Log #3

Book: The Shack

Author: William P. Young

Page: p134~204

     In the chapters I read these two weeks, there is an interesting discussion between Mack and Sarayu when Mack helped Sarayu do some works in her garden:

“When something happens to you, how do you determine whether it is good or evil?”

To this question, I think most people’s answers will be similar to Mack’s:

“I would said that something is good when I like it—when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of security. Conversely, I’d call evil something that causes me pain or costs me something I want.

However, sometimes we would forget that our determination is pretty subjective. And, what’s more, we tend to sound justifiably angry when somebody is threatening our “good”, what we think we deserve.

To make things more confusing, that which we determine to be good will change over time and circumstance. Then, beyond that and even worse, there are billions of humans, each determining what is good and what is evil. So when their good and evil clash with their neighbor’s, fights and arguments ensue and even wars break out.

There is another question to think about in Sarayu’s words:

 “If there is no reality of good that is absolute, then we have lost any basis for judging.
It is just language, and one might as well exchange the word good for the word evil.”

I think it is a choice to believe whether there is a real “goodness” exist in this world; but, if it really exist and we can obtain happiness lasting forever through acting in accordance with that “goodness”, I will be willing to follow it in the rest of my life.

Picture from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shack#/media/File:Shackover.jpg