There isn’t a whole lot that I can talk to you guys about right now, but I wanted to at least let the rest of the world know that I’m not dead. It is really frustrating for me because there are a number of conversations (one-sided no doubt) that I want to have here, but I can’t really get into any of them. Instead, this is me saying, “Hello. I’m still alive.”

Hardly newsworthy.

Here is something to look forward to, though! My aunt gave me an (autographed) book titled The Shack for Thanksgiving/Christmas. I had included it among a hodgepodge list of novels that looked interesting while I browsed Amazon, and while I would have been perfectly happy to receive any one of the books my aunt just couldn’t help herself and bought me all three. The list of books is a fairly accurate representation of the massively wide range of my literary interests:

The Shack by William Young
World Without End by Ken Follett
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven

The Mote in God’s Eye is pure science-fiction, World Without End is a historical novel about cathedrals, and The Shack is… well, I guess it is a Christian parable more than anything else. The diversity continues when you consider that these books come hot on the heels of reading Watchmen, a graphic novel about masked crime fighters and the end of the world… which itself came immediately after a certain quadrilogy of books about teenage vampire romance written for 13-year-old girls.

I don’t want to dwell on it, but I pride myself on the breadth of my library. I make a conscious effort to keep myself open to new things and as a result I find that my curiosities and interests continue to expand… perhaps to a fault, but that is not a topic for this discussion. As one of my more annoying former colleagues is fond of saying, “That is outside the scope of this conversation.”

My point is this: while I have been known to read just about anything, The Shack still manages to be a significant statistical outlier. That is, were you to walk into a book store and choose a few books that I wouldn’t read… The Shack would be sitting right there alongside Danielle Steele and the latest issue of “Home & Garden.”

For those of you who have not heard of the book the very brief plot outline is this: A man’s young daughter is abducted during a family vacation. The investigation leads to an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon woods where evidence is found that she has been brutally murdered. The man slips into a deep depression until, a few years later, the man receives a note from God telling him to return to that shack. Over the course of a weekend the man has a series of conversations with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

I don’t want to speak for all of you, but I would imagine that many of you might consider me to be one of the most rational-thinking people that you know. My mind works according to a very logical process and my observation, interaction, and understanding of the world follows accordingly.

And so too do my beliefs.

I am not going to get into a discussion of God and religion here – I will save that for next time – but suffice it to say that I am not a religious person.

Thus, when another of my aunts (Hi, Nina!) saw that I had asked to read The Shack she became immediately curious. Having read the book herself she requested that I write her when I had finished it so that she could hear my opinions and reactions. My dad’s side of the family (which includes this particular aunt) are all practicing Catholics, some to a very high degree. Compared to everyone else at these holiday get-togethers my immediate family is essentially a coven of Godless heathen. And among my coven I am perhaps the most cynical. However, I am probably also the most brazenly curious; so while I don’t take Communion I still seek to understand those that do.

I give religion a lot of thought, but I almost never talk about it.

Actually, I take that back.

I never talk about it. With anyone.

The few discussions that I have had were never productive, and more than once I have ended that conversation by accidentally making one of my friends cry. After banging my head against that particular wall a few times I eventually made it a personal rule to be silently tolerant of religion. I have my various opinions and reflexive judgments, but I try not to give them voice or carry any influence in my day-to-day life. I warn you now that my next post will be an exception to that rule. My aunt made a request and I will humbly oblige. I don’t imagine that I can avoid offending at least one of you, but if you want my raw opinion that’s the risk that must be assumed.

So… stay tuned! I have another hundred pages left in The Shack but once it’s over you can expect an all-out blog fiesta starring God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit!!

If you want to get in on the party (We can start a LittleWyvern book club – Suck it, Oprah!) I suggest grabbing yourself a copy of the book. It’s about 250 pages and can be found just about everywhere. Last I checked it is still in Amazon’s Top 10 and only costs about eight dollars.