Searching for God Knows What - Review

I picked up this book out of the Owens Building mini-library (a collection of books deposited by KNU profs). It's a fun read, pretty much continuing and sometimes rehashing Donald Miller's earlier name-making book Blue Like Jazz.
This 233 page book summarizes easily: The gospel is not a formula. It's a relationship. What God wants from us and promises to us cannot be defined in neat categories or lists of truths. The truth inherent in the gospel is necessarily embedded in the stories of the people who understand and experience the gospel (especially the first ones to do so).
Donald Miller is king of off-the-wall-yet-strangely-appropriate extended metaphors, and this book is packed with them. The earth is an overfilled lifeboat with the inhabitants taking sides and waging wars of value assessment like people on Survivor trying not to get kicked off the island. Original sin is like the fallout from Chernobyl. Getting an outside perspective is like sitting down with an alien to watch an NBA game. We're all in a big circus act trying to do something to win cheers from the crowd to prove our worth. The moment when we we see that our religious system isn't enough anymore is like the moment when we see the department store Santa taking a leak in the men's restroom.
Great images. Great stories. Same basic thoughts as Blue Like Jazz. Rating: jjjj.