Unless you live under a rock, you’ve likely heard of The Shack by William P. Young. If you haven’t read it yourself, you’ve likely seen it on the shelves at Chapters or seen it listed on Amazon or The Globe’s bestsellers lists.
I read the book more than two years ago when it first came out. A very dear friend of mine told me about it. When I ordered it, a couple in Edmonton mailed it to me from their garage. That’s because it was self-published and no one, anywhere, actually carried it yet. Since then, the little self-published fable/novel/book has become a global phenomenon, as much for the controversy it’s elicited as for its message itself, it seems.
It’s funny to hear people talk about it because it’s an old friend of mine by now. I feel protective of it and even protective of the author now.
When I read the book, it messed with me. Every subsequent reading has messed with me a bit more. It is one of those subversive books that get in under your skin and your vocabulary, your prayers and your perceptions.
I then bought about ten more of them and just mailed them to friends.
But I don’t really care about the controversy. I’m rather over preachers yelling in general. Seems like some people enjoy pointing fingers and nit-picking all of their minute details of theology/doctrine like its an expedition but I am not one of them. I have seen bookstores with it shelved in the fiction section. I have seen bookstores with it shelved in the theology section. And others that refuse to sell it at all. Some call it dangerous. Others call it miraculous. Some claim it’s changed their life. And others warn the strangest things and tell people not to read it, preferring to censor the lives of others.
Personally, I loved it.
But even if I had had some qualms, they would have been put to rest by my personal encounters with Paul Young. And that’s what the story I wanted to tell today. He’s the most Jesus-y guy I’ve met in a long time. If all of those that point fingers and wring their hands and wail that he is the anti-Christ could spent just 20 minutes with him, like I had the privilege of doing, they’d see his heart.
And that man loves Jesus. He carries a peace about him. And the humility of the man speaks of a deep relationship and reliance on Papa (which is his tender name for God which I’ve adopted in my own prayer life. Somehow that word makes a big difference in HOW I pray. A whole other post, no doubt.).
He was doing book signing in Abbotsford, of all places, back in late 2007. I guess his sister and her family all live near there. (I lived in Abbotsford for a year and that is where the rest of my family lives – it’s about an hour away from Vancouver in the Fraser Valley).
Anyway, he was at the local bookstore so my Mum and I went to meet him and get an autograph. He ended up spending about 20 or 30 minutes with us. It wasn’t terribly busy but steady. So I certainly felt bad for those behind us but he didn’t seem to mind.
He’s rather short but so intelligent and kind. Really, he’s just like what you’d expect a guy that wrote a book like that to be like. Warm, generous, inclusive. We talked about our favourite parts of the book and why it mattered.
He was so funny, he was almost talking about the book like someone else wrote it. I commented on that and he said “Are you kidding? I feel like I had very little to do with this. Papa just brought me along for the ride!” And this was long before the bestseller lists.
He also opened up about how he wrote it for his kids and that it’s actually a combination of two stories. The part “in” the shack was loosely based on his own experiences over 11 years but the death of Missy and that storyline was actually related to the loss of his niece. And his sister that was there was “Missy’s” mother.
I told him how my friends (hi, secret girls!) and I were introduced to the book by Tez in Australia and that we were all giving it away now and it was changing our lives. He said he just thinks that’s the coolest thing. Because there was no marketing budget for it and yet it’s just going on.
I mentioned how much I loved the time with Jesus on the dock and even the dedication at the beginning to his kids.
We also talked about how Papa is represented as an African-American woman. He asked me if it was hard to imagine her that way but I honestly had to say it wasn’t hard. I have always had an easy time seeing God as both male and female, father and mother. So I embraced it easily and loved it actually.
We also talked about my name. It was kind of funny because we were there to meet him but he asked us all of the questions, seeming to really want to get to know us. He said he’d always loved the name Sarah because of the covenantal name change in Genesis. He mentioned that he’d heard once that since the “ha” or “ah” is the strongest syllable of Yahweh, it has always been indicative of the breath of the spirit, the Holy Spirit. So when God renamed Abram to AbrAHam and Sarai to SarAH, it was to show that they carried the breath of God. I almost started to cry in the store (no small feat).
He was just so warm and generous with his time. He also asked me to email him as my mum had mentioned I was a writer as well. He wanted to stop by and see my blog. I just shrugged it off like he was being nice but then when we were leaving the store, he came over again and said “Now don’t forget. Send me your stuff.” Very nice of him to remember, no?
He hugged us both at the end. He felt like a friend which was weird since we’d just met him.
Here’s what he wrote in my book:
Sarah: Breath of love and life and deepest longings! “If anything matters…everything maters!” – Paul
Now fast forward six more months. He’s back in Abbotsford. My mother had lost her book on a plane and so went to buy another one and waited in line for an hour to have him sign it again at the bookstore.
While in the line, she met and talked to a few other folks that were, themselves, total God-encounters. They read favourite paragraphs to each other and cried in the middle of the store, causing other people to come over and buy the book.
Anyway, it had been months since we met him that night. And he’s on a busy speaking schedule across the USA and Canada, even all over the world, so no doubt has met thousands of people.
But when my mum walked up to the table, his eyes lit up. He said, “Joan! It’s great to see you again! Is your daughter here too?” He TOTALLY REMEMBERED US! He even told her he liked her new haircut. They had another great chat before she left. We’re just so amazed by how humble and easy-going he is. He is also a real “Bible-guy” – you mention something and he has a reference and scripture right on the tip of his tongue, effortlessly weaving scripture into the conversation but without being weird about it.
Anyway, now it’s been another two years since those two meetings. And it’s still going on. The criticisms of him and his book continue. But after watching him again, recently, on The Hour with George Strombolopoulous (who is among the best in the biz, in my opinion), I was reminded of these meetings.
I should probably write a bit more about the book itself. Why I love it, why it matters, why it’s important, why it’s revolutionary. But I won’t.
I will say though that I read in a magazine recently that the biggest problem with the modern western church is literalism. And I think that’s the same problem with this book. People approach it literally and they miss the forest for the trees.
