Some quick “Shack” thoughts
This is not the shack of which I am referring
First of all, if you’ve come looking for a “Mark Driscoll-like” stance on how theologically incorrect “The Shack” is, you can find another blog community to comment. If not, let’s go:
A few minutes ago I had a great conversation with Garret. I was explaining about a book I read recently called “The Shack” and we started up a conversation piece about some of the “shacks” in our lives. Those things that we hold inside and keep away from everyone else, but they make up who we become. I believe the frequent commentator (on this blog) Darren would called these things “opiates”.
So I started thinking about the opiates in my life – the Shacks if you will. What things have shaped me and possibly even changed the direction (in regards to inside, rather than circumstances) of who I’ve become?
What are the insecurities, the abuses, and the character flaws I’ve worked on or kept hidden deep inside?I’m thinking about this today, and possibly I’ll comment on my own blog some answers.
Who knows what we’ll find living in “the Shack?”
Also, if you’ve read it, what were your thoughts?
Related posts:
Weirdly enough I do actually think about these things quite a bit. If you were to ask Rachel she would tell you that with her I call them ‘stones in our souls’. The hard parts that we don’t let anything reach. The more or less unbalanced parts of our lives that when they get touched we act unreasonably or reactively. I’m about to do something terrible, but if you go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu-8wGbWMro I think that this song does a better job describing it than anything (though this song is specifically about cultural forces) (if you didn’t catch it the terrible thing I did was post a youtube link into a conversation about spirituality).
“What things have shaped me and possibly even changed the direction (in regards to inside, rather than circumstances) of who I’ve become?”
This is really what it is all about. Forces come into our lives, but we are ultimatly the ones responsible for what it makes of us. Will I react, be impulsive and let the force control me, or will I overcome. For all the making fun of Marty I do (and rightly so) I mean the jist of what he usually says is right at least in my experience: perspective is such a powerful thing the only way through is to focus on God. No one can see all the forces in their lives, and decide who they want to become and carefully plan their journey through the jungle that will inevitably lead them there, balancing everything inside them and outside of them.
I mean whatever Marty says about how amazing of a person he is, a couple of his ‘stones’ are definitely going to PCC, growing up in his dad’s church, being a member of New England pastors associations and reading Tipping Point (who the @#%@ reads that book!) I’m sure he has alot he knows about and no one else does. Just like we all do.
In my life anyways their are many forces. And I do a shitty job of controlling them, I currently have many stones in my soul. Ayn Rand. RAchel. Christianity. Athiesm. WoW. I wish I didn’t have to be a person that has to think about this stuff, or at least had a continuous world view, but right now I don’t so if you touch on any of those subjects I’m likely to blow up all over you.
The relationships we’ve had in the past do a great amount to control us. We’ve seen something once and it was so powerful it has changed the way we act now. If I could be anything, it would be to not be that person, to act in every situation like I don’t have scars and wounds and baggage. But I turned my back on God and am searching for a seperate peace, so probably not going to happen.
Is this what you were talking about Marty? I would hate to think I picked up on the wrong idea or misunderstood what you were getting at?
Hey Darren-
Thanks for your transparency and authenticity in this comment. It’s so important that we are all real with each other. I spent a couple days thinking about your comments and wanted to toss out a couple responses:
#1) My best guess is that we only know from the inside whether or not a thing is a stone. Because when we’ve gotten through our stuff, it seems to me that it actually makes us better, stronger, healthier. Your suggestions about what counts as stones for Marty might be dead-on. Then again, maybe not.
#2) As for Ayn Rand, there is no way of course that we can do justice to that topic. But I wanted to share my own personal experiences with her influence.
I took an intro philosophy course from one of the currently living big shots of her legacy. The dude was quite well known and very passionate about what he was doing. His intentions were good. His passion was contagious. Though I was not a Christian then, I found the whole thing a bit unconvincing. Many of the other students bought it, hook, line, and sinker. They formed this supportive little community, met outside of class, tried to spread the word. It was a little bit amusing. They didn’t end up acting all that different from the Christian Campus groups.
There’s all sorts of specific disagreements that we could quibble over about her metaphysical or ethical systems. But here is the most fundamental problem I have:
They couldn’t explain why they were nice.
I did not find them to be any more or less kind than a random sampling of other college students. And there were times when it was in their best interest to be nice. (Times when the person would be likely to pay them back, for example.) I kind of enjoyed teasing them a little bit. Because they were just as likely to engage in altruism as the next person. But altruism was this hypocrisy for them. And they engaged in such silly mental gymnastics to justify these acts.
This is not to say that there isn’t some community out there actually living out “Rational Egoism” or whatever it was they called it. But they really had a pretty good test case: a leader who new what he was doing, a somewhat self-contained community isolated from family’s who might “pollute” members with “evil” ideas like altruism. And this community really couldn’t live those ideas out. It strikes me as ironically similiar to socialism in that it all looks good on paper but it just doesn’t work in reality.
My other thought is a response to the idea “The relationships we’ve had in the past do a great amount to control us. We’ve seen something once and it was so powerful it has changed the way we act now. If I could be anything, it would be to not be that person, to act in every situation like I don’t have scars and wounds and baggage” It seems to me that this is a sword that cuts both ways. Personally, I am so very thankful that my past relationships influence my future actions. Of course, this goes bad when we learn the wrong lessons from our past relationships. But that’s probably the difference between what we categorize as “baggage” and what we categorize as “experience”
I think about the people who don’t even know it’s baggage. They don’t even know they’ve learned the wrong lessons. It’s probably easier to be these people. They are ignorant of it all. But it certainly isn’t better.
It’s unfun to be like yourself, and me, and realize that you still have to work through your stones. But it’s a required step. So perhaps there is a little comfort in this, knowing that once you’ve identified it as baggage you’ve taken a first and necesaary step.
i’m embarrassingly uninformed about anything Ayn Rand other than “Atlas Shrugged” (which i’m equally embarrassed to admit i haven’t read).
i am intrigued by the “baggage” v. “experience” dichotomy. You’ve implied something akin to enlightenment; not in the classic sense, but as in awareness of one’s condition being the necessary component for it being real.
Does your life need ‘fixing’ only if you think it does?
Are you guilty only when convicted?
In Christian circles we speak of “conviction of the Spirit”. It’s defined as the moment one receives the truth that they’ve offended God. Prior to that, what was it? The person oblivious to that standard is not burdened by the reality of a broken relationship with God. Perhaps this is the offense of Christ to so many: that their condition is upset with the insertion of perspective – like jamming a stick into the spokes of moving bicycle.
So is baggage simply an experience we choose to let bother us because we’re aware that something’s broken?
I really like your post alot Jeff, for a variety of reasons.
That is true, and in different words, kind of my own thoughts. Nothing has to be baggage, anything can be a blessing and an experience. But those things that we don’t let God transform, that we keep away from the light or the shears, become stones. The unredeamed experiences we let harden ourselves.
And you are right on with people learning the right or wrong lessons from experiences. We are constantly shaping our worldview and coming to conclusions consciously and un-consciously that go into the way we think and act. It drives me crazy when someone walks away from an experience not understanding the meaning of what just happened. Of course that is kind of a bold thing to say, that I know the truth of something and they don’t . . . but I’m a bold guy.
As far as Rand goes I find it interesting that you compared her group with the Christian group, because I’ve constantly thought that Rand’s philosophy is basically Christianity without God. And I have taken that as both proof that Rand did a good job doing what she said she wanted to do (looking at the world objectively and deciding what is true) and proof that God truly made our world transparent to see the way he works. Some of the quotes from her books are ridiculous:
“When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom
one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the
guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to
suffer. There is no escape from justice, nothing can be unpaid
for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit-and if
the guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay.” p.522 of Atlas Shrugged
But the truth is when she started thinking she said to herself ‘my first assumtion is that their is no God, therefore what can I determine about the our world.’ And she came to these things, but they never led her to God cause she believed they existed for themselves. I mean their are lots of other holes in what she says also, basically that she doesn’t give any value to relationships. I mean they have value, just not in themselves. Not like ‘I’m nice to this person, cause it builds trust and I like being around them and knowing them’ kind of way.
I also would like to say I think it is funny how whenever I make a post that merely mentions Rand’s name that this snowballs into the rest of the responces.
What I was saying about those things in Marty’s life is that as much as he wants to overcome them and have a perspective ‘from the top of the mountain’, those experiences definitely effect him and push him one way or the other.
With regard to this “The relationships we’ve had in the past do a great amount to control us. We’ve seen something once and it was so powerful it has changed the way we act now. If I could be anything, it would be to not be that person, to act in every situation like I don’t have scars and wounds and baggage.”
I don’t think a single human being on earth would have to search very hard to think of a person they know that has been hurt by someone and has changed drastically for the worse becasue of it. It is a sad, sad story. Everyone needs a cather in the rye . .