October 25, 2021
I’ve been a Deconverted Man for quite some time now. I’m fortunate in that, after a lot of work, I’ve reached a point where I’m totally comfortable being outside of religion. I no longer fear hell. I’m no longer enticed to go back to church (except once, which I wrote about here). I can easily decline any situations or conversations in which people try to put their religion on me or try to draw me back in. I’ve even compiled all these experiences and techniques into a book in the hopes of helping other Deconverted Men get to the same place.
So it may sound strange when I say that one of my all-time favorite books—even to this day—is a Christian book by a Christian author.
That book is A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.
If you spent even a moderate amount of time wrapped up in the Church or Church culture, then you’ve probably heard of Donald Miller, and may have even read Blue Like Jazz, which was his most popular book.
I remember reading Blue Like Jazz and finding it decidedly “meh.” I think I went into it with too much hype from all my Christian buddies who kept saying, “It’s the best book ever! He even has a chapter called penguin sex! Gasp!”
A few years after I read it I was scanning the bookshelf in the youth office at my church. Next to the ten copies of Blue Like Jazz was a single copy of the bestseller’s follow-up, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.
I asked the youth director if he’d ever read it. He said no because he heard it wasn’t as good as Blue Like Jazz. For some reason I decided to give the book a shot.
And I’m glad I did. As I said before, it’s still one of my all-time favorite books to this day.
The book serves as an account of author Donald Miller’s life after the strong success of Blue Like Jazz. He talks about how he suddenly had so much money that he didn’t really know what else to do with his life. I imagine it was kind of like using an infinite money cheat code in a video game, wrecking all the fun. He also talked about how he’d become a “hot new voice” in the Christian community despite the fact that Blue Like Jazz was extremely light on theology. Everyone was booking him to speak and suddenly wanted to hear what he had to say when he himself never really felt like he ever had anything of substance to say in the first place. He talked about the pressure to produce his next book which needed to be just as strong, or stronger than Blue Like Jazz. That expectation was crippling, and he found himself lost and and adrift and watching a lot of television to distract himself.
Then two filmmakers approached Miller about turning Blue Like Jazz into a movie. Miller agreed, but the three of them were well aware of a glaring problem: Blue Like Jazz had no story. It was a nonfiction book of essays.
Miller, under the guidance of these two filmmakers, learned classic story structure in order to take the themes discussed in Blue Like Jazz and express them through a fictional character living out a story. He learned that what makes classic stories so great and enduring is that they portray characters learning and growing by being forced out of their comfort zones and achieving success through trials and tribulations.
It wasn’t long before Miller made the next logical conclusion: there was no reason why he couldn’t take the same principles that make great stories and incorporate them into his real life to make his life a great story. This was especially meaningful to him after having fallen into such a rut after the success of his previous book.
The rest of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years describes Miller’s efforts to live in a way that was similar to what makes classic three-act storylines resonate with mass audiences. He gave himself inciting incidents that he couldn’t back away from, overcame conflict, and then emerged victorious on the other side.
This book gave me a framework by which to live my life that has stuck with me even to the present day.
The desire to live a better story is what finally got me into the gym after putting it off for so long. The desire to live a better story led me to work abroad for several years. Hell, the desire to live a better story was one big reason I left the Church. I realized that life within fundamentalist religion was no life at all. I knew there had to be something more. I also strongly believe that living a better life without religion is one of the best ways to share your new testimony with people who still believe; one of the best ways to communicate that life improves after leaving religion. I’ve even written before about how using the aforementioned classic three-act story structure (called The Hero’s Journey) is actually a valuable way to view and approach faith deconstruction.
I’m 100% sure there are better books out there that communicate the same message, and a lot more effectively. That isn’t the point. The point is that A Million Miles in a Thousand Years found me at just the right time when I needed to hear its message. And that message is something that I’ve lived by ever since I read it.
For that, I’ll always be thankful for that book.