Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality on amazon.com
Salaams! First heard about this book while up in Bamiyan (central Afg) this summer--from an old U Team member, AmyE--who said it was an "excellent" book--a "gotta read" book. Then heard about it from AndyB, who said that his son read it and pronounced it as something like "the best book" he's ever read. I started it at the beginning of a recent long trip from Dubai to the US and was finished by the time I'd landed in Boston. I found the book to be intriguing, captivating, deeply serious, engaging, provocative, refreshing, stimulating, thoughtful, real, hilarious (had to stop several times from busting a gut out loud & disturbing my sleeping co-passengers), and just simply well-written. This is a book I immediately gave to my oldest son Alex to read, as I knew it would meet him and speak to him in his current phase of life--which it did.
Reflect with me for a minute on the sub-title of the book: "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality." These are the musings of a real pilgrim who has wandered far and wide in his journey and writes out of his real experiences with an uncommon honesty and sincerity. There are moles and spots and bumps and ditches along the way--it's not a nice straight and smooth road. There is no Christian lingo, no jargon, no nice pat phrases. These are observations on deeply spiritual topics and issues, but all expressed in untypical religious language, with uncanny vulnerability and a rarely-published realness. One of the few other Christian writers who is like this--and writes well--is
Miller makes a strong showing in this book as he seeks to "integrate and balance his experiences with relevant Christian truths. This makes Blue Like Jazz an unexpectedly entertaining and thought-provoking read," says reviewer Joseph Thouvenel on the Barclay Press website. Miller's insights in what Jesus calls us to as His disciples is refreshing. It is an engaging story of God's work in his life over a period of years, as he acknowledges areas of his life where he sorely needed grow/maturity--and then gives details on how God began whittling away, bringing life-impacting changes into his life. Miller also shares some good insights into how a true community of believers should work/look.
This is a book I look forward to reading again, more slowly, and reflecting on more.
Christianity Today, Week of August 4
Soul Language on Paper
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Donald Miller
Thomas Nelson, 256 pages, $13.99
Reviewed by Cindy Crosby | posted 08/05/2003
Think of Donald Miller as a cleaned-up, Gen X Anne Lamott with testosterone, and this fresh memoir-like collection of essays as his version of Traveling Mercies. Miller (Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance) shares his journey from a self-described "Bible salesman on steroids" to discovering the freedom of embracing a God bigger than he can quantify.
"The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship," he writes.
Whether he's musing over his romantic foibles or detailing his frustrations with the church, his stories are permeated with gritty authenticity and humor. Miller poignantly recounts the challenges of sharing Christ with the mostly pagan students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he is active in campus ministry. His disappointment with organized Christianity is balanced by his passion for Jesus. Miller eventually finds that Christian spirituality is like jazz music, "very hard to get on paper … a language of the soul. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful."
Although the book is drenched in pop culture references and clearly aimed at a Gen X audience, Miller's words will resonate with any believer who has ever grappled with the paradoxes of faith.
Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
June 2003, Vol. 47, No. 7, Page 66
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (Paperback)
by Donald Miller "I ONCE LISTENED TO AN INDIAN ON TELEVISION say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Miller (Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance) is a young writer, speaker and campus ministry leader. An earnest evangelical who nearly lost his faith, he went on a spiritual journey, found some progressive politics and most importantly, discovered Jesus' relevance for everyday life. This book, in its own elliptical way, tells the tale of that journey. But the narrative is episodic rather than linear, Miller's style evocative rather than rational and his analysis personally revealing rather than profoundly insightful. As such, it offers a postmodern riff on the classic evangelical presentation of the Gospel, complete with a concluding call to commitment. Written as a series of short essays on vaguely theological topics (faith, grace, belief, confession, church), and disguised theological topics (magic, romance, shifts, money), it is at times plodding or simplistic (how to go to church and not get angry? "pray... and go to the church God shows you"), and sometimes falls into merely self-indulgent musing. But more often Miller is enjoyably clever, and his story is telling and beautiful, even poignant. (The story of the reverse confession booth is worth the price of the book.) The title is meant to be evocative, and the subtitle-"Non-Religious" thoughts about "Christian Spirituality"-indicates Miller's distrust of the institutional church and his desire to appeal to those experimenting with other flavors of spirituality.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened." In Donald Miller's early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
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Product Details
* Paperback: 256 pages
* Publisher: Nelson Books (July 17, 2003)
* Language: English
* ISBN: 0785263705
73 of 107 people found the following review helpful:Loved it, Loved it, Loved it., June 25, 2003
Reviewer: N. Kiser "neville22" (Gull Lake, MI United States) - See all my reviews
It says something about a book that makes you want to read it till' you can't stay awake any more at night and when it's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning (to read more of it). "Blue Like Jazz," is such a book. I can't really compare it to any other book b/c I've never read anything quite like it. It's just a compilation of stories and thoughts told through the eyes of a truly honest and heartfelt man.
The thing that really hit me while reading the book was that of encouragement. Thank God there is at least several more people out there (Donald and many of his friends which I feel like I know and would love to hang out with) who are like me in their pursuit to be in love with Jesus. These past few months have been a shaping time for me and granted, I have my own stories to tell and maybe someday I can, but for now, I've never felt God speaking to me so often as I did while reading this book (besides when I read the Bible I suppose). But this time, the voice was so much more personal, more intimate, more real.
The hardest thing for me to think after reading this book was that not everybody gets it and not all Christians are there yet. Not to say that I am, but still, it's going to be tough to convey this message of Jesus' love to a world so enthralled in "economic love" (as Miller points out through a speaker he heard). My heart is stirring and I feel like I am just beginning to get this a little better now (Jesus' love).
Only one word can describe my experience in reading this book: Intoxicating. (and I've never even been drunk before:) Thank you, Don and please thank all your friends personally from me. My name's Neville. Like you said too, hope we can meet someday.
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