Dear Friends,

A little departure from the plan for this week’s newsletter, I hope you understand. This week was supposed to be the next Episode in “Illuminating Understanding”. Instead I would like to share with you my thoughts on a book I finished this week, William P. Young’s “The Shack.” An email from a dear friend of 36 Parables included the following passage:

It’s an amazing story about a man’s weekend with God. Sounds hokey, perhaps, but it will change the temperature of your relationship with God.

Little did I know the book was beginning to sweep the Christian community, I heard about it everywhere. Then it showed up in my church’s bulletin and I decided I had to read it.

There are parts that read like fiction, while others read like theology text disguised as dialogue, there are moments of emotion, and pages where nothing much develops. There is a murder mystery plot that unfolds as expected and almost rides along with the story like cute bookends on a shelf reserved for the more serious reading. All in all the book felt like an amalgamation of thoughts, musings, and ideas about God, religion, the Bride of Christ, and mankind presented as dialogue between characters. In one such passage Mack, the main character, and the Holy Spirit are having a discussion concerning all the “answers” Mack was taught about God while attending seminary. Mack comments, “This weekend, sharing life with you has been far more illuminating than any of those answers.”

Right on Mack! God will always illuminate our understanding when we spend time with Him. Since He is omnipresent we always are offered opportunities too! In the end I may not choose “The Shack” to sit on my shelf next to “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Dune,” “Moby Dick” or “Gulliver’s Travels,” all great works of fiction with incredible multilayered comments on man and God, but my friend was still right. The Shack did turn up the heat on my relationship with God. I was forced to think about the God/man problem in a new way and challenged to ask new questions about my own pride and religion.

By all means give The Shack a fair shake and as Mr. Young’s God character, a black woman named Papa, was fond of saying, “Let me know how that works out for you.”

HEART INITIATIVE
If you like the way 36 Parables are produced, shot, and howt the stories are told John and I are now making ourselves available to help tell other’s stories. We want to provide organizations and non-profits with the same high quality production we execute on 36 Parables.
Please contact me if you or any organizations you know are looking for the same high quality production you see in 36 Parables.
You can check out some of the stuff we have done at our temp site, HeartInitiative.com.

The Music Box
Like "The Shack", our film, "The Music Box", based on the Parable of a Treasure Buried in a Field(Matthew 13:44), is a picture of what happens when we as people encounter the treasure of God. Click here and enjoy our first black and white film.

Illuminating Understanding,

The Cinematographer
Stewart H. Redwine
C: 310-770-0448
E: sredwine@36parables.com