“Blue Like Jazz,” by Donald Miller

I was warned when I bought this book that its free-flowing, stream of consciousness style might throw me off. I was told that I may want to talk it over with someone because I might find its contents unsettling, and that I might not make it through it because I might disagree so strongly with what it said.

Yes, it threw me off…..but only in the best of ways.

Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller, was incredible. I loved it. It is definitely written in a disjointed style, clearly flowing straight from someone’s thoughts rather than from a defined outline. It is bold and honest and real. It is refreshing.

In an extremely honest way, Donald Miller writes about his own journey to the Christian faith and his experiences with others who were exploring the possibility of giving their lives to the Lord. He writes about their struggles with the church (in a chapter called “Church: How I Go Without Getting Angry”) and about the struggle of becoming a part of a community of believers (in Chapter 15, entitled “Community: Living With Freaks”).

It is brilliant, and honestly, it was what I needed. I live a pretty sheltered life, wrapped in the comfortable company of other Christians. Blue Like Jazz reminded me of a time in my life when I, too, was a foreigner to the concepts I now consider home, and when I, too, struggled with what it might mean to give my life away. It reminded me of people I have known who were struggling with these ideas, too, and who probably are still struggling because I resolved the struggle in my own life and – shamefully – lost touch with those who no longer had much in common with me.

The book reminded me of an element of my life that is missing: relationships with those who do not believe. It reminded me of what I have in my relationship with the Lord and forced me to consider where I might be if I had never been enveloped by grace.

It was a phenomenal read, and I highly recommend it….but only if you are ready to be thrown off and unsettled and rattled.

Encapsulated

I’ve been thinking for several days about how I can make some philosophical analysis of my daughter’s obsession with the weeds and dandelions in our yard. I’ve weighed the options and have come up with a number of possibilities, one of which will inevitably win out and become the topic of an upcoming post.

For now, though, I simply just want to relish it. It’s precious. It’s sweet. And it is childhood in a nutshell.

The Sea of Humanity

The tragedy in Japan has touched my heart. I cannot grasp what the people there are enduring, and I stare in amazement at the images onscreen. But really………………do I care?

Do I really? Am I praying, and am I weeping for them, and am I doing something – anything?

I must confess that I am not….and God is working with me on it. He is showing me my own heart, which is as painful to look at as some of the sights and scenes we have all seen on the news lately. My own heart, too, is broken….beaten…..dark and dismal. Hopeless, but for the grace of One who can redeem anything.

Yesterday I saw this image on a friend’s blog:

A woman amidst wreckage. Wrapped in a blanket for warmth and, I’m sure, for comfort. For the feeling of having someone’s arms wrapped around her – a hug in solitude. Her vacant eyes survey the scene, wondering perhaps who has survived, who has not, and how any of them will go on.

I saw the picture and winced at the heartache. And then I moved on. I forgot about it.

It is very, very hard for me to admit this, but I feel it is a confession that needs to be made. Perhaps you, in the most honest part of your heart, can relate to this.

I saw the face of a woman in tragedy, but did not connect with her. I did not let her suffering become real to me, and I did not let her pain become my own. I didn’t know why until last night, when God confronted me about my heart in the firm and gentle way that only He can do. He told me why I felt a disconnect and convicted me of something I didn’t know I had inside me.

I was not becoming a part of the tragedy in Japan because….this is shameful for me to say….the people I saw in the images on TV and on my computer did not look like me.

They do not look like me, so I could not put myself in their place and really become a part of what they are going through. I have been sad for them, of course, and have felt the chill up my spine when I see the scale of destruction. But somehow there has still been a disconnect, and somehow I still have not stepped up to weep with them and make it real in my own heart and in my own life.

As I realized that last night, my eyes filled with tears and I begged the Lord to show me that it wasn’t true. That I did not have something that ugly inside of me. That in spite of my cultural education and exposure to people of the world I did not still have something that raw and fleshly inside my heart. That the judgmentalism of human nature has not somehow won out over all my efforts to see people for who they are.

My eyes filled with tears and I could not sleep, thinking about what had been revealed to me inside my own heart. It was as ugly as anything I had ever seen, and I haven’t yet recovered from the image.

As I lay in the darkness, trying to erase the harsh thoughts from my head, the Lord spoke gently to me about what He had shown me.

“Jess,” He said, “now you can see. Humanity is bigger than what you look like.”

Humanity is an experience. It is a shared existence on this planet we call home, and a coexisting as we drift through the world. Humanity is pain and heartbreak and tears and anger, and it is joy and elation and love and peace. Humanity is ugly and beautiful, scary and intriguing, exhausting and energizing. It is the experience of eternal souls living inside human bodies, wandering a foreign world, breathing air and drinking water and trying to make it for as long as we can before we can go home.

Humanity is not about what we look like or where we live or what we do. Humanity is not about skin tone or eye shape or hair texture. Humanity is about more than that, and I’ve still somehow been missing it.

If I had seen it for what it really is, I would have felt more and would have done something. If I had understood humanity for what it is, I would see no one as being so different that their struggle cannot become my own. I would relate to everyone as a fellow human, wandering this world as a lost traveler, looking for something without knowing what it is until we find it. I would see everyone the way Jesus does, and would never impose anything but love on that image.

Jesus, though, doesn’t see things the way we do, and for that I’ve never been so grateful.

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

What if He did see things the way we do? What if Jesus – from His vantage point in heaven – had looked down on us and felt disconnected? What if He had seen us struggling, floundering like fish out of water, fighting with all we had just to survive, and thought, “Wow. That’s sad.” What if He had moved on, forgetting about the images He had seen and continuing in His comfort? What if He saw our sadness but refused to relate, seeing people who looked nothing like Himself and whose experience of life was nothing like His own? What if He had stayed away, doing nothing, because we were different from Him?

He would never have come. He wouldn’t have stepped into our world, feeling our pain and crying our tears, walking dusty roads and sweating in the hot afternoon sun alongside other weary travelers. He wouldn’t have come to save us, but would have done nothing.

And where would we be?

Where would I be? It is painful to look at my heart and see the darkness still lingering there…but it is more painful still to think of what I would be without Him. I’m a long way from being like Him….but He’s not finished with me yet. Thankfully, He still doesn’t see what I see when I look at myself…but He sees what could be.

“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Hebrews 2:6)

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Framework Rebuilt

When I was little, my family would joke that I had something to worry about for every day of the week. I protested their claims with all my heart, but inside, I knew they were right.

On Sundays, I worried about my piano lesson on Monday night.

Monday I would begin worrying about something at school the next day.

Tuesdays, I would worry about church on Wednesday night….

On and on. Every day. If I didn’t have a legitimate concern to worry about, I would create one. I was good at that, and was a champion of creating a mountain out of the proverbial mole hill.

What’s more, I had another framework within which my life operated. Early in my elementary years, I developed a system of predicting, as it were, what kind of day I would have. Simply put, my days would alternate: good day, bad day, good day, bad day, and so on. If today were remarkably (or even slightly) good, tomorrow would, of course, be a bad one. I believed that to the extent that I created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Within that framework, mildly aggravating things were interpreted as further proof that my day was bad, and good things were sometimes overlooked because it wasn’t supposed to be a good day. Good days, too, were not as appreciated and enjoyed as they should have been because I was dreading with certainty the bad day that would follow.

It was a sad way for a child to live, but it was a way for me to make sense of my world. It seemed to work for me, so I kept doing it.

As an adult, I no longer see the world in such black and white terms, but I do, I think, have a similar way of seeing my life. In good times, when things seem to be working out and I can feel without a doubt that I am where I am supposed to be, I can’t help but wonder what is coming.

“Things can’t be this good forever,” I think. “What is going to be the tragedy that ruins this bright spot? What is going to pull me down again?”

I sit and ponder the goodness of my life, looking for what might be my downfall. I contemplate the blessings of today while anticipating, in a very real way, that something bad is about to happen. I reason with myself that really, things have always been pretty good for me and that it only makes sense that something – something – bad would be coming to me. Jesus’ words echo in my mind:

“In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)

What I fail to quote to myself, though, is the rest of the Lord’s message to me. Conveniently, I seem to forget that He went on to say,

“…but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

The framework of my life requires that I omit passages like that. A framework of worry and doubt and fear does not allow messages of peace and of “taking heart.” No…..it is too convenient to forget those things and settle further into a lifestyle of worry. The framework is uncomfortable, but it is functioning. In discomfort, I merely survive. It is unsettling, but it is familiar.

I recognize this tension, though, and I see how this is not the way that Christ desires for me to live. I see that I am far from the life of peace to which I am called, and I see that something needs to change. If Jesus has overcome the world and everything in it, there is a clear disconnect between His teachings and my life. Fear does not indicate that anything has been overcome, but that something – someone – has been overtaken. What I must remember is that Jesus also told us this:

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33)

I’m challenging myself to rebuild the framework upon which my view of life was built. Constant fear…..worry…..dread…. I recognize the patterns, and I know for a fact that there is more to life. It has been promised to me, and I am in hot pursuit of it. There is more to life, and though it may take years of steady restructuring of everything I know, I will pursue it. There is more, and I want all that He has to give me.

The Eye Of The Beholder

Recently my husband and I stumbled on our first ever episode of “The Antiques Roadshow.” The show on PBS is part adventure, part history lesson, and part treasure hunt, as their website states, and offers free appraisals of antiques and collectibles as it travels around the country. I had heard about the show a lot and was intrigued, as it seemed like it would be kind of like perusing an antique shop in my pajamas, but had never hunted it out to try to watch it. When we saw it was on, we were captivated – even my husband, who loves a good deal as much as the next guy but isn’t so much all about wandering around antique stores when you don’t even know what you’re looking for.

As we watched, we saw a woman appear with a porcelain figurine dating back several decades that, according to the appraisers, would be worth several thousand dollars if it were to go to auction. When we heard the item’s worth, my husband and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, and shrugged. To look at it, the little statue of Mickey Mouse didn’t look like much. (To be honest, it was a little bit scary to look at.) The woman, though, had suspected it to be worth something and had kept it around in hopes of cashing in one day; the appraiser, too, saw something in the figure that I did not. Both carefully eyed the character, admiring its detail and carefully pointing out its intricacies that set it apart from other similar statues. Clearly, to the two of them – if to no one else in the room – the statue was valuable.

To us, though, it still looked like any old figure of Mickey Mouse. I even said to my husband, “Well, it’s great that it’s theoretically worth that much……but it’s still technically worthless until someone is willing to pay that much for it. It’s only worth what someone will pay.”

As I often do, I fell silent after those words left my mouth, because I realized suddenly the poignant truth of what I had just said. That statement isn’t only true for ceramic Disney figures or other dusty treasures unearthed from basements around the country. No, that statement is true of everything……..even myself.

How often have I seen myself as worthless? Worse, how often have I heard the words of others…seen their sideways glances or felt their neglect…and taken their evaluation of myself to heart? How often have I allowed someone other than the One who created me to tell me who I am and what I am worth?

I am not alone in this, I fear.

Someone says a harsh word in anger or fatigue. Another, in a rush and concerned for their own schedule, rushes by without paying much attention. Someone else is careless with our emotions and clumsy with our hearts. The message we receive in those moments is not one declaring our worth, but one declaring our banality and ordinariness. “You are nothing special,” they seem to say, and we – having heard it all before – are too willing to believe it.

But then….then someone comes along to knows our value. Someone who sees us for who we are and recognizes the value in what He sees. Someone who remembers crafting us…remembers knitting us together….remembers the dreams and plans He had for us…and He places a different price tag on us.

“You,” He seems to say, “are worth everything. I will give all I have to give for you. You are worth it.”

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

He steps in, offering His very life as the purchase price for our life. He willingly trades His own life for ours, with a love that sees deep into our hearts and far beyond anything the human eye can perceive. As an antiques appraiser becomes excited when he looks at something rare and valuable, so the Lord is excited when He looks at us.

“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

We may look at ourselves and see the flaws. The scratches on our character and the marks on our records. The smudges and tears. The rips and dings. The marks of a heart well-worn and badly used. We aren’t what we once were, perhaps, or aren’t what we feel we should be today.

Those flaws may be all too apparent to those around us, as well. An untrained shopper in an antique shop sees only dust and grime and tarnish, the results of too many years of wear and tear and neglect in darkened corners of someone’s house. The people in our lives, too, may see our imperfections and our weaknesses and our failure to measure up. They see our outside, but oh…..He is the only One who really sees our inside. He sees it…loves it…and declares it priceless. He picks us up, drags us out of the dark hiding places of our lives, and says, “This. This is what I’ve been looking for. She is perfect, and I will make her mine. I have big plans for this one.”

He takes us out of the darkness and, in the pure light of life with Him, reveals what no one else could see.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people purchased by and belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

He sees us and loves what He sees. He knows our real worth, and is willing to pay the price. We are worth it because He says we are.

Who will we believe? Who will you choose to believe?

“You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of human beings.” (1 Corinthians 7:23)