By Rachael Cummings

"THE unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates. For Donald Miller, it's "the unedited life."

It has been six years since Miller's Blue Like Jazz was published and began to slowly make its way onto the New York Times bestseller list; it has sold over a million copies to date. Miller has authored several books since then, but none of them have generated quite the same interest as Blue, which established him as an author to take note of.

Miller has now embarked on an ambitious 65-church tour across North America to promote his newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Own Life -- and he kicked it off September 15 with an appearance at Tenth Avenue Church in Vancouver.

He was preceded by Susan Isaacs, a Christian writer, actress and comedian who performed a monologue based on her memoir, Angry Conversations with God -- in which she takes God to a marriage counsellor. The audience listened with empathetic laughter, as she recounted the gamut of church experiences under her belt.

Isaacs' story of humorous and unconventional dialogue with God, and her commanding storytelling skills, provided an appropriate segue to Miller's talk on his own approach to the concept of "story."

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Miller revealed to the audience that he had been approached by a pair of filmmakers who wanted to make a movie based on his memoir. He agreed. The hitch, however, was that they wanted to change Miller's character and life to make for a "more interesting" story. "Your real life is boring," they told him. Defensive statements ensued. At one point, Miller argued: "I saw a bear, once."

In the end, the author decided to "edit" his own life, in a sense -- and to find out what it takes to not only write a good story, but to live a good story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years recounts how this journey unfolded.

Among other things, he said, he was inspired to start a mentoring program in response to the crisis of fatherlessness in America. Miller was also motivated to contact his own father, who had been absent from his life since he was a child.

Miller concluded his talk by encouraging Christians to stop shouting about what they don't like -- and to focus, instead, on what they are for, and what they think is beautiful.

"We have to start telling better stories," he declared.

Before his presentation, Miller told CC.com his newest book was "more hopeful" than Blue Like Jazz. "It has a more seasoned perspective on life," he said.

Like much of his previous work, A Million Miles is very introspective. Miller said he was not uncomfortable with the thought that the book would make complete strangers privy to some of his most private experiences -- his insecurities, his heartaches, his views on politics and on God.

"I don't like people not knowing who I am, not knowing what my motives are," he said, "I feel like there's a lie between us when I handle an idea in any other way."

Miller's final Canadian appearance will be in Waterloo, Ontario, October 25.

September 24/2009