Blue Like Jazz

My 2010 reading has been slowed a bit by last-minute wedding details, lots of grading that demands my attention, and one class that is decidedly not going well for either me or my students.

As I've been struggling with this derailing class, I've also been reading a wonderful book that was loaned to me by the minister who is going to marry us in a few weeks. It's called Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, and the author's name is Donald Miller. I've just finished it.


The author's note, which appears at the beginning of the book, introduces the text far better than I can. It reads:

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man play 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 didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

There are many things I appreciate about this book, but I'll mention just one. Miller tells a lot of stories from his life in the pages of this book, and he often sketches the connections between those incidents and the points he is trying to make. Other times, however, he merely tells the stories and nods in the direction of the conclusions that might be drawn.

I really like this writing style. I try to teach students in my writing classes to do this in their personal narrative assignments. Make sure you've written about something worthwhile, I tell them, but don't smack your readers over the head with the moral of your story. If you've told your story well, they'll figure it out.


my 2010 reading recap:
8. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
7. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
6. An Acceptable Time by Madeline L'Engle
5. Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle
4. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L'Engle
3. A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle
2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
1. The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett