Last night I finished Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. Some of you may be rolling your eyes and thinking, “She is so not in the new decade.” Well, you should know I’ve been meaning to read the book for years, ever since it debuted as the scuzzy new kid on the Christian memoir block in 2003. Finally, after hearing Miller speak at the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) International Convention this past August, I made it a priority.
The book was funny, sad, challenging, simple, irreverent, reverent, doctrinally sound, doctrinally unsound, puzzling yet startlingly clear. Which means I really, really liked it. Mostly because Miller asks the questions “proper Christians” are afraid to ask. He also admits to temptations, sins, and thoughts common to veryone, though most of us lie about our humanness.
Blue Like Jazz made me laugh. It also enhanced my reputation with the younger generation at our Labor Day Family Reunion. My cousin’s son saw it lying on the couch and asked who was reading it. When I owned up, the look in his eyes said my standing on his cool-hip-jive meter rose a few notches.
In one of the last chapters of the book, Miller described his hippie summer. He wasn’t a bonafide hippie, but he hung around with then and discovered he liked them. Why? Because they accepted him as he was. They didn’t judge him like the Christian community did. For years, he struggled to reconcile their questionable moral behavior and the acceptance he felt in their presence. I won’t tell you the details about how he overcame the struggle. Otherwise, you might not read the book.
This morning, I interviewed a woman who runs a disability ministry in a very large church. When asked what drew her to the ministry she said, “I like it because the people I work with accept me for who I am. They don’t care what I wear, what kind of car I drive, what job I have. They just love me. I’m not doing this out of pity or condescendingly. They give me so much.”
On many levels, her words echoed the conclusion Miller drew, the one I’m not telling you about so you’ll read the book. But I’ll tell you this much. His conclusion involved the true definition of love. As she spoke, I sensed God speaking to me about what love is and how far I fall short of demonstrating true love to others. Thanks to Blue Like Jazz and the wise woman on the phone, I know more about love today than I did yesterday. But I have a long way to go before I know how to love like that.
