Two days ago, I got an email in my inbox from Donald Miller. You know, an email newsletter sort of thing from his people. Sometimes I read them. Sometimes I don’t. For some reason, I read this one, and it kind of blew me away.

If you’ve read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, you know that Don was working with some filmmakers to turn Blue Like Jazz into a film. Along the way, Don got better acquainted with the elements of a really compelling story and realized his life didn’t actually contain the points necessary to carry a great plot. So, he went about writing a better story with his life, and then he wrote a book about the whole process. Smart and good. I’ve read the book twice now, and it is an inspirational awakening that sort of stays with you.

Along the way, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years releases and kicks butt, but the movie of Blue Like Jazz keeps stalling due to lack of funds. So on September 16 (here comes the news I read in the email newsletter I received), Don posted on his blog that the movie was dead. After four years of trying to raise the money, the movie wasn’t going to happen after all. Even though they had a great cast and a compelling script.

HOWEVER, the story doesn’t end there. Two fans from Nashville got this news, and decided that they were going to find a way to raise the money so the show could go on. And, as of this week, they’ve done it. They raised something like $150,000 in a matter of days! They just put out a plea and people all over the world responded. Most of them with just a dollar here and a dollar there.

Here’s an excerpt from Don himself on the subject . . .

It’s Saturday (I’ll post this on Monday morning) and football is on television and I’m sitting at my computer, reading pages from the four-year old screenplay that we’ve edited and gone over a thousand times, laughing at scenes and wiping tears away at others, and while I think our screenplay is great, I have to confess it’s not as great as the story you are currently telling about raising money for the film. You are living proof that the telling of the story is even more fun than the story itself, that it’s better to produce than consume.

Wow. I just wanted to pass this story-about-a-story along . . . and ask a couple of questions for the sake of dialogue because I feel like this is somewhat of a phenomenon.

What is it about Donald Miller that would compel people to give money from their pockets (in these economic times) in order to see a film made (not orphans saved or animals rescued or houses built)?

What is it about Miller’s writing that we love? What it is about him that we feel connected to?

Oh, and if you’d like to join the movement and donate to the cause, you can go to www.savebluelikejazz.com.

I can’t imagine how overwhelmed Don must be feeling today, like the whole struggle mattered, and that is was worth it. I’ll take that with me into my day.

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On Sunday, my pastor spoke on Ephesians 2:11-22, a beautiful passage about belonging. I think we can all relate to that feeling of outsider-ness, and that deep desire to belong to something, to be included, and known, to have a place.

I’m not sure exactly what you’re longing for today, what group you’re longing to belong to. The “married” group. The “with children” group. The “with more children” group. The “home owner” group. The “following your dreams” group. The “out of debt” group. The “amazing wardrobe” group. The “clear skin” group. The “super cool” group. The “stable job” group. The “non-sucky” group. The “better body” group. The “super achiever” group. The “good cook” group. The “remarkable Christian” group. The “sell a few more books” group. (These are all hypotheticals, of course).

What I realized as I sat in church on Sunday—and it hit me all at once and out of nowhere—is that the answer to everything I long for, at the core, is simply and ultimately Christ. The root of all my longings leads to him. I love this and hate this at the same time.

I love it because it is simple. These deep longings I feel—for freedom and love and hope and space and success and meaning—are ultimately found and completed in him. He is really the only answer. I hate it because I want more tangible solutions that I can control and contrive (if I’m honest). I don’t want to have to wade through the mystery that is Christ.

I recently came across this Lewis quote that I’m trying to chew on and reconcile: “It was when I was happiest that I longed most. . . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing. . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from” (Till We Have Faces).

Hmmmmmm . . . what does that mean? I think it means that we long to better understand the source of all beauty, we long to belong to that source, to be deeply connected to it. The longing is sweet, because ultimately, it points us to God.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).

We are no longer wandering in exile. We are connected to a deep belonging. And yet, we miss it so much, don’t we? What if we could reframe longing into something beautiful instead of something beguiling?

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I’ve been on-again-off-again reading this great book on writing called, A Syllable of Water: Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art. It’s a compilation of faith-based writers from across the genres, each taking a particular theme and sharing his or her insights and expertise. I appreciate the way you can pick it up and put it down, and I also really enjoy all the different voices of experience and wisdom.

Reading about other writers’ processes is one of my loves. I am always interested in hearing how other people are inspired, how they approach the craft, how their pieces begin and develop, and what gets them through the blocks and self-doubt.

I just read an essay by Richard Foster, and it has been one of my favorites in the collection so far. His piece is titled, “Made Visible and Plain: On Spiritual Writing.”

I was inspired by the following:

“Spiritual writing is formational. Always. It is meant to get inside us, to deal with the whole person—body and mind and will and spirit and heart and soul. It is good if our readers come away knowing more; it is imperative that they come away being more. Knowing truth is good; becoming truth is better.”

“It pains me to say this, but most writing today—even if it is on spiritual themes—is not spiritual writing. It is not spiritual writing because it does not drill down deep into life.”

Foster goes on to recommend reading Augustine, Teresa of Avila, C.S. Lewis, and Kathleen Norris (I hope to start Cloister Walk sometime soon). What other writers have been spiritual writers to you?

For me, Anne Lamott (all of her non-fiction), Kathleen Norris (Acedia and Me), Barbara Brown Taylor (Leaving Church), Phyllis Tickle (The Shaping of a Life), Eugene Peterson, even Mary Karr comes to mind. I love reading writers who bring you through the side-door and show you truth and beauty by letting you come upon it.

What is “spiritual writing” to you? Do you think any of the new generation of Christian writers are pulling it off or is this kind of writing reserved for seasoned souls?

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