Jamie Tworkowski (founder of TWLOHA) suggested I read this years ago, right after we first met. Its one of his favorite books, and really impacted his life. I agreed and made note to get around it to it, but as always life happened and it wasnt until I stumbled upon it in downtown Hollywood that I would live up to my end of the bargain.
I am only 20 pages into the book and already have so much to say about it, I mean just listen to author's note which kicks everything off...
"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."
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."
I am now going to list and possibly give thoughts on some excerpts from the book...
"I once listened to an Indian on TV say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in the breeze."
"Why would God want to call himself father, when so many fathers abandon their children?"
"Perhaps it was because my Sunday school classes did much to help us memorize commandments and little to teach us who God was and how to relate to Him..." This reminds me much of teachers who focus on having students memorize for constant tests and dont feel the need to apply the concepts to daily life. Which in turn stems the phrase 'what good is this information, Im never going to use it."
"I started to sin about the time I was ten...ten is about the age boys start to sin...girls begin to sin when they are 23 or something..." Donald then went into teaching what you need to know about sinning in three steps...
Step 1: Always be self-depracating
Step2:Always be grateful
Step3:Always be dramatic
"cusswords are pure ecstasy when you are twelve" This is so true because youth by this point DO know what they have been taught as wrong, and using foul or dirty language is wrong, and holds much power in the words. Therefore making it exciting and glamorous to start using them within your young circle of friends, it makes youth feel in control of usually very out of control situations.
Donald goes onto talk about the summer of his 12th year when he and friends experienced their first brush with the female form, in the way of a smut magazine. He describes it as being a portal to a grand adventure, one that he must keep secret from everyone else. His 12th year was also the year he really felt guilt for the first time. SO, Porn=excitement=ecstasy=reason to live=guilt!
Back in college I took many classes that dealt with the development of the young child. We often talked about nature vs. nurture, how much environments and praise really effect a child's outcome, and whether people are born inherently good, evil or tabula rasa-as a blank slate. Mr. Miller dives into these thoughts as he remembers a conversation had with a friend. Taking place after hearing news of genocide in the Congo, he is asked if he could rape and/or kill. NO! is the easy response, but when asked what makes us different from them, we are after all still human, how can they and not you, the answer does not come so easily. I often wonder when I see people on the street or work with some of my students, at what point in your life do you choose one path over the other and why? Look at serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, stalkers, suicides, murders, 95% of these people who have siblings who were raised in the same household, by the same values or rules, but did not suffer from depression, did not have thoughts of killing, raping, being on a power trip-OR maybe they did, and its just that they learned how to control the feelings and not act on it. I know this is a very debatable, controversial and opinionated topic, and although I could go on forever, put in statistics, stories and whatnot, I am going to stop here and leave whoever reads this to really think about this.
When we are born, do we come out with evil intentions, do we come out inherently good or are we born nothing and only become what we know and experience?
Lets say a mother gives birth to triplets. One child is put into a home where he is loved on, taught right from wrong and given opportunity will he turn out better than his brother who was in a home where there are no values only wrong, and he was not shown love and will either compare to the child who had no emotion shown either way? Would it make a difference?
Dont forget to smile
J
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