Blue Like Jazz

When one person recommends that I read a certain book, I smile and nod. I might think about putting it on my long “to-be-read” book list. When another person recommends the same book, I smile and nod some more, and then write the name on the long “to-be-read” book list. When a third, fourth, and fifth person touts praises for the book, I break down and buy a copy on Amazon or head to the library. More often than not, I find that the book lives up to the hype. Such is the case with Donald Miller’s book, “Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts On Christian Spirituality.”

Blue Like Jazz is highly engaging; once you begin reading, the book is hard to put down. Miller’s stories are both witty and insightful. He paints a picture of God and Christianity in a light I had never before imagined, drawing from his own life journey as the child of a single mother, a partying teenager struggling with the concept of God, a young Christian on a godless college campus, and a single guy coming to grips with his fear of intimacy. A book that entertains, convicts, and encourages all at once is a rare find. But don’t take my word for it. Here are a few of my favorite fun passages (you’ll have to read the book yourself to find the deeper nuggets of truth):

** “Some of my friends have left their churches and gone Greek Orthodox. I think that sounds cool. Greek Orthodox. Unless you are Greek. Then it sounds like that is where you are supposed to go, as though you are a conformist. If I were Greek, I would never go to a Greek Orthodox church. If I were Greek, I would go to a Baptist church. Everybody there would think I was exotic and cool.”

** “I understand you can learn a great deal about girldom by reading Pride and Prejudice, and I own a copy, but I have never read it. I tried. It was given to me by a girl with a little note inside that read: What is in this book is the heart of a woman. I am sure the heart of a woman is pure and lovely, but the first chapter of said heart is hopelessly boring. Nobody dies at all. I keep the book on my shelf because girls come into my room, sit on my couch, and eye the books on the adjacent shelf. You have a copy of Pride and Prejudice, they exclaim in a gentle sigh and smile. Yes, I say. Yes, I do.”

** “I know from personal experience that you should not keep telling a girl that you like her after she tells you she isn’t into it. You should not keep riding your bike by her house either.”

** "Living in community sounded so, um, odd. Cults do that sort of thing, you know. First you live in community, and then you drink punch and die. It was [Pastor] Rick's idea, though, and he seemed fairly normal in all the other areas of his life. He never mentioned anything about a spaceship traveling behind a comet. He never asked us to store weapons or peanut butter, so I figured the thing about living in community was on the up-and-up...The other thing is that, at the time, I was pushing thirty and still not married. When you are thirty and not married and you move in with a bunch of guys, you look like you have given up, like you are a bunch of losers who live together so you can talk about computers and share video games...Rick kept bothering me about it. I was living way out in the country, about 30 miles from town...He asked if I had the chance to minister to anybody out there in the country. He asked if I was having any influence on the cows. I told him I was having a lot of influence. I wrote books. He laughed. I sat there uncomfortably while he laughed. "Books," he said, "Brilliant! You write books for people." He couldn't stop laughing. He was being very annoying."