Writing good stories.

I just finished reading a fantastic book. It was so good that I think I may read it again starting after I post. :) I will give you three guesses as to who you think is the author of this great book.

a) Danielle Steel (that's for Heidi)
b) Clive Cussler (that's for Nate)
c) Donald Miller

Obviously the answer is c Donald Miller. I had the privilege of hearing him speak about his new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and thankfully I have friends that actually bought the book and let me borrow it. :) The book talks all about how we are all writing a story. Don says that one time he watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked his whole life to get it, and at the end of the movie everyone in the audience cries because the guy gets the Volvo. The whole point is not that he gets a car - but that he went through conflict to get it. And ultimately the guy's character is changed by it. He is living a better story because he had to go through all the conflict to get the car. Had the guy just gotten the car without any hardship, it wouldn't be a meaningful story. Don Miller says he wanted to live a better story. He didn't want to just exist, he wanted to live a life worthy of something. So, Don decided to join a group of people and bike across the United States to raise money for clean water in Africa.

One thing I love about Donald Miller is that he's so incredibly real and honest in his writing. He is transparent to his readers. He doesn't shy away from the truths about his own shortcomings. Don was just a normal guy who liked to sit on the couch with a bowl of ice cream and watch Oprah every day. But then he decided to live a better story, and so he started working out, and eventually biked across America - for a good cause! Read the book. It is a good one.

Speaking of books, my good friend Jenny gave me a great idea. Jenny just got married last March to a really cool guy named Rich. (He owns his own bike shop! So cool!) Anyway, before they got married, they gave each other a few books that they really wanted the other person to read, because something in those books affected who they are as people. Jenny put it this way, "Read these books so you can understand who I am." I love that. I told Aaron about that idea, and he thinks it is also a fantastic plan. The first book I want Aaron to read is, not surprisingly, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I have friends that didn't like this book at all. They think Don is way too liberal and out there for them. I disagree. I like the fact that Don can ask the tough questions. I have read Blue Like Jazz a bunch of times, and last Christmas on the way back to Cali from MN, I gave my copy to a woman who was sitting next to me on the plane. I was just finishing the book, and I was telling her a little about it. I said something like, "This book helped me to understand my faith in a non religious way." Then she told me that it sounded like a book her brother or sister or someone like that needed to read, and since I was done with it, I gave her my copy. How fun is that?? Point being: I don't have the book anymore, but if there was a book I wanted Aaron to read, because it profoundly affected me as a person, Blue Like Jazz would be it.

A few excerpts from A Million Miles...

"I like the part of Scripture that talks about God speaking something into nothingness, into the dark void."

"A good storyteller doesn't just tell a better story, though. He invites other people into the story with him, giving them a better story too." (italics mine)

"And each day's story, each positive and negative turn, was shaping our character. We were becoming people with will and resolve. Our story demanded that we change, and so we did."

"It's interesting in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help."

"...I wish people who struggle against dark thoughts would risk their hopes on living a good story - by that I mean finding a team of people doing hard work for a noble cause, and joining them."

"It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them."

There is SO much to this book. Read it. Then read Blue Like Jazz. :)