The first time I thought I was going to puke in a BBC chapel service was about two weeks into my first semester. The speaker had apparently just read William P. Young’s book, “The Shack” and was borrowing the college’s daily soap box slot to share his thoughts. He apparently found the book deeply troubling and wanted his captive audience to know just how the book could send them to the fiery pits of theological misinterpretation and utterly destroy their relationship with God. A book that portrayed Jesus as a Jewish man who walked on water? The Holy Spirit looked like a female, Asian spirit who gardened in Mack’s heart? And God the Father as an African-American woman who loved cooking and laughing? Preposterous! Absurd! Young proposes a God that we can understand – this writer is turning God into an idol; burn that filthy trash immediately!
With the back of my throat on fire, I resisted the urge to get up and leave the assembly. I had read the piece of fiction that this man was horribly mistaking as theological premise not a month before school had started. When I read the book that summer my soul was on the mend and Jesus was my healer, as simple as that sounds. I was just beginning to accept the fact that he loves me the way I am and is calling me into Something. That may not sound like a big deal, but it was to me. I felt loved by God and it was huge for me.
While reading I decided to skip the more traumatic chapters about Mack’s little girl’s kidnapping because I was feeling everything very deeply and I didn’t feel like dealing with the mess my not-so-water-proof mascara would leave on my face. Or the heart ache. I didn’t want to feel all the hurt I anticipated for Mack. This was all in vain of course, because as soon as I was introduced to “Papa,” Young’s characterization of God the Father, my eyelashes began to stick together as that weird combination of cheap mascara and human tears slithered down my face. My heart felt full, though. Young was sharing his ideas of God’s love through a story, and I knew it was real too.
I took my time reading that book. I took time to appreciate the fact that another human had at some point in his life experienced the awesome, healing power of God and was using the talents that God gave him to share with the world.
And there I was, at a school where I expected to learn more about the love of God, and there was a man behind a glass pulpit using this opportunity to tear apart something that had meaning to me for the sake of “education.” I couldn’t deal with his hot words; I felt like he was trying to take that connection I had felt with God away from me, so I tried my best to tune him out.
After chapel I stood in my room and stared at “The Shack” on my bookshelf. I wondered if what the speaker had said was true. I asked my roommate if she had read the book. She had not, but she thought I was an awesome heretic for having a copy in our room. I began to ask around and could seem to find anyone who had actually read the darn book to compare notes with. Finally, I decided I must go to Carol’s office. She would know what to say.
Carol King is an extraordinary woman: she loves God, people, and books (and I’m not sure if that is the true order) more than any one I have ever met. We bonded one afternoon last summer talking about books, and I felt comfortable going to her office to talk about my triggered gag-reflex. Mrs. Carol King is the Dean of Women and has a cozy office in the Office of Student Development. I have never been in her office outside of my own volition, but I can’t imagine it is a place I should like to go after doing something stupid on campus. Anyway, her office is full of piles, piles of files, piles of pictures, but mostly, piles of books. All of her shelves are stuffed tight with books and the second I stepped over the thresh-hold I knew I had come to the right place.
I poured my angry, little heart out to Carol, who had actually read the book but had inconveniently for me, decided not to go to chapel this day so had only heard about the chapel from other people. As I vented I secretly hoped that since she knew the book and understood my perspective would help me get this wretched little man kicked off campus, or worse, she would call him into her office and give him a good stern talking to.
Instead Carol sympathized with me a little, very little, and told me that in this place of learning I should expect to hear from many different ends of the spectrum and should learn to accept all of the different kinds of people God has created. People, she explained, come from many different backgrounds and will have perspectives that I will disagree with, and I have to love them any way.
Love. I should have known it would all boil down to love. God’s love or my love for God’s creations, it doesn’t matter, love determines the way we react or respond and I had not responded lovingly to that man. Instead I spewed slander and wished bad, no horrible, things on him and his descendants, and that was wrong.
The next few days were rough as I forced myself to listen to him the rest of the week as I didn’t skip chapel. And there have been sermons since that have made me want to poke my eyes out, but I’ll know that I am loving more like God when I can listen and critically think about a sermon without destroying the speaking in my mind.
At the end of that week I opened my mail box to find an article, neatly stapled shut with my name written in red ink on one side. I pried the staple apart with my fingernails and read the note on the top, “Many people are struggling with this same topic.” The article was a brief look at the issues presented in “The Shack,” apparently I was not the only one who appreciated the book as a work of fiction and not as a theology text book and found it of value. Neither the note nor the article was signed, but I knew it was from Carol. And I knew she still loved me.
