The Shack Summary and Analysis of Chapters 7 – 9

Summary

Chapter 7: God on the Dock

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As Mack washes up for dinner, he wonders whether he is going insane. However, after hearing a loud noise, Mack enters the kitchen to find Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus laughing extremely hard at the fact that Jesus dropped a bowl of sauce. When they finish laughing, Jesus cleans Papa’s clothes and washes her feet in a basin. Soon, they begin dinner. As they eat, Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu ask Mack about his family and friends; Mack briefly wonders why they are asking him about these things if they are all-knowing, but they reply that they have limited themselves out of respect for him. At the end of the meal, they have a time of devotion, but instead of the dull family devotions Mack remembers, this consists of touching and talking honestly and lovingly to one another. After this concludes, Mack goes into the kitchen with Jesus and Sarayu to wash and dry the dishes.

Mack and Jesus go out to the dock together to look at the stars. They are both dazzled by what they see; even though Jesus, as part of God, created the universe, he witnesses it as a human. Mack tells Jesus that he feels more comfortable with him than with Papa or Sarayu. Jesus explains Sarayu and Papa’s names, and gently responds to Mack’s comments about Jesus not being as handsome as Mack had expected. They discuss how easy it is to believe and love God when seeing God face to face, like Mack is, and Jesus explains to Mack about God truly living in all people at all times. They laugh, hug, and continue to marvel at the night sky until it is time for bed.

Chapter 8: A Breakfast of Champions

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Mack finds that he has a cozy bedroom stocked with the clothes he left in the car, along with a Gideon’s Bible in the nightstand. He falls asleep quickly and begins to have a dream where he is flying. In his dream, Mack flies into a storm and sees Missy calling his name. He becomes stuck in the mud, which pulls him deeper as he tries to reach his daughter. When Mack awakes, he feels The Great Sadness.

He takes his time showering, shaving, and dressing, and then is finally brought out of his room by the smell of coffee and breakfast. Papa is in the process of bringing out another hearty meal, and she and Mack talk about how Papa loves everyone, even when she is angry about the choices they make. When Mack questions her about punishing wrongdoers, she tells him sadly that she doesn’t punish anyone, saying, “sin is its own punishment” (123).

The four inhabitants of the shack begin to eat breakfast together, and the conversation turns to the lack of hierarchy between Papa, Sarayu, and Jesus, especially in light of humanity’s imposition of hierarchy on many things. Sarayu leads the conversation, telling Mack that hierarchies of power are one of the major ways people have taken a different path than God intended. Papa asks Mack to join their “circle of love” (126). To do this, Mack must understand God does not create the pain of the world, but can use it to move people toward “the ultimate good” (127). Mack still struggles to understand, and Papa knows that this is because Mack does not believe God is good or trust in his relationship with God. The meal ends with Sarayu inviting Mack to help her in the garden.

Chapter 9: A Long Time Ago, in a Garden Far, Far Away

Mack follows Sarayu into the garden, which is a chaos of flowers, vegetables, and bright colors. Sarayu leads Mack through the large garden, snipping flowers here and there for Mack to carry. They get to an area full of fruit trees, and Sarayu asks for Mack’s help clearing the plot. Mack struggles with the physical labor of clearing the branches, as well as with the fact that they are destroying something so beautiful. Mack questions Sarayu about whether God created bad things like poisonous plants and bugs, and she replies that those things aren’t inherently bad. She explains that many things that may seem bad, like a poisonous plant, can lead to good, like discovering new methods of healing.

They get back to work clearing the roots of the trees, and begin discussing Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge, which Sarayu says really happened. Sarayu tells Mack that eating from the tree of knowledge has made humans think they can judge good and evil, even though their judgments are subjective. These subjective judgments have led to many of the fights between humans. After a period of silence, Mack asks how to fix this problem of judging, and Sarayu responds that he must fully trust in God’s goodness. Mack returns to the subject of Missy, questioning whether she had “a right to be protected” (139). Sarayu argues that to talk about rights misses the point of what they have been teaching Mack about goodness, free will, and religion as a relationship. This angers Mack, but Papa suddenly comes out into the garden, ending the confrontation. Sarayu relays to Papa that Mack called the garden a “mess” (140), and they reveal that the garden is actually Mack’s soul. The chapter ends with Papa telling Mack that Jesus would like to take a walk with him and giving him a picnic lunch to take along.

Analysis

The epigraph of Chapter 7, God on the Dock, is a quote by C.S. Lewis, the famous author of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters. Besides being a prolific author of fiction, Lewis was a Christian apologist, or a Christian theologian who defends Christianity from criticism by presenting historical evidence. Lewis was raised in a devout Christian family, became an atheist as a teen, and then converted back to Christianity at age 33 with renewed personal faith after conversations with fellow authors. These struggles with faith parallel Mack’s religious questioning throughout The Shack. The C.S. Lewis quote itself sends a somber message, reading, “Let’s pray that the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere” (106). In the chapter God on the Dock, Mack and Jesus marvel at the night sky while discussing some of Mack’s qualms with Christianity, so it makes sense to use a quote that references life outside of Earth. Furthermore, the disparaging view of humans C.S. Lewis espouses in the quote goes along with what Mack is learning in this section of the novel about humans using their free will to cause one another pain.

Chapter 8’s epigraph is a positive, hopeful quote, attributed to “Author Unknown,” reading, “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown” (117). By contrasting the epigraphs of Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, it is clear that Mack is becoming more positive in his relationship to God as his questions are answered and his fears are assuaged. However, there will be further uncomfortable truths to reckon with, including being asked to forgive his daughter’s killer and acknowledge his real motivation for lying to Nan about his trip to the shack, and this quote is a reminder that Mack must take those emotional risks to grow as a person and a Christian.

The epigraph of Chapter 9 is another overtly Christian quote; it reads, “Even should we find another Eden, we would not be fit to enjoy it perfectly nor stay in it forever” (130). This quote is the first reference in the novel to the Garden of Eden, the paradise written of in the Old Testament where plants, animals, and humans were first created. This is one of the most important religious allusions in the book, because Mack’s questions about whether humans have free will and whether God does or should prevent human pain stem back to Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, breaking their trusting relationship with God. This epigraph has a negative tone, implying that humans have strayed far from how God created them.

Another religious allusion is made in these chapters, though the moment has a lighter tone. In Chapter 7, Mack is getting ready for dinner when he hears a crash in the dining room. Jesus has dropped a bowl of sauce, which splattered on Papa’s skirt and feet. While Sarayu, Papa, and Jesus laugh uproariously about this, Jesus gets a basin of water and washes Papa’s feet. Young describes this moment with touching detail, writing, “Jesus went straight to Papa and, kneeling at her feet, began to wipe off the front of her clothes. He worked down to her feet and gently lifted one foot at a time, which he directed into the basin where he cleaned and massaged it. ‘Ooooh, that feels soooo good!’ exclaimed Papa as she continued her tasks at the counter” (107). Footwashing is an important Christian ritual, often done to welcome guests or signal servitude. In the Gospel of John, it is written that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and told them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). While this is a serious religious act, Young writes the scene, especially Papa’s response to having her feet washed, in such a way that the tone is light and playful. This tone continues through dinner, causing Mack to marvel at how effortlessly loving the relationship is between the members of the Trinity.

Sarayu’s garden, introduced in Chapter 9, is an important symbol in The Shack. Sarayu takes Mack into her garden to help her cut flowers and herbs and dig up a tree. He is shocked by the lack of order in the garden, and even calls it a “mess” (131), but Sarayu tells him that it is actually “a fractal…something considered simple and orderly that is actually composed of repeated patterns” (131). At the end of the chapter, Sarayu reveals that the garden they were working on together is actually Mack’s soul. Representing Mack’s soul as a garden shows how life can seem like a complicated series of choices and circumstances, but that disorder actually holds patterns and beauty. By asking Mack to help her uproot a tree—especially one that didn’t seem to be causing any problems—in order to make room for new growth, the author also shows how Mack must accept change in order to mature.

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