Blue Like Jazz is a funny, hip memoir of one man's spiritual journey. The subtitle for the book is "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality." That's not especially true. Donald is clearly a very religious man, and as such he can't seem to unrelate Christian spirituality in his own life. I'm fine with this - to me this book is more of his spiritual journey and the things he learned and un-learned about faith over the course of his life. It is not, as some non-Christian reviewers would have you believe, a preachy sermon about why Church is the best thing ever, ever, ever! And if you're not with us you're against us! Nope. Incorrect. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. If that is your first thoughts when the topics Church and Faith and Christianity is brought up, back away slowly. You've clearly made up your mind, and nothing is going to change it.
It's a memoir. This isn't going to be filed away anywhere under "memoir" but that's what it is. Don has some interesting and sometimes faulty revelations. Nothing in this book is supposed to dictate how you should live your faith - whatever your faith may be. But his reflections are always, well, enlightening. The thing about Donald is that he isn't perfect, and I'm so glad that this book isn't another one of those Christian books about how you neeed to live your life if you want to be a good Christian. Because those are boring and actually preachy and often times hypocritical. Don doesn't approach topics that way. It's really more of a "I always felt this way, but now that I think about it, that wasn't really right." And as it turns out, we all kind of think that way some time or another. It's good to have it pointed out to us. Don couldn't tell you how you're supposed to live and think as a Christian - because the truth of the matter is, he's still trying to figure it out for himself. And that is why his book is a memoir on his spiritual journey.
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