As a middle-aged, reasonably content modernist, it is always difficult to review a Donald Miller book. They are so intensely autobiographical, it almost feels like attempting to rationalistically interact with someone else's miracle. A Donald Miller book is what it is - we may not always agree, we may be confused or concerned - but at the end of the day what we are presented with is a story.And that is precisely the thought-provoking point of this book.
In his wonderful, humorous, self-deprecating way, Donald Miller, in his new book A Million Miles In a Thousand Years, challenges us all to consider the sort of story we're writing. What sort of story is being written for us? What sort of story are we living? In typical post-modern fashion, the book is long on questions and short on answers. But in typical Donald Miller fashion, we see again that perhaps a predominantly questioning book isn't such a bad thing.
It is only fitting that a book about about living a better story would be filled with so many thought-provoking stories, but that's Miller. I love the people Donald Miller has a habit of meeting! How useful for all of us that he met them!
While I suspect none of Donald Miller's books will have the impact or popularity of his wonderful Blue Like Jazz, this is another very worthy effort.
I would be dishonest, however, if I didn't include one final point of pastoral concern I have with Miller's work yet again. Perhaps I'm only mentioning this as a result of the last book I reviewed on this page (God and Guinness) or because this issue is becoming an increasingly obvious concern of mine, but I'm once again struck by the author's self-absorption and utter lack of any apparent concern for "stumbling" weaker brothers and sisters reading his work. Miller drinks wine and smokes throughout this entire book. At times, it almost seems as if a bottle of wine is a critically important character in the stories Miller is trying to promote. While, of course, Donald Miller and all others are completely free in Christ to act according to their own conscience on these issues, I question the wisdom of so constantly smearing this freedom in the faces of the readers of our stories. While Miller may not have alcohol and tobacco issues (although I would challenge any Christian to give me a biblical argument for smoking), many people do have lots of serious issues in these areas. I know we are working overtime to repaint our "Velvet Elvis" images of the church and what it means to be a Christian, but I am deeply troubled by this sort of behavior. Are alcohol and pipe tobacco really an essential part of the new story we're trying to embrace, Mr. Miller? Really? Let your conscience and God's Word be your guide, but the way this is handled concerns me.
I know expressing such ideas these days classifies me as yet another judgmental modernist and mostly dull, disconnected representative of all that is evil in "established religion," but I don't honestly care.
This story I'm living isn't supposed to be about me. Like Jesus who set everything aside so I could come home, I too must be willing to set aside what is rightfully mine so others might find and live a better story. I'm not supposed to be interested in just my story. I'm supposed to be living The Story.
Nothing should be allowed to distract from that Story...not even the very cool stories of Donald Miller.
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