submission is not about authority and it is not obedience; it is all about relationships of love and respect. In fact, we are submitted to you in the same way.”
Highlighted by 1468 Kindle customers -
“Mack, pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly.” She waited a moment, allowing her words to settle. “And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place.”
Highlighted by 1432 Kindle customers -
“A bird’s not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. 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.”
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Setting & Locations edit
The Shack
- Wallowa Lake in Oregon: Camp Ground
- Washington
- Portland
- Multnomah Falls
- Idaho
First Sentence edit
Who wouldn't be skeptical when a man claims to have spent an entire weekend with God, in a shack no less?
Table of Contents edit
Foreword
1. A Confluence of Paths
2. The Gathering Dark
3. The Tipping Point
4. The Great Sadness
5. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
6. A Piece of π
7. God on the Dock
8. A Breakfast of Champions
9. A Long Time Ago, In a Garden Far, Far Away
10. Wade in the Water
11. Here Come Da Judge
12. In the Belly of the Beasts
13. A Meeting of Hearts
14. Verbs and Other Freedoms
15. A Festival of Friends
16. A Morning of Sorrows
17. Choices of the Heart
18. Outbound Ripples
After Words
Themes & Symbolism edit
- Suffering: Pain (can be physical and/or emotional) that comes after a traumatic event in life.
- Death: The end of your physical life on earth, and the beginning of your spiritual life in heaven.
- Spirituality: Can refer to an ultimate or an alleged reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”
Series & Lists edit
This is book 77 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2010). (authoritative list)
Preceded by The Road, and followed by Emma.
This book is in New York Times Bestsellers (Current). (authoritative list)
This is book 78 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (June 2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and followed by Great Expectations.
This is book 79 of 195 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2011). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Love in the Time of Cholera, and followed by Great Expectations.
This is book 76 of 194 in Shelfari Most Popular (December 2010). (authoritative list)
Preceded by Night, and followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Authors & Contributors edit
- William P. Young (Author)
Other Contributors:
- Dave Aldrich (Cover Artist) - Cover Design & Page Layout
- Marisa Ghiglieri (Cover Artist) - Cover Design
- Bobby Downes (Cover Artist) - Cover Design
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Windblown Media
Country: United States of America
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9647292-3-0
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Windblown Media
Country: United States of America
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9647292-3-0
Page Count: 252
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PR9199.4.Y696 S53 2007b
- Dewey: 813/.6 22
Notes for Parents edit
Reading Level: Young AdultsThere's a tiny bit of mildly offensive language. The beginning of this book also deals with the abduction and murder of a young girl, though nothing graphic is even hinted at.
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Links to Supplemental Material edit
- The Shack Book.com: Missy Project; Shack News; Interactive; etc.
- Challies.com: A review of The Shack.
- William P. Young - Wikipedia
- The Shack - Wikipedia
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