Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Don Miller has finally written a book for me. I’ve never traveled across the country in a van seeking God. At this phase of my life, married with three boys, a trip like this would cost me my faith. So “Traveling Through Painted Deserts” was a great read, but it didn’t resonate with me. I enjoyed the writing in “Blue Like Jazz”, but I was in my mid-thirties when the book came out. I had already made my peace with church. “Searching for God Knows What” was great romp through (a basically) Reformed theology; think Luther with more Emotional Intelligence and  pogram-free. I spent a lot of time reading and rereading “To Own a Dragon” for a project I was working on with The Mentoring Project. But I had and have a great dad. It wasn’t my story.

“A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” is Miller’s first work that connect with me on a deep emotional level. Don writes about a time in his life when he had completed the ambitions of his life. He lived in Portland and a had written a NYT’s best selling book. After achieving those goals, Don become rudderless and began drifting through his day. I have accomplished none of those things on Don’s list, but I did, somehow, marry above my level, become a pastor, a dad, and have  written a few books of my own. I understand what it means to outlive your goals. And I understand what it means to lack the courage to set a new higher bar.

Miller’s doldrums were interrupted when two film makers approached him about adapting Blue Like Jazz into a movie.  Don quickly grasped that “adaptation” was a euphemism for wholesale change. “Screen Play Don” looked nothing like “Real Don.” Don realized his life was becoming small and uninspiring. The process of screen writing forced Don to study the elements of story, namely the character arc. Don decided to experiment. What would happen if he applied the principles behind a great story to his own life?

Don answers that question with the rest of his book. In his own disarming way, Don invites the readers to live the same experiment in our own lives.

I’ve read “A Million Miles” twice. The first time I focused on his story, but found myself distracted by the strength of the writing. There are several passages where Don’s writing is transcendent. I was like the kid who stops the magician to ask “how’d you do that?” After much delay,  I decided to pick that task up on the second read. What I discovered, though, on the second read was that the narrative still gripped me and that I had a hard time dissecting the writing. Don still offers his conversational tone and simple sentences. But this time, he’s pushing the same buttons in me that are pushed when I read Hemingway, Steinbeck, or Lamott.

There’s  some philosophical tensions in the book. Don’s premise is Christian existentialism– you are a (lower cased) creator, so create, and invent your life into a great story. But there are passages where Don admits that he is being written, even as he writes. This tension is no fault of Don’s. The Apostle  Paul lived with the tension between God’s writing and ours in these two verses: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; because it is God is at work in you.”

This is my favorite of Don’s books. I suspect that Don will win over the over-forty crowd with this book. Everyone, regardless of age, wrestles with meaning. Don’s struggle provides hope for all.