Miller - Blue Like Jazz

Endorsements for
Blue Like Jazz

Its hard to find people who write about God from a position of commitment but still sound as if theyre being human and honest, not running every word through the filter of religious subculture. Donald Miller is such a person. Plus, he writes with wit, flair, and self-awareness to boot.

John Ortberg
Author of Everybodys Normal
Till You Get To know Them

I can think of no better book than Blue Like Jazz to introduce Christian spirituality (a way of life) to people for whom Christianity (a system of beliefs) seems like a bad math problem or a traffic jam. Donald Miller writes like a good improv solosmooth, sweet, surprising, uplifting, and full of soul and fury and joy. When I finished the last page, I felt warmed, full of hope, and confident that this great book will echo with beauty in many, many lives just as it is doing in mine.

Brian McLaren
Pastor (www.crcc.org), author
of A New Kind of Christian,
and fellow in emergent
(www.emergentvillage.com)

Donald Miller has achieved what every Christian writer toils and types for: spiritual relevancy. He has completely revealed himself in his latest effort. Laced with off-guard humor, biting insights, and to-the-point summaries, Blue Like Jazz is a thought-provoking journey toward a God whos not only real but reachable.

David Allen
HM Magazine

We need more people like Donald Miller, who are willing not only to interpret Scripture but the culture as well.

Ben Young
Host of nationally syndicated
radio show The Single
Connection and coauthor of
The One and Devotions for
Dating Couples

Honest, passionate, raw... real. Like jazz music, Donald Millers book is a song birthed out of freedom. As with good music, BlueLike Jazz is more than trueits meaningful. Its about Jesus, His story, and the freedom He longs to bring to you.

Paul Louis Metzger, Ph.D.
Asst. Prof. of Christian
Theology & Theology of
Culture at Multnomah
Biblical Seminary

Donald Miller looks at faith the way a great jazz musician looks at a simple melody. He sees it as a thing to be explored, a passageway to a treasure trove of even richer melodies, rhythms, and harmonics. Thank you, Don, for daring to dig and explore. And thank you for sharing your wonderful discoveries.

Mark Atteberry
Pastor and author of
The Samson Syndrome

Thank God for Jazz! With an improvisational mix of wry humor, soul-baring candor, and provoking commentary, Donald Miller composes a piece of literary and intellectual brilliance. Just like the music, you dont so much read Blue Like Jazz as you feel itfeel it and find yourself changed by its haunting melodic voice.

Julie Ann Barnhill
National speaker,
bestselling author of
Scandalous Grace

2003 by Donald Miller

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Don, 1971
Blue like jazz : nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality / Don Miller.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7852-6370-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7852-8931-9 (ie)
1. Miller, Don, 1971 2. Christian biographyUnited States. I. Title.
BR1725.M4465A3 2003
277.3082092dc21

2003002223

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 12 RRD 37 36 35 34 33

For David Gentiles

Contents

I NEVER LIKED JAZZ MUSIC BECAUSE JAZZ MUSIC doesnt resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didnt resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

In America, the first generation out of slavery
invented jazz music. It is a free-form expression.
It comes from the soul, and it is true.

I ONCE LISTENED TO AN INDIAN ON TELEVISION say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze. I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face.

My father left my home when I was young, so when I was introduced to the concept of God as Father I imagined Him as a stiff, oily man who wanted to move into our house and share a bed with my mother. I can only remember this as a frightful and threatening idea. We were a poor family who attended a wealthy church, so I imagined God as a man who had a lot of money and drove a big car. At church they told us we were children of God, but I knew Gods family was better than mine, that He had a daughter who was a cheerleader and a son who played football. I was born with a small bladder so I wet the bed till I was ten and later developed a crush on the homecoming queen who was kind to me in a political sort of way, which is something she probably learned from her father, who was the president of a bank. And so from the beginning, the chasm that separated me from God was as deep as wealth and as wide as fashion.

In Houston, where I grew up, the only change in the weather came in late October when cold is sent down from Canada. Weathermen in Dallas would call weathermen in Houston so people knew to bring their plants in and watch after their dogs. The cold came down the interstate, tall and blue, and made reflections in the mirrored windows of large buildings, moving over the Gulf of Mexico as if to prove that sky holds magnitude over water. In Houston, in October, everybody walks around with a certain energy as if they are going to be elected president the next day, as if they are going to get married.

In the winter it was easier for me to believe in God, and I suppose it had to do with new weather, with the color of leaves clinging to trees, with the smoke in the fireplaces of big houses in opulent neighborhoods where I would ride my bike. I half believed that if God lived in one of those neighborhoods, He would invite me in, make me a hot chocolate, and talk to me while His kids played Nintendo and stabbed dirty looks over their shoulders. I would ride around those neighborhoods until my nose froze, then back home where I closed myself off in my room, put on an Al Green record, and threw open the windows to feel the cold. I would stretch across my bed for hours and imagine life in a big house, visited by important friends who rode new bikes, whose fathers had expensive haircuts and were interviewed on the news.