Community: Living with Freaks

An excerpt from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

Who among us hasn’t experienced the heady exhilaration, reassuring comfort, and erupting frustrations of living with others? Author Donald Miller vividly describes this common experience—from the hilarious extremes to the sobering realities—in his book Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. Through laughter and pangs of self-recognition, we find that our own awareness is expanded by Miller’s insights about community and faith.

A popular national speaker, Miller admits he used to “not like God” because God, like jazz music, “didn’t resolve.” When he saw a street musician playing the saxophone with unreserved affection, he realized suddenly that “sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.” The book chronicles his developing faith and relationship with God. Sharing these experiences with Messiah College students in April, Miller generated animated campus dialogue, which continues in the faculty and students’ responses that accompany the following excerpt from his book.

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