Mackenzie Allen Phillips has risen above a childhood of unimaginable horrors to have a great life with an amazing wife and five terrific kids.  Then his youngest child is murdered and what he calls the “Great Sadness” take ahold of him.  The strong faith the got him through everything else is still there, but he’s getting a little ticked off at God – and who can blame him?

Then he receives an invitation from God to spend the weekend with him at the shack.  The shack is where his murdered child was held for a while.  Long story short, he goes to the shack, where he finds Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu (the Holy Spirit).  When Mack asks which of them is God, they say in unison, “I am.”

The next two days are filled with interpretations of and insights into God that religion had never given him and more laughter than most people seem to think God capable of.  But what these God tells him makes way too much sense to be discounted, and often seem to come more from love than what he’s learned in Bible study.  Like: “Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies.”

If you’ve read any of Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God books, most of this information may be familiar to you.  If you haven’t, prepare to have all your assumptions about God and religion blasted. But it’s done in such a loving way and with such impeccable logic that it’s easy enough to take in.

It may feel strange to many to hear God joking around and talking in a very contemporary way.  You may miss the Bible verses that are all through the story because of that.  And Jesus says things like, “As well-intentioned as it might be, you know that religious machinery can chew up people!” and “I don’t need to punish people for sin.  Sin is its own punishment…” But when God explains it, it sounds right.

One caveat: The book is apologetically Christian, though Jesus says it’s not.  When Mack says, “Is that what it means to be a Christian?,” Jesus says, “Who said anything about being a Christian?  I’m not a Christian … Those who love me … were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslim, Democrats, Republicans,…”  Okay, but there’s that whole trinity thing, which no other belief system uses.  As a non-Christian, it felt to me almost as though the author was implying you don’t have to be Christian to find and serve God, but all the non-Christians doing so are progressing towards Christianity. I realize that may be exactly what Mr. Young believes, I did not find it flattering.

I’ve got to leave you with a really cool image.  Papa has made pastries for Mack, from Mack’s great-grandmother’s recipe.  Papa says she “made it from scratch” for him.

“Mack wasn’t sure what ‘made it from scratch’ might mean when God was saying it…”