Featured Blog: What Happens When You Stop Running

Don Miller's been one of my favorite writers since my sophomore year of college when I first read Blue Like Jazz at the prodding of a close friend. I've read every one of his books since, and I follow his blog. Last year Nate and I drove to Colorado Springs one afternoon after school to hear him speak. This summer we road tripped to Portland (where he lives) and visited the pub he writes about in his book (The Horse Brass Pub) and attended a church service at the church he helped plant--Imago Dei in downtown Portland. Some might say I'm obsessed. But I can't help it. He's earnest, witty, pragmatic, and not super preachy. So, I'm featuring his blog tonight--in particular, the post he put up today called What Happens When You Stop Running.

A lot of his stuff sticks with me, but this one really hit home with me today. I don't like confrontation (who does?!). When hard times come, I tend to act like I don't care and then fill my life with a million things in order to keep my mind busy so I don't have to deal with the difficult things. Eventually though---I crash. The crashing isn't the worst part. Actually what's worse is surveying the damage (like Don mentions in his post) after the crash. The end of a year tends to make a person reflective, and lately I can't help but reflect on the damage I've caused to my relationships with friends, family, and my husband. I feel like I've been sitting on broken glass staring at mangled steel for the last few weeks. Honestly, I don't even know how to begin to clean this mess. I just know I have to get up off the glass shards because they hurt too much.

Creating great stories

In a nutshell, "A Million Miles In a Thousand Years" (AMMIaTY) is a book about Donald Miller working to turn his life into a great story. Early in the book he is contacted by two filmmakers to create a film about his life based on his book "Blue Like Jazz." So throughout AMMIaTY Don and two movie guys work on writing a script about Don's life. Don discovers that a movie is essentially a good story and that his life as it was would not create a good story...changes had to be made in order for it to be a good story--to make a good movie. He discovers "...if story is just life without the meaningless scenes--I wondered if life could be lived more like a good story in the first place. I wondered if whether a person could plan a story for his life and live it intentionally" (39). So as he writes, he discovers a little about what it takes for a story to be memorable and then transfers that to his life. As he starts living more deliberately in order to create a good story he meets fascinating and beautiful people along the way, hikes the Inca Trail, meets his father for the first time since his parents separated years ago, discovers old friendships, rides his bike across America, begins an organization called The Mentoring Project, etc. and then records his thoughts and experiences in this book.

AMMIaTY really set my mind in motion. I began thinking about my life and the story I'm telling. To tell you the truth, it's not very fascinating or fruitful. And I'm not just saying this to receive pity. I have not led a deliberate life for a long time. It seems that since I've grown older I've just gone through the motions...Don writes:

"We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren't capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake slowly to everything. Your brain doesn't stop growing until you turn twenty-six, God is slowly turning the lights on, and you're groggy and pointing at things saying circle and blue and car and then sex and job and health care. The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given--it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral" (58).

"If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you" (59).

Beautiful words, right? I guess what I'm trying to spit out is that I'm going to try hard to live life more deliberately. I'm going to play my guitar more, serve others more, read more, travel more, smile more, be more spontaneous. I'm going to try and acknowledge the gifts God has given me. I'm not doing all of this because some author who wrote a book is telling me to, but because I think this is what God wants His people to do with the lives He's given us. I don't have God figured out, but I do think He wants us to create memorable and great stories with our lives....and to do this, I need to make some changes in order to create a memorable story.

Thoughts on "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"

On our way home from our Christmas travels, Nate and I did some browsing through the mall in Kearney. The Waldenbooks there is going out of business (sad stuff!), so of course we both felt obligated to stop and check out the sales :) Turns out, I actually found a book I'd been wanting since its release in September: "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by my favorite author, Donald Miller. Don (I call him by his first name because after reading his books, I feel like we are old friends) is an honest, simple, funny, and compelling writer. His book "Blue Like Jazz" changed the way I think about Christianity. In fact, (other than "Travels With Charley") it's the only book that I've read more than once! I even have the audio book...he's a fantastic writer. I recommend him to anyone...even non-readers. So I was ecstatic to find Don's new book. The next night, I brewed a pot of coffee, curled up on our loveseat, and read the entire book in about two hours. Typically I am a slow and meticulous reader, but this book consumed me and I could not put it down.

Yeseterday afternoon my mind wandered back to the book, so I decided to go back through it and examine the parts that I underlined. Soon I found myself sitting at our computer desk, explicating several excerpts of his book. So, I hope to create several posts that include a quote from his book and then my thoughts on that particular quote. I just think it's such a great book that deserves to be shared. Stay tuned!

P.S. If you get a chance, check out Don's blog.