NonReligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality(2003)
Donald Miller
Finished Reading: 02.2009
Most of this book is set in Portland, Oregon. I feel an exciting connection to the people and places described, which is sort of weird. Stumptown Coffee. Pioneer Courthouse Square. Powell's Books. Mark the Cussing Pastor. Tony the Beat Poet.
Donald Miller
Finished Reading: 02.2009
Most of this book is set in Portland, Oregon. I feel an exciting connection to the people and places described, which is sort of weird. Stumptown Coffee. Pioneer Courthouse Square. Powell's Books. Mark the Cussing Pastor. Tony the Beat Poet.
Donald Miller tells of his growth in Christianity and the struggle between what he has known the religion to be and what he wants his relationship with Jesus to be. He values solid theology and loves Jesus, but wants it to be OK to disagree with the Republican party and hang out with gay people. He wants to be involved in a local church, but also spend time on a secular college campus loving people who hate God; doing things the American church traditionally shys away from.
He doesn't claim to have the math of Jesus all figured out, but he loves Him and wants to obey Him. We learn along with the author as he struggles between the culture of the church and the culture of the world, asking hard questions while smoking pipes and seeking truth from people with tattoos. He makes friends with people different from himself, deep friends who come from different backgrounds, with various problems and differing philosophies. This is a journey that we can relate to because it is real life, not just church life -just like our life. Christianity is like jazz, not like math.
"There are some guys who don't believe in God and can prove he doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago, and honestly, I don't care. I don't believe I will ever walk away from God for intellectual reasons. If I walk away from Him, I will walk away for social reasons, identity reasons, deep emotional reasons, the same reasons that any of us do anything."
Right away in the first few chapters I notice this book reads a lot like J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye. Quick sentences. Rambling thoughts. A lot of interesting information gets into your head really fast. He changes subjects quickly too. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't. I think this is the way I really think, inside my brain.
I came to the realization that Miller is not using the word and. This explains the short sentences. I enjoy reading this style of writing, but I didn't know how to describe it until just now. I didn't know what the structure was. As soon as I realized this, I looked very carefully for the next use of the word and. I found it over a whole page later! Maybe a page and a quarter even. Who writes for a whole page without using and? Of course you have to use and now and then. I paid attention to this for the rest of the chapter. Once he writes two pages without using and. By the time I finished the book, however, I noticed that he either stopped using this style or I just got used to it and didn't notice anymore.
I don't know if I have ever laughed out loud so often while reading a Christian book, as while reading Blue Like Jazz. Miller is just so real. He feels like me. I think we would be friends. In the middle of some very deep, mystical, profound truth or life changing moment, he observes humor in how he is feeling or how he feels he is perceived by others. These moments and feelings are always present during our deep thoughts, but are not usually expressed - simply shrugged off as getting in the way of the point we are trying to make.
The lines that I think are most funny don't seem quite as funny outside the flow of the text. They aren't jokes, they are just whimsical side observations. While having a quiet moment out in nature, alone with his thoughts and searching for God, Miller calls out to the sky but the stars are silent. He notes that the nearby river is speaking "some vernacular for fish." He calls out again. "Nothing from the stars. Fish language from the river." This doesn't lessen the moment, but makes it more real.
