Blue Like Jazz

I just finished this book and really enjoyed it! It was certainly refreshing. The subtitle is "Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality." It's basically Don Miller's story about his Christian journey, filled with lots of stories of people he has met and conclusions he has come to. It's very clever and made me laugh the entire way through. For example, one of the chapter titles is "Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry". The way the book is written is very interesting and artistic. It certainly made me think!

Here's a few quotes I liked:

- "The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me."
- "If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus."
- "Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other, love each other."
- "Passion is tricky, though, because it can point to nothing as easily as it points to something."
- "But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them."

And a poem from C.S. Lewis that he quotes:

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin."