Excerpts From Blue Like Jazz

I just started reading Blue Like Jazz written by Don Miller. It came highly recommended from a very good friend of mine, so I thought I would pick it up - I've only gotten through 2 chapters, and so far it's a good read. He brilliantly weaves his life experiences with spiritual concepts that makes me want to keep on reading. Here are a few short excerpts that really stuck out to me:

"I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil, but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God."

"I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything. This is the hardest principle within Christian spirituality for me to deal with. The problem is not out there; the problem is the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest."

"There is a poem by the literary critic C.S. Lewis that is more or less a confession...I always come back to this poem when I think soberly about my faith, about the general precepts of Christian spirituality, the beautiful precepts that indicate we are flawed, all of us are flawed, the corrupt politician and the pious Sunday school teacher. In the poem C.S. Lewis faces himself. He addresses his own depravity with a soulful sort of bravery:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

I talk about love, forgiveness, social justice; I rage against American materialism in name of altruism, but have I even controlled my own heart? The overwhelming majority of time I spend thinking about myself, pleasing myself, reassuring myself, and when I am done there is nothing to spare for the needy. Six billion people live in this world, and I can only muster thoughts for one. Me."

I guess if you're not one for raw honesty, the book will probably make you feel a little uncomfortable, which wouldn't be such a bad thing. I'm learning that staying within your comfort zones doesn't really get you anywhere - or as Miller puts it, "habit prevents your heart from engaging God."