The phrase “Words have a way when I do not” is so applicable here. The gospel is put in a way many of us understand - a story. A story of a real man who lived and struggled and fought with the contemporary culture around him, only to see the real Christ: the perfect, loving God-man who loved, listened, and lived so we ourselves could do and be the same. Wow, what a book

Forgettable meandering look at...I don't know what. Ostensibly, it's Christian spirituality, but I couldn't easily discover and certainly can't recall now what the purpose of this book was. Was he criticizing Christianity or praising it? I honestly don't remember, but it seems like both at different times.

Through the haze, I feel like he was trying to recruit people to Christianity in what he deemed to be a hip or chic way. My best guess as to his strategy: he's a relaxed and cool dude, so being a Christian can be groovy too. It rang hollow and false to me and didn't work at all. In this attempt to combine liberal modernity with the Christian worldview, both get lost.

(Note: I skipped around and read several sections, not the whole book, so I'm probably not giving a completely fair portrayal of the book.) A guy's charmingly awkward memoir of his faith and spiritual growth. It has its interesting moments, like a chapter titled "Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry." There were also places where I got bored or mildly annoyed. The writing is OK but not poetry. It seems to be purposely written in a kind of rough-edged guy style. Random incomplete sentences and all that. Often stops short before going too deep.

Here are some things I got thinking on from the book:
"Every year or so I start pondering at how silly the whole God thing is. Every Christian knows they will deal with doubt. And they will. But when it comes it seems so very real and frightening, as if your entire universe is going to fall apart. I remember a specific time when I was laying there in bed thinking about the absurdity of my belief....I felt as if believing in God was no more rational than having an imaginary friend. They have names for people who have imaginary friends, you know. They keep them in special hospitals...." This is cute and funny and real--it's one of those moments where he says out loud what a lot of people think but are afraid to say, and that's definitely worth something. But then he diverges in his topic, wanders; I wanted more on this topic (I don't know what exactly...).

Later on, interesting discussion about the power of metaphor in everyday language (referencing a speaker he heard)...he talks specifically about metaphors we use for relationships--we "value" people, we "invest" time in relationships--and the suggestion that such metaphors may subconsciously lead us to commodify people and relationships. (page 218)

OK, here's another quote; he is actually quoting a friend of his in conversation:
"'I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is, a Being that is love. We learn that we are loveable or unlovable from other people. That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.'"

At first glance, I thought, yeah, yeah, interesting, I agree. But then it started to bother me, I started to feel a little depressed by it. OK, so it's definitely true that human love is significant, meaningful, that it can express for us a part of God's love. It's an important reminder that our choice to love others and express our love to others is meaningful, is powerful, is spiritual.

But you have to be careful looking at it from the other direction...the logical implications are troubling. Does this mean that people who aren't loved enough, or who are "unloved" more than they are "loved," are doomed to not be capable of experiencing, receiving God's love? That other human beings control our access to God's love?

I think the idea, taken as is (granted, it's just a rooftop conversation between two guys) misses two important things:

One, if we believe in a loving all-powerful God, we have to believe that God's love is deeper and wider and larger and more powerful by far than human love. Even our deepest love of another falls short. Human love at its best is one part feeble and two parts self-serving. Christian faith requires a leap of imagination to believe that there is a love greater than we are capable of, greater than anyone else is capable of, greater than we have experienced in any human relationship. And further, I've been under the impression that Jesus reached (reaches) out to the outcast and lonely, the unloved and forgotten. Anyway, it's a horrible thought that someone could be rendered incapable of receiving God's love because human beings had failed to love them adequately. Or that their understanding of God's love would be limited by the limitations of human love. (Although I feel like I could debate this question endlessly within myself--the one part hopeful, wanting to believe that the human soul can survive even in drought conditions, that it can stretch its roots deep down into memories of love, that it can derive nourishment even from small, infrequent waterings; and that God is there, is present in the darkest places in people's lives, suffering with us. The other part of me wonders whether God's ways are fair, why circumstances seem random, why some people seem doomed to tragic fates, suspects his love is capricious (a la Orual in C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces).)

Two (returning from tangent), the quote doesn't acknowledge the flip side, which I think is also significant, probably more significant, and more within the realm of our control and choice: We can also learn about God's love by loving others--both the spontaneous kind of love, in which we so easily see and delight in the stamp of God's marvelous creation in another; and the more difficult kind of love that involves making a choice to be kind and respectful to someone we may not easily cotton to, the choice to be kind to strangers (e.g., other drivers on the road, often the most difficult people for me to love...), the choice to see another human being as created and loved by God--to imagine God's deep, deep love based on deep, deep knowledge of that person's deepest needs, gifts, weaknesses, and strengths.

one of my all-time favorites. I will read this book over and over every few years for my whole life.

Phenomenal book that reshapes and challenges your preconceived notions. Miller writes in a conversational tone that keeps the reader intrigued and invested throughout. A book that I’ve read twice and will read again.

re-read. quirky and funny and nuggets of wisdom. i like how he says things people feel but no one really says

Honestly, I was skeptical going into this. I previously read another Donald Miller this year and enjoyed it, but I have heard so many mixed reviews about Blue Like Jazz that I had no idea what to expect (except that I would probably be bored).
Thankfully, my skepticism was misplaced and I was most definitely not bored.
The thing I appreciate the most about Miller, as I’m sure he’s touted everywhere for, is his rawness. He’s honest, almost to a fault. I think that’s what gives Blue Like Jazz mixed reviews; it’s difficult to sit through someone’s raw reflection. Miller talks us through his early spiritual development and the people that walked through it with him. His metaphors and stories are entertaining and give a fresh perspective on each of his topics.

Review 1:
Refreshingly honest thoughts about God.

Review 2:
This book is an old friend, the kind that you sit down with at the coffee shop after a long time and instantly regret not meeting up with sooner. The one who makes brash statements about grace and gas prices and boyfriends and what God actually thinks about things, and then you both die of laughter because you both know neither one knows what’s really going on. But in between hysterical giggles and accidental naps, there’s deep connection and honest vulnerability. This friend knows you well enough to prod and poke, to make you think about the way you treat people and if you’re really living for the things you say are important, and what God would say to you if he met you at a campfire.

PS. His writing style rubs off quickly. Oh well. Suppose that’s not too much of a problem.

The subtitle sums it up: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality—a bland variation on the “I’m spiritual but not religious” slogan that is by now such a worn cliche it deserves to be nothing but a meme.

To his credit, Miller has glimpsed the importance of wonder and mysticism in the Christian experience—what other writers have called the numinous. But Miller rejects the forms that previous generations used to express and contain numinous feelings. He’s reacting, predictably enough, to arch-Republican hyper-fundamentalism, and considering the total absence of anything remotely numinous in the withered end of fundamentalism’s decline, who can blame him for that? But must we then accept his alternative?—a drippy spirituality that agonizes over brokenness, vulnerability, and doubt, that finds God in the hippies, hipsters, homeless, and homosexuals, and that when squeezed oozes a trendy goo of blue-state cosmopolitan values? Nah.

The only real satisfaction to the pull of the numinous is God Himself, and no human being can fully comprehend or express God Himself, except for the human being who was also God Himself. But serious Christians have nevertheless always attempted the project because to remain silent is impossible; and many of those attempts, though flawed, are precious reflections of that piercing splendor.

Let’s not suppose that wonder was discovered by the emergent church, or that it takes drugs, booze, gourmet coffee, yoga, profanity, or couches in church to experience it. Wonder built the culture we’re currently burning down. It’s there in the cathedrals and the Confessions, in Milton and the metaphysical poets, in Palestrina and Pärt, in Laurus and Leif Enger. It’s in a good hymnal, in the stars and mountains, and in every word that proceeds. You have only to train your affections to feel it, and so glimpse the back of God.

Want to call this “spirituality”? Fine. But pop spirituality is a mani pedi. The real thing will spear you through.

7th time reading? does less and less for me each time...certain parts have not aged well (his friendship with Josh Harris, Mark Driscoll, his admiration of Ravi Zacharias...), but also the fact that Don himself is now like a major business influencer guy makes it harder for me to trust him. the writing is fine, and I will always appreciate how important this book was to me as a teenager, and it will always hold an important place for me. but a lot of what I used to think was provocative and new I see now is fairly un-nuanced and no longer really helpful for me.

I think my 6th time reading this book...what struck me most this time through was how Miller beautifully balances a soberingly low anthropology with good and hopeful reflection on the human experience. also the end of the chapter "Romance" still makes me cry:

"What great gravity is this that drew my soul towards yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me?"

This honestly wasn’t my cup of tea. I didn’t love this book because I felt like I disagreed more than I agreed with what Donald wrote. Maybe there needs to be a better balance between the nonreligious thoughts one may have and the truth overall?

There are some people I would recommend this book too because I feel like it could be their style, but I didn’t love the causal way he wrote this. Just wasn’t for me!

I am one of the people who loves this book! My brother did not finish the book, but I practically ate it up. In fact, this might be my favorite book I have ever read! This is the book I needed my first semester at NYU. This is the book I need now. Miller is vulnerable and honest in a way that I have been craving. A man in 2003 was losing sleep over the same things I lose sleep over and he wrote down his thoughts in a neatly bound, 240 page book. I also loved his voice, his humor, and his bluntness. This is not a book with mind blowing, world altering ways to look at theology. This is a book of a man traveling through the murky waters of actually loving God in real life. I adore it.


That’s the review I wrote after reading the whole book, this is a small blurb I wrote in the middle:

I adore this book as a 21 year old steeped in a world of academia and humanitarianism after being raised in a southern, Christian, “republican is the only answer” bubble. This book was basically written for me. I don’t know how I would read this after 30 years of pondering the issues Miller is pondering in the book, but I don’t care. This book is what I needed to read when I moved to New York to go to NYU. What I was leaving was a bunch of terrified, conservative, middle-aged people crossing their fingers for me to not walk away from God and toward the liberal disco-ball. Small story: at my graduation a well-meaning grandmother came up to me and advised me not to go to Tim Keller’s church because she knew a girl who went there and she turned into a liberal. That was the advice I was getting. Miller’s book actually gives the space and the vulnerability to hold and wrestle with the downfalls of the church, the ways in which politics doesn’t line up with spirituality, and the ways that evangelism can feel fake among so many other things. I hold this book dearly because I feel as though I am seeing the way my brain works on the pages of a book.

Oh and a quote:

“Only one more thing that bugged me, then I will shut up about it. War metaphor. The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agree with them, only they wouldn’t clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and he is good, and he wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of the as more important than ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.”

P.S. thanks Megan for recommending this to me!!! Mwah!