To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller

“One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? In every kind of neighborhood, rich or poor, an increasing number of boys – now a startling 40 percent – are being raised without their biological dads.”
From “The Trouble with Boys” Newsweek: January 23, 2006

“In writing some thoughts about a father, or not having a father, I feel as though I am writing a book about a dragon or a troll under a bridge. For me a father is nothing more than a character in a fairy tale. And I know fathers are not like dragons in that fathers actually exist, but I don’t remember feeling that a father existed for me.”
From To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father
by Donald Miller and John MacMurray

If you’ve attended church on Father’s Day, you’ve probably heard that fathers are important for reasons beyond mere sperm donation (okay, maybe you didn’t hear this particular point in a sermon, but it can be inferred). As the sermons go, you know that the need for the male parent can be justified by a wide range of argumentation – theological or economical, logical or emotional – all for the good of civilization (not to mention the sake of the egos of the men in attendance that Father’s Day morning).

The message comes across clear: growing up with a good father is a good thing. But talk to someone who never knew his or her father, and the point that fathers are important is made even more convincingly.

The need for good fathers (and growing up without one) is the main theme of To Own a Dragon, the latest book from author Donald Miller, evangelicalism’s thirty-something version of Garrison Keillor. Humorous and honest, Miller makes an affable poster boy for a generation of adult children whose parents divorced and fathers split. As his biological father left when he was in diapers, Miller’s child-like (though not childish) way of processing life confronts many realities of which he – now in his early thirties – is just beginning to understand and feel as loss. Writing (“remembering” might be more accurate) with John MacMurray, Miller’s surrogate father for four year during his early twenties, he relates his story as one being absent of parental authority, missing passed down paternal wisdom, and asphyxiating in a vacuum of fatherly love.

Not buying the bumper sticker theology that only “real men love Jesus” (courtesy of a PromiseKeepers experience gone awry), Miller wrestles with his insecurity of not ever knowing what being a man was. He writes: “A lot of people believe they aren’t a man unless they read some book or walk through some steps or subscribe to some religion. I have come to love Jesus, but I don’t think somebody who doesn’t love Jesus is any less of a man. I don’t think being a real man has anything to do with loving Jesus at all, any more than being a ferret has something to do with riding a bicycle.” Miller’s own definition of manhood is a humorous one (and accurate, at least anatomically speaking).

When reading Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What, Through Painted Deserts), it’s helpful to keep in mind he is more of essayist than exegete: theologically-light (though not barren), his anecdotes are interesting, his fluent writing style easy to read, and his “Christian spirituality” – while nebulous at times – finds genuine expression through one man’s experience of God fathering the fatherless.