Blue Like Jazz - Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.

Context is important for understanding anything.  You have to get yourself into the Portland, Oregon  ( Peace and Love ) – Blue Like Jazz mood to enjoy the book. But Donald Miller helps you do  that quite nicely. Donald is a story teller, and Blue Like Jazz is a bunch of stories from Donald’s life. Many of the stories take place around Portland, Oregon, or at Reed College. Reed College was mentioned in Princeton Review as the college where students are most likely to ignore God. (p. 37) Miller says “it (Reed) is a godless place, known for existential experimentation of all sorts.” “Many of the (Reed) students hated the very idea of God, and yet they cared about people more than I did.” (p.42)

As I mentioned in part 1 of my Blue Like Jazz book review, this book was bouncing around in my house for several years before I picked it up. Three of my daughters read it, and it went through a rain storm (or some kind of baptism) with Talitha, who dried it off with a hair drier, so it was already “quite loved” by the time I picked it up. Yeah, I know I’m late coming to the party — writing this review after hundreds of reviews have already been written. (Amazon had over 447 customer reviews last time I checked.)

My friend Joe Thorn (from Chicago) wrote about Blue Like Jazz back in 2006 — in a report about Mark Coppenger’s 11 negative points about the book.

Joel Comm (from Denver) said “What a fantastic read!” in his book review back in 2005.  Joel said Miller’s “anecdotes are often quite funny and poignant.”

Back to Portland…

My friend Bob said “Portland is filled with hippies that never grew up.” Actually, I think the hippies grew up and their kids live in Portland today (with that same 70’s hippie attitude). Bob seemed angry that his daughter moved out to Portland and  didn’t even have a job lined up. “How can you drive all the way across country, just because you like the coffee shops in Portland?”, Bob grumbled. “She didn’t even have a job… well she did find a good job later on…” Bob said that Portland is way more laid back then Detroit, and there are lot’s of people who just “hang out on the streets.”

Portland Oregon Riverplace

In the chapter called: LOVE – How to Really Love Other People. (It’s chapter 18, page 207), the very first sentence confirms my friend Bob’s worst fears. Donald starts off: “When my friend Paul and I lived in the woods, we live with hippies. Well, sort of hippies…. When I was with the hippies I did not feel judged, I felt loved.”

While we are on the topic of love, judgment, and living in the wilderness…

“I love how the Gospels start with John the Baptist eating bugs and baptizing people. The religious people started getting baptized because it had become popular, and John yells at them and calls them snakes.” (p. 203)

My friend Tripp had a different view about Portland, and he was not angry (like my friend Bob). Tripp said that his son Evan moved out to Portland and found a good job as a social worker. He said the slower pace of life in Portland is kind of pleasant. He said Evan goes to church at Imago Dei — the same church Donald Miller goes to. I was kind of happy when I heard this, because Imago Dei sounds like a really interesting church.

There are several things in the book that are a little weird. But the weirdness is just a reflection of the people that inhabit the planet. Donald writes “new-realism essays”. (p. 188) “Imago, our church, is made up of mostly artists, and fruit nuts and none of us have any money…” (p. 189)

My daughter Priscilla flew to Portland recently to visit some friends that she met in South Africa (when she worked in the orphanage). Priscilla is all about friends and travel. She is bringing home some stories and photographs and I’m sure she will tell me what Portland is really like.

I am the problem

Is this a book review or what?

Is this a book review about Blue Like Jazz, or is it just a collection of my stories about Portland, Oregon? Or is it both? I’m trying to write this book review in the style of a “new realism essay.”

Blue Like Jazz flows with mystical ideas …

“You cannot be a Christian without being a mystic. I was talking to a homeless man at a laundry mat recently, and he said that when we reduce Christian spirituality to math, we defile the Holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting because I have never been good at math…. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me.” (p. 202)

Blue Like Jazz has some practical ideas for the “postmodern church”, and Miller dispels the notion that his book is a new concept for making the gospel cool:

“I don’t think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either.” (p. 111)

I discovered that I am the problem (p. 20), and “nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.” (p. 23)

“What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.” (p. 110)

He lists 10 reasons to love Ruby on Rails. The first reason really resonated with me since I’m a systems architect, and I understand the dangers of over-architecting solutions

“1. Many line-of-business applications do not require over-architected, complex and costly software systems to operate. Over-engineering applications increases costs, wastes time and dilutes competitive advantage. Rapidly-constructed software applications that deliver essential functionality with good scalability and low maintenance costs are easily achievable using Ruby and the RoR framework.”

Check out all 10 reasons in the DDJ article.