Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

This is my new favorite book...amazing.

"I was scared to get married because I thought my wife might fall out of love with me...When a relationship is right, it is no more possible to wake up and want out of the marriage than it is to wake up and stop believing in God."

I've felt this way about getting married before and I know plenty of people that are divorced.  I've never been married but all I can imagine is that is must be very hard to fall out of love.  If you truly are in love then yes, I believe it is like this quote says.  Like falling in love, falling out of love is a lot of work.  It doesn't just happen overnight.  Its a process and I can only imagine living in that negativity until you reach that breaking point.  Like falling in love, its a mutual decision.  If both people truly love each other and understand that this means continuously helping that love to flourish then both have to stop to let the relationship end.  Its like rock climbing with a partner tied to you.  If one person gives up, or slips, then its the other person's job to carry them or support them.  If you can't do it, then you have to cut the cord and let the separation happen.  But its a choice.  Whether its one you want to make or not, its a choice. 

"Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.  If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them.  If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say."

This section really inspired me to constantly give out love.  To listen to my own thoughts and take the initiative to change my thought about people that irk me or I feel I don't like.  I'm curious to see if these people change or even I change because of some positive connection that allows for open and honest communication.  I want to be a better person and that starts by letting other people be who they are and respecting them for what they have to say even if I don't like it.

"I was watching one of those news shows on television...about a woman whose son was on death row...The television show followed the woman around during her son's last few days...I remember saying to myself, I hate this, but I kept watching...Then the television showed the mother in her apartment a couple of days later...and they didn't narrate anything, they just let the cameras roll as the woman paced up and down in front of the bed...And the phone rang, and the woman went over and sat on the side of the bed and picked up the phone.  She held it kind of shakily and listened without saying anything.  She just said yes, in a sort of a gut whisper, and then she put the phone back down, but it didn't hang up right.  She fell to her knees and then got up and screamed and shook her fists at the ceiling.  She turned and ran out the door, into the courtyard of this run-down apartment complex, and as the camera pulled to look out the open door they showed this large black woman collapse to the ground screaming into the dirt and pounding her fist...And I imagined Mary falling down outside her door on her hands and knees an beating her fists into the dirt and screaming at God."

This made me want to cry.  Or right a screenplay or something.  Even without the stuff referring to Mary and Jesus, these words show what I feel about capital punishment.  I don't believe in it.  Capital punishment is such hypocrisy.  I don't care about federal funding for overcrowded prisons.  No one deserves to die at the hands of someone else.  No one.  I don't care how many people they killed or tortured.  Killing them will torture a myriad of others which will incite revenge in them and continue the circle.  If there are too many criminals in prison to keep under control, then maybe we need to look at our society and the morals that we are teaching our children.  Our goals should be to rehabilitate those in prison and mental wards, find out how they ended up there, and prevent more from happening.  Killing someone is a sin, even if the United States Government tells you its okay.  We live in a fucked up society...

"I know that our culture will sometimes understand a love for Jesus as weakness.  There is this lie floating around that says I am supposed to be able to do life alone, without any help..."

I think spirituality is a sign of strength, not stupidity.  Faith inspires.  Disbelief destroys.  Believe what you want, but believe in something.  Please.