Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, by Donald Miller
Blue Like Jazz (Thomas Nelson, 2003) is one of those books I've thought vaguely I should read for a few years now. I'd see it in the bookstore as an assigned text for a class I wasn't taking, glance at the pretty blue cover and think, "I should get around to that someday." As it turns out, "someday" was dictated by the Kindle version being on sale and me needing something other than school-related books to read before classes start.
I was skeptical at first. Any Christian book that does well on sales whose author is still living generally makes me suspicious. But I found this book profound in its simplicity and helpful in many ways. Sure, at times it sounded like Miller was trying a little too hard to create his own Traveling Mercies (and he admits this was part of his intention), but overall it was a straightforward, unadorned look into the thoughts and feelings of another pilgrim searching for the path, and it did what I think a good autobiography or memoir should do: it made me feel a little less alone.
I'm sure different parts of Miller's story will resonate with different people, and there may be things I overlooked now that might strike me as significant later, or vice versa. Although I found nuggets throughout to cling to, the part that I most identified with was when Miller talked about a time when he was in a relationship and found himself unable to believe that he was really loved. He would get anxious and needy, always seeking his significant other's affirmation, until it finally became too much for her. He realized that at some point he needed to be able to love himself, to allow God to love him, to embrace his own belovedness, before he could truly love another person. It reminded me a lot of Henri Nouwen's books Life of the Beloved and The Inner Voice of Love, but from a very concrete young adult perspective.
Knowing that another Christian struggles with some of the same things I do, whether that's feeling loved, enjoying the company of atheists more than that of other Christians at times, having questions about the Bible or any number of other things, was nice. Sometimes the suberabundance of spiritual memoirs feels narcissistic to me, but isn't it true that all we really have are our own stories of encounters with God? And if that's what we have, shouldn't we share it?
Favorite Quotations
"Do I want social justice for the oppressed, or do I just want to be known as a socially active person?"
"Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror."
"The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don't believe it at the same time."
"I love to give charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace."
"Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous or clean; accepting God's love will."
"...there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care."
"...believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon."
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