I have just finished reading "Blue Like Jazz”. It was recommended by two people and, I have to say, I loved it!
Picking up this book reading the authors thoughts was to me, like sitting and chatting to an old friend over a cup of tea.
Don Miller never really expected this book to be published, let alone become a best seller and I think that is possibly one reason why it is so honest and raw. He bares his soul to the world in these pages and takes us on his amazing, but normal (I think) spiritual journey without the worry of religious judgement.
Don explains the title when he writes," Christianity is like jazz music in that, in order to 'get it’, you have to experience it ". He is pretty much having a 'good old go ' at organised religion and the institutional church. The book reads like a journal and is beautifully written, funny, creative and very much self deprecating most of the time!
His journey starts from his early years where he discovers God and works towards being the "perfect Christian". Then comes the painful realisation that how other Christians saw him had become more important to himself than who he really was, before God. He says " I realised my faith was about image and ego, not about practicing spirituality. I had the image of a spiritual person, but I was bowing down to the golden cows of religiosity and philosophy".
In one of his chapters Don takes us on his adventures at Reed College, the college in America where students are LEAST likely to believe in God .He was strongly encouraged by concerned Elders, not to go to this immoral place. As it turns out, this was one of the places he feels most genuine love, much like his month living in the woods with a pot smoking hippy community! At the college the few Christian students come up with a plan to build a confessional booth where they would reverse the normal process of repentance and forgiveness! A student enters and the Christian asks forgiveness for the mistakes the "church has made, from the crusades to genocide. It is a wonderful reflection!
This is a Christian book like I have never read before and that makes it so refreshing to read. The chapters have headings such as; Redemption: The Sexy Carrots, Church: how I go without getting angry, and Community: Living With Freaks!
Sounds light and fluffy but the truth is, sometimes his words are deep and profound. At one point I was reduced to tears as Don recalls a documentary he watched about a mother whose son is about to die on 'death row"' to the agonising knowledge that Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus, has of her beloved sons horror to come.
I would recommend this book to anyone! Some of you won’t like it, but it will give you something to talk about!! Would love to debate the book with you, so come on, why not give it a go?
I would like to thank the dozens of people who gave me feedback on "The Shack". So many of you have bought several more copies to give away, having been inspired as I was! Hope this book is just as thought provoking.
Karen Smith