Blue Like Jazz

Well, it's been awhile since I've written anything. I've been back at school and there's been lots to do and lots of people to see. In my last days at home I finished Blue Like Jazz. What a great read!



It's a great book by Donald Miller. He writes so authentically and uninhibited. He tells of his experiences with lots of different people from the country's most intelligent atheists at Reed College to living with hippies, from being a fundamentalist Christian living in a house with a bunch of single guys from the progressive church full of protesters and social activists. He writes with such honesty about his experiences and sees God in the most uncommon places. There are chapters about our misunderstanding of the concept of love. He talks about how overpowering people with love is the way they are going to see God. It's not going to be through our "Christian to do list" that we see others not fulfilling. It's not going to be by arguing views and defending Christianity. Miller did want to defend Christianity like it needed defending. He wants to show people what it is through love--loving the most unexpected people that seem unlovable. He talked about one of the best ways to do this is by stepping outside of who we are and what we are comfortable with and making connections with people who are completely different from us. He talked about how people, Christians especially, tend to use love as currency. If people aren't doing what we want them to, we withhold time, affection, and our love. Miller was struggling because he knew that he couldn't embrace the sin of these people who were living lifestyles contrary to God's Word. However, "God doesn't withhold love to teach us a lesson." It's much easier for someone to listen to you and you to them if there isn't some wall built up that they can sense that you are being defensive toward them.

I loved this quote:

When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don't. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak truth in love. If both conversations are not true, God is not invovled in the exchange, we are on our own, and on our own, we will lead people astray. The bible says that if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you. I think that is very beautiful and true.

....When I go to meet somebody, I pray that God will help me feel His love for them. I ask God to make it so both conversations, the one from the mouth and the one from the heart, are true.