Donald Miller (1) (1971–)

Someone writing about their issues and how they are working through them is not always a big draw. What is the tone? How heavy-handed is the "you should do it too" element? Thankfully Don Miller finds a funny-painfully honest-trust the reader approach that makes his newest book work.

Occasionally I had to put the book down and weep a bit as Miller's words spoke of things I know too well. And I had to read several passages aloud to Ken when I did weep so he'd understand what triggered the tears. But aside from time to process and read aloud, the pages kept turning with ease.

After a long pause in writing myself, it was Miller who pointed out what was holding me back. I write about that here.

Some lines worth remembering include:

"Being afraid to love and being paralyzed at the keyboard both involve a fear of being know, a fear of making mistakes, a fear of being found out.”

"…the fear of letting people down is one of the primary reasons people procrastinate.”

"Is there anything more toxic than the fear of being judged? Judgment shuts us down and makes us hide. It keeps us from being ourselves, which keeps us from connecting with people.”

"I couldn’t afford to be afraid to write and my soul needed to be known and it couldn’t be known in hiding.

"So I wrote. I wrote as though God thought my voice mattered. I wrote because I believed a human story was beautiful, no matter how small the human was. I wrote because I didn’t make myself, God did. And I wrote like [God] invited me to share my true “self” with the world.”… (more)

I'd say that when I read this book in high school, I would have given it 5 stars; and now, after 3 years of listening to the capitalistic, moderate, reformed Donald Miller's podcast (primarily a tool for selling his own marketing products and setting up his political platform), and knowing that at the time he wrote this he owned a whole publishing house that he was trying to turn into a multimillion dollar company (and the book was probably a marketing tool for that, too), I'd probably give it a 1 star for disingenuity and pretentiousness. So, I'll give it 3 stars to balance it out. Maybe I should re-read it to give it a more fair score.… (more)