Hey guys, so I know I haven't been posting a lot lately, but...too bad. I am a college student devoted to his studies and I need my down time away from the technological world (you can thank my internet communications class for that). Anywho, here's another quick post. I am analyzing my own writing for my advnaced comp. class and I found this awesome quote by strunk and white, the masterminds behind...drum roll...THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE. And as I was drinking from their spring of writing genius, I discovered a few quotes.

Here they are...

"There is no satisfactory explanation to style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rule by which writers may shape their course. Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion."
...Which is why I love writing.

And another cool quote I read: "Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."

Alright-so right now I am on a Donald Miller kick since I am doing this book review for Searching for God Knows What. Side Note: When I become an author, I hope people will one day say "so right now I am on this J.M. Adkison kick..."(that would be amazing). Anywho, I decided to put the review on my blog since I haven't been updating it much-but if you are going to read this-please read it at thelink.harding.edu that way I can get a lot of hits.

So here is the review, titled: Breaking Jesus out of the formula.


“Sometimes I feel as though I were born in a circus, come out of my mother’s womb like a man from a cannon, pitched toward the ceiling of the tent, all the doctors and nurses clapping in delight from the grandstands…My body falls back toward earth, the ground coming up quick, the center ring growing enormous beneath my falling weight. And this is precisely when it occurs to me that there is no net. As I wonder…Who is going to rescue me?”

And thus begins Donald Miller’s “Searching for God Knows What,” a radical book on freeing Jesus from a formulaic, rigid religion and the box we tend to put him in.
Donald Miller is not your average Christian author. In fact, Miller is about as odd and crazy-minded as writers come. This is not your grandmother’s sort of literature, unless your grandmother happens to be a bearded lady who can identify with Miller’s carnival-style parables. His first novel “Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance”, came out in 2000, but was met with little success. Lucky for him, his next novel, “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality”, launched him into the New York Times best-seller list, which put him on the express lane out of anonymity. His next book to hit the scene was “Searching for God Knows What,” released in 2004.

Many may be wondering why someone would be writing a review for a book that came out five years ago, and that someone would respond that he was writing this review because not enough people know about it. “Searching for God Knows What” dares to ask the questions: What if the deepest longings of your heart were there for a reason? What if the Gospel of Jesus was not “safe” at all, but full of intrigue, passion−and romance? Not only does Miller try to take Jesus out of the box, he drenches the box in gasoline and lights it on fire afterwards.

Now what exactly is this “box”? The “box” is a set of limitations or formulas humans bind God to in order to make him fit comfortably in our nicely organized, daily scheduled lives. The box can be a formula that goes like this: a person struggles with life, some sort of calamity happens in this person’s life, and that calamity brings this person to Jesus. The end result is this person living happily ever after. It is the idea that coming to Christ is a step-by-step process taken out of the self-help book known as the Bible.

Yet, we all know life is actually a large collection of unknown variables waiting to disrupt perfectly planned schedules and as Miller so eloquently puts it: “It seems if there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us what it was.”

Miller is in no sense attacking the institution of the church or Christianity. He is trying to get Christians to stop viewing God as a cuddly Santa Clause they can fit into their daily planners and see Him as an unpredictable being who wants his children to live outside their comfort boxes.

“I did’t have a relationship with God; I had a relationship with a system of simple ideas, certain prejudices, and a feeling that I and people who thought as I thought were right,” he says on page 31.

To say that Miller’s writing is “whimsical” would be nothing short of an under-statement. He writes with a dry sense of humor that is skilled in sending the reader into hysterics, making the reading both entertaining and enthralling. His ideas are quirky and very original, for example chapter seven is titled “Adam, Eve, and the Alien: How the Fall Makes You Feel” and chapter 14 is “The Gospel of Jesus: Why William Shakespeare Was a Prophet.”

One of the most attractive aspects to his writing is the simple fact Miller seems to write whatever pops into his head, and somehow brings these thoughts together to create a new way of looking at Christianity through an entirely different lens. However, this lens can often turn into a mind-whirling kaleidoscope as Miller is apt to lose you somewhere along his train of thought. Sometimes his ideas are so strange and random, you have trouble connecting the dots.

Yet, what really adds to the quality of this book is the genuineness the reader can sense in Miller’s writing. He does not pretend to be a all-knowing guru with the secrets to following God, he never fails to let Jesus have the lime light. He is just one eccentric man amongst a sea of people trying their hardest not to be eccentric, trying to make heads and tails of this art form called Christianity.

Alright-quickest blog ever-I know. But I am doing this book review for one of Donald Miller's books (don't know who he is? Then learn!) and I found this awesome quote:

"The most difficult lie I ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me."
-Donald Miller

Think about it.

Alright, so I know I haven't blogged in, like, forever. But in case you didn't know, I've been a little busy with college life lately. Getting back into the groove a social life is hard work. Also, I wasn't really sure what to blog about. So, I got to thinking and pondered that age-old question "What interests me?"

And thus I came upon superstitions.

I find superstitions to be fascinating-I'm not superstitious my-self, but the fact that they exist fascinate me. What fascinates me is how strange corny they can be. For example, I once read in a legitimate history book on the medieval ages that mourners at a funeral made sure to keep black cats away from the coffin of their lost loved one. They feared if the cat ran across the coffin, then the corpse inside would spring back to life-but as a vampire! Put that in your oven, Stephanie Meyer!

But many of us have those little superstitions that we keep in our back pocket. For example: wearing a certain pair of dirty socks will win you the game, listening to a certain song will improve your writing, or the position of the stars and planets will control your love life. We all have those common superstitions-and even if we don't believe in them we at least acknowledge them-such as Friday the 13th, not walking under ladders and, oddly enough, the usefulness of bridesmaids. But you might often wonder-how on earth did we develop these superstitions? Well here is a list of how.

Friday the 13th-this day is almost considered something of a holiday or something, and even is look forward to. Hollywood and its horror films definitely help in notarizing this day. The origin of Friday the 13th actually lies within the Gospels. At the last supper, Judas was the 13th person attending the Passover meal. Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Folklore presumes that Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden on a Friday, the Floods came on a Friday, and unruly students praise Friday as the last day of the week.

Walking under ladders-Other than heavy objects falling on your head from a high-up ladder step, it is odd to think that walking under a simple tool for work can cause bad luck. Ladders, in case you didn't notice, create a triangle with the ground and the wall. The triangle symbolizes the Trinity, and walking through that triangle violates or agitates God or the spirits that "live" within the triangle. I did read that a simple way of repelling God's or the spirit's wrath is by crossing your fingers and making a sign of the cross as you walk under it-but since ladders aren't all that big in width, you might not have enough time.

Bridesmaids-Never thought weddings were superstitious? Think again, superstition practically invented these blissfully romantic events. In the olden days, when everyone from old Granny to little Jimmy feared the wrath of cantankerous, evil spirits that don't like it when the living are happy. The spirits have a sort of "It's my birthday and I can cry if I want to.." complex and enjoy making the living miserable. So, weddings, generally being festivities of happy occasion, are like magnets to these sort of ill-tempered ghosts. To stop the ungrateful dead from ruining the rather grateful living from having a good time, the Middle Age contemporaries invented the bridesmaid, which believe it or not, is not there to look pretty in front of everybody (but nowhere near as pretty as the bride). The bridesmaid is actually a decoy to distract the evil spirits from getting to the bride. Similarly, the groomsmen do the same thing. The veil is also suppose to hide the bride from the evil spirits. Hint to the evil spirits: Go for the one in the veil.

Breaking a mirror-We've all heard that breaking a mirror can cause seven years of bad luck. Well, here's why it would be seven years. During the olden days of witch hunts and Pope-control, people thought that looking in a mirror was looking at a reflection of your soul. By breaking the mirror, you for some reason harmed your soul. And it would take seven years for your soul to pull it-self back together. And with an injured soul, you would be easy for those nasty spirits mentioned back in the bridesmaid section.

Knock on wood-For some reason, this superstition has always annoyed me. It is so corny-with somebody going "Oh, knock on wood ha-ha." And I would always ask "what does that even mean?" Well, I found out. Back in the days before witch-hunts and Pope-control, a few tribes and nations believed gods lived in the trees. By knocking once on a tree-trunk, you asked for a favor. By knocking twice you said thank you. I still don't understand why people still say it.

Saying "Bless You"-This piece of superstition has actually earned its way into our culture's etiquette and good manners' file. Back in the good ol' Dark Ages, simple minded simpletons believed that when you sneezed, you were expelling demons from your soul. After you sneezed, you were congratulated with a "Bless you" and everybody thought you were really cool when you sneezed a lot. So, basically when allergy season came rolling around, the dorky kids with asthma were considered saints. However, when the Black Plague came skipping through town, the Pope mandated that people say "Bless you" because excessive sneezing was a sure sign you had the plague and you were about to die. So the dorky asthma kids go from sainthood to hospice care.

Hold your breath-So there is this one superstition that I followed for years when I was a kid. "Hold your breath when you go by a cemetery." It was more of a stupid kid's game than a superstition. It was actually rather bothersome cause I have several graves in my hometown area. And when your driving and you get stuck at a red light that is right next to a cemetery, you begin to ponder if this superstition is more trouble than its worth. Well, the origin of this one lies in the belief that the spirits of the dead wandering through the cemetery might hear you breathing, become jealous that you're still alive-and attack you. Sort of like the wedding scene-but unfortunately you can't keep a line of bridesmaids as decoys in the back of your car.

Even though we look back on the Medieval Ages as a time of stupidity, bloody wars and a bunch of dirty people living too close together-but you have to give them credit-without them we wouldn't have our very cool superstitions.

Well its been a good month and a half since I last wrote anything-bit of a shoddy work for a blogger such as my-self-which isn't saying much at all since I just started blogging a few months ago. But now that I am home and my labtop is...once again...on the fritz, I must battle and duel my sisters for control of the home computer-and I usually lose.

Yet, the highly detestable and greatly ignoble sport of soccer does serve its purposes as my sisters are away at soccer camp. So here I am once again.

Summer has not been laxed in sufficiently supplying my brain with all sorts of oddities and perplexities during that time between sleep and awake. Or plainly put, I'm still having a whole lot of wierd dreams.

Let's take last night's phantasmagorical (not sure if it fits-but I love that word) adventure into the world of dreams. In this dream I had an older brother who was married and was expecting their first child. I believe my parents were on vacation and my sisters were nowhere to be seen (probably at soccer camp). I never did meet my brother's pregnant wife-she was always in the next room behind a closed door. I did get to see this older brother (which I have always wanted) and he looked a lot like Jim from the Office-so I am sort of wondering if Pam might be the expecting sister-in-law in the next room. Well, whoever the wife is-she is very old-fashioned and wants to have her baby in the house without any medications and no doctors-the sort of kind they had in olden days where they pretty much screamed the baby out of their womb. Oh, and this wife also wants a midwife.

So we hire a midwife. We hire Britney Spears.

Ms. Spears has decided to take some time off from creating her masterful music and instead delve into the craftmanship of midwifery. So, THE Britney Spears comes to live with us. I am showing her around the house, introducing her to the various garden patches and showing her the interstate that just so happens to be paved right in front of our house. As we watch the cars zoom by, the sun painting the sky red as it sets to light the rest of the world, we hear one of Britney's latest singles playing in a car that is driving by. I can't really remember what the song was-in fact-I don't think she has even sung it yet.

So I ask: "Is it wierd hearing your voice on the radio"

She answers: "It is always wierd."

We return to the house and sit on the couch watching my older brother make goofy faces and juggle various sets of china across the living room.

Today is June 1st of 2009 and the time is 10:17 a.m.-do want to know how my first day of this warm, summer month started. With a sudden outburst of maniacal screaming from my mother downstairs. The sort of screaming you would expect to find in common places such as a horror movie, or Fear Factor, or a dark alleyway in Gotham City.

Well the screaming was coming from our sunroom (sorta like a second living room with skylights) and without my glasses, I ran down the hallway and down the stairs to find my mother screaming at something beneath the couch. She was jumping on the couch and screaming and hollering with her phone in hand with the other person still on the other line. Then I saw something, a brown, fuzzy flash dash from beneath the couch to beneath our little woodstove connected to our chimney.

Well needless to say, I began an outburst of screaming, hollering and jumping.

To better see what I was screaming at-I ran to go grab my glasses and ran back-to see my mother swatting a little squirrel with a broom. I grabbed the broom while she went to get the longed-stick duster. What followed was a frenzy of wacking and hitting and more screaming. There was a moment where the squirrel was trying to climb the chimney to get upstairs (which was a big no-no) and I hit with the broom so hard it began flying at us. Then using a combination of shear, awesome skill and too many hours watching Matrix movies, I spun the broom through the air and brought the sweeping end down upon the nasty little rodent, bringing it crashing down onto the floor and sent it cowering beneath the woodstove once more.

Now, let me take a moment to address the PETA activistists and general lovers of cute, cuddly woodland creatures. 1st-PETA-I don't care what you think you radical bunch of nudists. 2nd-I understand why some of you would sympathize with this little monstrosity covered in fur. However, there is a boundary between the indoors and the outdoors which very few animals should be allowed to cross-squirrels are one of them. Now, if you knew a squirrel was living in your house, would you just let it be and always have on your consious that you might just wake up one morning to find a little rodent sitting on your face or stalking you in the dead of night?

And if you heard the sounds it was making at my mother and I, you wouldn't think it was so sweet after all.

Well, after about twenty minutes of swatting the thing out of the fake tree (why we have a fake tree inside I will never know) and hitting it off the brick chimney. My mother tapped into her latten hunting abilities that comes from being born to a long line of woodland creature hunters. She ran to the garage and grabbed my old lacrosse stick then with a yell to even make William Wallace and his brave heart wet his kilt, she began to jab at the squirrel beneath the woodstove (I had moved the fake tree outside so it couldn't use it as a hiding spot). The squirrel, after much angry chattering and cussing us out in squirrel-language, dashed from beneath the woodstove only to find it-self cornered.

In a stunning climax, my mother trapped the squirrel beneath the lacrosse-stick's net, dragged it across the floor and hurled it outside. I ran, closed the door and locked it.

The terrifying ordeal was finished.

However, another terrifying thought had occured. The door to the backyard was not open, it had in fact blown open last Friday or Saturday. The squirrel had been spending the weekend in the Adkison abode. But had it been alone?

So I've been hung up on this life dream of mine to become world dominator. It's been a dream of mine to rule the world since I was...well, young enough to say "bow before me" in a dramatic voice. As I grew older, sport athletes and Dinsey channel stars inspired me to hold on to that dream.

How did these celebrities inspire me, you might ask?

It was all because of their cheesy slogans.."Follow your dreams," "no dream is too big" and "don't let anybody say 'no'"- well, at the age of seven, I wanted to be two things...world dominator, or a famous stage magician. My reasoning with being a stage magician was that it was the closest I could get to doing magic while not being a pagan. However, I stunk at doing magic tricks (though I did love the capes) and I was terrible at shuffling cards, so I opted for world domination instead. Besides you get more publicity as a monarch than you do stage magician.

I remember laying in bed at night, dreaming of magnificent castles built just for me in Europe with the whole world attending my birthday party (which-at the age of seven-included huge pokemon decorations). I dreamt of standing before the U.N. with a golden laurel leaf crown on my head wearing a long flowing red cape and a whole lot of medals for pomp and circumstance. The U.N. would have to do what I told them and give me presents at every meeting. Yes, I know...it all seems a little egotistical-but when your seven you can dream as big as you want without any reprucusions.

Oh yeah, and I also dreamt of having a super-awesome robotic army with all sorts of laser weaponry and a profile of my face with laurel leaf crown (Roman Emperor style) on their chests-it was the ultimate peace keeping force.

I still like to dream about what it would be like to be world dominator. Just for those who think of me as a war-mongering despot-wanna-be, I have no intention of mongering any sort of war-in order to gain power I would simply hypnotize the U.N. and ask if I could have the world very nicely (perhaps do a little brainwashing here and there but nothing excessive). I've given up hope of world domination sadly and moved on to more "realistic" endeavors such as being a famous novelist. I guess there a whole lot of people out in there world who think having a world dominator would be a bad thing.

Anyway, you might be wondering what the title of this blog has to do with what I'm writing-well I was reading an article online the other day about what is called the Bilderberg Group-which is suspected of being a world council much different from the U.N. that meets behind closed doors and you have to be a Major V.I.P. to get into this club. Some suspect that it is controlling world-affairs.

This group was started in 1954 by some unheard-of Netherland Prince. It contains some very influential people, members of the U.S. Senate, European royalty and the guys from Google. To check out all of the famous people like Condoleeza Rice and Henry Kissinger who have been apart of it and for further reading check out http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085589.html

So basically these people have been called the "kingmakers" of the world-some claim that the winner of the U.S. presidency was decided at last year's meeting in Virginia. Though that sounds a little far-fetched-these people do operate behind closed doors and do not allow press to cover their meetins-which throws a whole Empire full of speculation on their little get-togethers.

A few British news teams will be covering some of the meeting-but no U.S. teams, which really annoys me. Even if nothing really big is going on behind these closed doors. However, why would these government and corporate power-houses take time out of their busy schedules to meet with other busy government and corporate power-houses if it wasn't for something important. And they have the nerve to not let the public know what is going on-since they are power-houses, their decisions most likely affect us.

It makes me so mad that they have a club, like some sort of snobby country club for world leaders only so they can play with us like pawns while they sip champagne and use really fancy words like "postulate".

Well, kids who dream of being world dominators don't sit well as pawns.

At least, I hope not.

Anyway, it seems a whole lot goes on in our government that we have no clue about. Everything from CIA dealings to Area 51 to super soldiers to whether or not Elvis still lives. I just wish world leaders would ask 'What does the public want?" or say "Hmm, this is pretty important, we should let the whole world know about this."

I can see life as a public gorvernment figure being a tough life-but it's not like they tell you world leading is just fun and dandy in law school.

Oh, and since this is a political rant-I want to say something else-Obama is getting way too much positive publicity. NO president should be getting this much brown-nosing, not even from ABC. I mean, Bush didn't try to spend this money in his first year let alone get a multi-billion dollar plan going. Don't get me wrong, I think Obama is guy who has his heart in the right place and has the "making of greatness" or whatever-but can he please stop spending so much stinkin' money. And if he keeps taxing the rich too much, they're all gonna move away-cause their rich and they can do that.

Well, here's my little dose of politics for the blog-what blog wouldn't be complete without a little bit of politic-ness to spice it up.