but my favorite food is pancakes...

I read Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller over winter break. I was also listening to his newest work, A Thousand Miles in a Million Years as an audiobook. This post, however, will deal mostly with Blue Like Jazz.

I like reading books about religion and society. The subtitle of Blue Like Jazz is "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality." This seems like a misnomer. The book is almost entirely devoted to religious thought on Christian spirituality, in mostly an evangelical sense. There were parts of the book that I liked and other aspects that I could have done without.

An excerpt:



"I think Laura was looking for something rational, because she believed that all things that were true were rational. But that isn't the case. Love, for example, is a true emotion, but it's not rational. What I mean is, people actually feel it. Love cannot be proven scientifically. Neither can beauty. Light cannot be proved scientifically, and yet we all believe in light and by light see all things. There are plenty of things that are true that don't make any sense. I think one of the problems Laura was having was that she wanted God to make sense. He doesn't. He will make no more sense to me than I will make sense to an ant."

I like the whole idea of accepting things that can't necessarily be proven scientifically. Belief in various ideas and concepts is very difficult for me. I like to understand the rationale and logic behind ideas. I like "proof." Many people believe that religion is pitted against intellectualism, because people that believe in God cannot "prove" his existence. And yet there are other things, such as beauty and love, that we cannot prove, justify, or quantify. Hence the metaphysical poets (we are studying Donne in Brit Lit right now).

Miller's newest book, A Thousand Miles in a Million Years, is more my style and I highly recommend it. It is more of a "why am I here and why does it matter" type of book. In one memoir, he addresses religion, the Tour de France, living life as a story, cancer, riding a bike across the country, and consciousness. He does a pretty good job, in my opinion. I haven't read his arguably most famous book, Searching for God Knows What, but I plan on reading it fairly soon.

Miller, on love and acceptance in Blue Like Jazz:

"I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you..."

happiness is...

"My search is over. I've logged tens of thousands of miles. I endured the noon darkness of Iceland and the solid heat of Qatar, the persnickety functionality of Switzerland and the utter unpredictability of India. I survived a coup lite, savored minor breakthroughs, and mourned the loss of a Ridiculously Expensive Pen. I may have saved the life of one dumb bug. I smoked Moroccan hash and ate rotten shark. I even quit coffee, for awhile."

The above quotation is from the epilogue of Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World. The major premise is that Weiner, an international correspondent for NPR, travels to roughly twelve countries to see what makes people happy or unhappy. He has some surprising and enlightening results, which he outlines in his epilogue (below):


"I am no philosopher, so here goes: Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude."

The first chapter was a little slow-going. However, after the chapter on the Netherlands, the book became very interesting. My favorite chapters included happiness (or unhappiness) in Bhutan, Qatar, and Iceland.  Moldova, one of the unhappiest countries in the world, is missing key elements that make other countries happy, such as trust, and gratitude (the only good thing about Moldova, according to a Peace Corps volunteer, is the fresh fruits and vegetables). The rampant envy and corruption also make people unhappy. In Iceland, failure brings happiness. In Qatar, happiness is "a winning lottery ticket." Overall, it is a funny book and one of my favorites from 2009.

The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner
Published by Twelve.