Blue Like Jazz

Last night I finished reading Blue Like Jazz, a book that my friend Susan sent me. I had such a hard time starting it, I don't know why - the writing style or something was a little off-beat to me. But I'm so glad I stuck with it because somewhere in the middle I began actually interacting with it.

It is really beautiful and is one of those books that you end in tears and prayer.

Why is it that when someone finally feels free enough to be honest about who they are, to totally let down and admit they they are unholy, that they fear they are unlovable, that their faith feels more like doubt... why is that so beautiful? I wish it didn't take us long, wasn't so rare, for us to reach that place.

Okay can I put some excerpts on here? I don't know if that's copyright infringement! Ahh! Let's hope not. Here's one part:

(Talking about finally starting to love someone he despised...)
"He was a great human being getting better. I could feel God's love for him. I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.

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 involved 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 beauitful and true." - Donald Miller

That's the best explanation I've ever heard of:
- "speak the truth in love"
- "without love, i am nothing"
- ok i had a whole list but i forgot it. lol

Anyway, let's put a few more excerpts shall we ...

"I laid myself down on some grass and reached my hand directly out toward where? I don't know. There is no up and down. There has never been an up and down. Things like up and down were invented so as not to scare children, so as to reduce mystery to math." (p. 204)

Hahah :)

"We are too proud to feel awe and too fearful to feel terror. We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom." (p. 204)

>----<

"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. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall.

If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live." (p. 173)

>---<

"You cannot be a Chrisitan 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. Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever." (p. 202)

Ok and with that, I'll stop. But go read the book so I don't get arrested by stealing text! I'll say it was simply free ad space provided here.

Speaking of breakfast, I just made a really, really good one. Strawberries, cranberry-orange scone, scrambled eggs, chicken/apple sausage, and orange juice! YUM. This is what Saturdays are for. I had my running thing this morning (we're doing a 5k in early July - woohoo) and we had to run in the raaaaaain! I mean it is really, really nasty out there. Miserable. Kind of beautiful cause the lake we run by was totally misted over. But running in it? Not cool!