Literature is a mirror of our lives because the stories speak to and from our daily interactions and internal wrestling.  The starkest reality is that often, characters give life to the words that have been resting in our bowels.  We realize that these words have never been spoken or processed until we read. 

        I am reading William P. Young’s The Shack.  So far, I have found myself anxious, trying to absorb profound challenges.  With healthy hesitation, I still turn the page and continue reading even when it hurts too much to confront a version of my reality that the character Mack is confronting.  I have allowed me to be gripped—even if it has meant that I have had to stop reading in order to weep, grieve, or writhe.  I know that when I let go, that grip gets tighter and it is then that I am held by “Papa.”

        I begin a little journey with Mack because dancing with literature is so fun, and letting “Sarayu” take the lead is always dangerously exciting, and good. Thus begins this adventure to The Shack of My Own…