I just recently finished Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, and in the last pages there was a question that was interesting. I’ll get to that in a second, but first a comment or two for those that haven’t read this book.
If you get a chance, Blue Like Jazz is worth “giving a go” (as they say here in Australia). If you are thinking “not practical enough”, ok you are right. If it’s not theological enough, this is probably true too. But, the purpose to pick this one up (it’s a quick read, unless your heart really gets caught up in reflecting on what is going on in your life) is because I think that Miller is earthing out some thoughts/feelings that are often in my head/heart (and possibly yours too) that are often too hard to vocalize. If you think that you won’t get ANYTHING out of this, you than are probably one who needs to read it, and let yourself at least listen to the voice of a man that I think is opening up with some interesting thoughts.
So, as for this question. In the last chapter Miller wraps things up in a few ways (though I don’t know if all of his lose ends are tied-up here). Don, as I have been calling him the last few days, explains the idea of the Christian Spirituality being like Jazz, it is something we feel. While, I am not totally sold on the analogy and still processing through it (there is a whole lot of fact and thought in our faith as well), I must admit that there is a whole lot of feeling in our faith that we often don’t think about. Things like love, isolation (emotionally and physically); faith, church, etc. are all things that emotionally I don’t know that I check in with enough. Or with these emotions, as I did a lot of learning last summer, and as see Don pointing out a lot, we oppress them often with our minds. I’m not talking about getting rid of fact, but when we have a strong emotion towards something does our mind say “that’s bad, shameful, embarrassing, don’t talk about it, and for sure don’t embrace it!” That can often be the case for me. So that’s where Don’s other wrap-up, his question got me to really think.
The very last paragraph of the book, Don asks the question: “What song will you sing when your soul gets set free?” There is a lot of the book that needs to be read in order to fully understand this question. Much of it has to do with Jazz and how he and his friends are all singing a song, not the same exact song, but songs that are about knowing Jesus. But it has really made me ask a further question, a question that I want to be honest in, not artificial, not superficial, and one that will at some points sound like the blues. The question is: What is the song my soul from Jesus, what is it singing right now? Often times I go though the hours of the day, and I don’t even think about this. I need to; hopefully tomorrow this question will resound in me that I might look to my heart for the answer.
What about you? What is the song in your soul from Jesus, what is it singing right now?
