Sarah Ritter Outside Reading #3

            Over this past summer I read a book called The Shack, written by William Paul Young.  This was one of the most powerful and deeply thought-provoking books I have ever read and it really gave me a new perspective on spirituality.  In the book the main character goes through a horrifying trauma and his happy life is shattered.  Many years after this tragedy he receives a note from someone named Papa that summons him to a shack in the woods.  He hesitantly goes and when he reaches the shack he essentially has an intense divine encounter in which the shack is transformed and he gets to spend several days with God Him- or in this case “Herself.”  The shack is a deeply sacred place for him and although in Lane’s book Landscapes of the Sacred, he states the ordinary masks the Holy and the Holy and the Holy can’t be viewed without this mask, in the novel the main character does get to look under that mask and with the authors powerful use of language, he describes what he believes he would see.  This was a fantastic book and I definitely recommend it because it made me really think about my beliefs and my relationship with God.