Flatline

I searched a week for something to post about chapters 13-15. I found nothing, so I'm throwing in the towel. For me, these chapters were too much about Miller's own personal experiences and he consequently lost me for an audience. Thanks, Amy, for giving me something to comment on.

BLUE LIKE JAZZ Week Five

My favorite part of this week's reading was the discussion about love. I especially enjoyed what Paul says about love in Chapter 13.

"I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people....that is why God tells us so many times to love each other."

What a great idea! This was a nice segue into Chapter 14 on being alone. When I was studying philosophy in college, I remember talking about Fichte. Fichte wrote about how we need other people to interact with in order to create our sense of self and "otherness." If we don't have that, we go insane. We need other people to be our mirrors. So many times we have heard that you can't be in a relationship with someone else until you love yourself. I think that's true. But it is also clear that we need each other. We learn so much about ourselves from interacting with other people.

I didn't enjoy Chapter 15 as much but I understood where Don is coming from. Being an only child, I am used to having my own space. I have always found it difficult to live with people. I really worried that I wouldn't be cut out for married life but it has been surprisingly easy to live with my husband. What a surprise! I guess he makes a good "mirror" for me.

Belief and Grace

Chapter ten made me reconsider the idea of grace. As Miller described his own struggles in becoming what it takes to be a "good Christian", what he would die for, and his admiration of his friends Penny and Andrew for their own passion about particular causes, I thought about my own beliefs.

I realized after reading this chapter that the word "belief" has never held much weight with me. What do I believe in? Well, I believe that I am typing this blog post, I believe that the sun is shining today, I believe that I have a long list of "to dos" that I must take care of this week.

But the word "compel" is another matter. To think about things that are compelling to me opens up a whole new universe for me. What do I find compelling? That means I'm powerfully attracted to them. When I think of things that are good, noble, and even extraordinary, I still may not find them compelling. To me, that is.

For example, when I think of becoming a tutor or a Big Brother, I think, 'Wow, those are great ways to spend one's time and make a difference.' But I will never do them. I have no interest in doing those things. So I ask myself why that is. Am I lazy? Am I selfish? Perhaps, but it may also because God wants me to do something else.

When I turned 41 last month, I had a realization. All my struggles and trials have led me somewhere. It's probable that, for the remainder of my life, I'll more or less be the kind of person I am today. It's not all the fireworks I thought it would be and I've certainly made some decisions and blunders that will color the rest of my days, but my life is not bad. I'm essentially a good person who is dedicated to learning about and appreciating life's mysteries. I will do some good things before I'm done.

I'm OK with all of that. I believe that I have accepted God's grace.

So, I guess I do have one real belief.

BLUE LIKE JAZZ Week Four

I really like this quotation from Chapter 10:

"The problem with Christian belief...is that it is not a fashionable thing to believe."

Donald is right. We all want to be fashionable and cool deep down. This can create a lot of pressure for some of us Christians when challenged by "cool" non-Christians. It just isn't trendy to be a young Christian. But I really like the delineation that Donald draws between "Christianity" and "Jesus." We often get so caught up in the religous aspects of Christianity and its labels that we lose sight of the message. I like how Donald describes himself as a follower of Jesus rather than the loaded term "Christian." I especially love the confession booth that Donald and his friend set up. What a wonderful idea!

Although I found Chapter 12 a bit preachy, I can empathize with Donald's search for a church. It is important to find a place of worship that feels relevant and authentic. I have mentioned many times how I feel angry that Republications and conservatives have co-opted Jesus for their own agendas and political purposes. Although I am a Democrat, I don't see either side as being "Christian." As Donald pointed out, "what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do." I don't believe religion has a place in politics.

I have always been uncomfortable with the modernization of the church today. I get squirmy when I see people wear jeans to church and carry their Starbucks into the sanctuary. I cringe when the rock band starts playing Christian music during the service and when I see "Jesus Jams" aimed at teens. Is it all really necessary? Part of me likes the fact that these trendy touches speak to some people and bring them into the church. At the same time, it feels overdone. I think the methods used by Donald's church are so much more to the point. We all know the church must change or die. But we need to be careful about what changes and incentives that we implement just to get people in the door.

A Stake In The Sand

Tonight I went for a long walk. I thought about Don's struggle at the end of Chapter 9, Amy's disillusionment with Christianity when she was a teenager, and the passage from Kings. I thought about the spiritual irritation I feel so much of the time. I realized then that I was only thinking about my irritation. I did not feel any irritation as I walked the quiet, dark streets in my neighborhood. In fact, I was at peace.

In an earlier chapter, Don talked about the times when his faith came easily. At one point, he was reading his Bible regularly and even marveled during one reading session about how easily God had come to him and how good he was feeling. He wondered why it couldn't always be that way - why those good times with God and his faith so often slipped away. Sure enough, a few months later Don was back in a funk and doing things he wasn't particularly proud of and felt bad about.

I contemplated this same thing tonight. Why on some (rare) occasions my spirit just soars, or I at least feel contentment. The times when I don't have to hunt, dig, or beg for it to come.

Life is a funny thing. Sometimes we just have to let our hair down and let all of those bad things loose. Those "bad" things may even be quite fun. It is how I think about that passage from Kings. If all was still all the time, maybe we couldn't hear that quiet voice. Maybe the ruckus helps us to find the light.

BLUE LIKE JAZZ Week Three

So, I have two ideas about myself as a Christian that I'd like to share with you:

1) I am a lunatic.

OR

2) I am a Christian dilettante.

Sometimes I wonder if non-Christians aren't right. Am I really a crazy person who walks around believing in a myth? What the heck is wrong with me? Why not just give up on the idea of God and live my life however I want to with no rules and no guidelines? It makes me think of what C.S. Lewis said in MERE CHRISTIANITY about how you can't say that you are a follower of Jesus' teachings but that you don't believe He was divine. If Jesus walked around saying he was God and really wasn't, then he was nuts. And who wants to be a follower of a crazy person? There are days when I think about Christianity and I say to myself that I must be out of mind to believe in something that is so illogical and self-contradictory. Some Christians throughuot my life have told me that it is evil to have doubts about your faith. I disagree. I think asking questions and facing your doubts makes your faith stronger. We need to be challenged in our beliefs. It is a chance to exercise our faith muscles and remember why we decided to believe this crazy stuff in the first place.

The other thought about myself as Christian is similar to what Don discussed in Chapter 9. It can be really easy to be a Christian on the outside. You can wear a cross and carry your bible around and use all the right lingo. You can be "an infomercial for God." But after awhile, that feels fake.

When I was about 14 years old, I decided to start attending church again. I got really into it and even attended a Dawson McAllister conference with other kids from my church. I decided to only read Christian books and listen to Christian music. I tried really hard to fit in with my fellow Christian teenagers. Being painfully shy, this was tough. But I made a real effort to say all the right stuff like "peace be with you." One day, we were talking about school and one girl said that she was already taking Calculus. Since I have never been a math person, I was really impressed and said "Oh my god!" Suddenly, everyone got quiet and this one guy looked really pissed. I had said the Lord's name in vain. They walked away from me and I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never be Christian enough for these people. I would make mistakes and I wouldn't always get the lingo right or wear the right clothes or listen to the right music. Even Christians have their cliques and ridiculous rules for fitting in. I didn't attend church again until I went to college.

You can walk the walk and talk the talk but unless you are actively working on your relationship with God and trying to live your life in a spiritual way, it means nothing. And that can be tough. I want it to be easy. I don't want to have to work on my faith. I want to go church and simply say "I'm a Christian" and "Peace be with you" and have it be enough. But it's not.

Life's Best Moments

Amy, you covered so much ground in your last post that I, too, I had thought about and went over. I'm not sure now where to start except to share with you how I've experienced Jazz on a personal level.

One thing I've noticed as I read the book is that I often roll my eyes and mutter to myself, "Oh, please..." When I initially read about Laura's struggle with God and faith, I wasn't very generous or forgiving. I unconsciously told Laura to get over herself and for Don to stop indulging Laura. I couldn't stand reading certain sections and because I thought all of it was over the top.

But that was yesterday and this is today. As I write this, I am thinking about about how messy my own life is. It takes a lot of courage to decide to make yourself vulnerable and expose thoughts and feelings that you might later regret, even years afterward. There have been many times when I've done similar things and I hope that the people who saw and/or heard what I did will cut me some slack (preferably a LOT of slack).

The fact is that I'm uncomfortable with exposing myself and I'm uncomfortable with others doing the same. I seek to live on an even keel because it's easier and there's less crap to deal with.

So, I wonder why those times come up when I feel compelled to open up and say or do something that seems completely irrational and with little chance of any payoff? The reason I do it is because those are the times in which I see an opportunity to become closer to a person. We all have relationships in which we know people, but yet we don't really know them. If we're lucky, we might encounter a few people who we truly get to know. Those are the ones we might love, crap and all.

I know I would love to get a note like the one Laura gave to Don at the end of chapter five. Those are the moments in which our souls grow. Those are the times in which we feel most alive.