Friday, November 26, 2010

Something about love; something about God

Artist: Antoni Karwowski
I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened.
The above passage is from a book by Donald Miller called Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.

I've just today come across several passages from this book. (One reviewer said it read like the diary of a born again Woody Allen!)

I think I want to read it.
~~~

3 comments:

  1. Ellie, I've got Blue Like Jazz, and it is worth a read, definitely.

    And I utterly love that painting. The colours are drop-dead gorgeous.

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  2. Oh, I'm so glad you like the painting, Cathy. I was terribly pleased to have found it.

    And thanks for the recommendation on the book. I'll definitely make a point of reading it.

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  3. I feel that saying I like or dislike jazz is a little bit like saying I like or dislike music or food. I like some and some I don’t. Like music and food, jazz is a musical medium with almost limitless forms of expression. Similar to art it can range from expressionism to non-representational art. For example, I also love the colors as well as the expression and form in the non-representational painting that accompanies this meditation. But I absolutely loathe color field painting. I would even go so far as to say that color field painting is to art as "the emperor’s new clothes” in the fable. Likewise though I love some forms of jazz, I find others to be unappealing and still others to be obnoxious noise.

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