Journal 10 By Daniel Van Dyke

My active reading habits in Holding On is going good so far. I like how in this book we get to read different storys about different people, and learn what their lives were like. Every charterer is holding on to something whether its a certain lifestyle or even hoping to get out of jail. In this book the strengths I have are making connections to the text and highlighting important passages. My weakness in this book is sometimes knowing what themes are present. Overall I am enjoying this book and like the fact that some of these people have big imaginations. For example, having a golf course but this course has no grass or holes.

The two profiles i really like are were Father Louis H. Greving and The Reverend "Prophet" William J. Blackmon. Father Greving work with Father Dobberstein to build a grotto. while reading this profile i never heard of the word grotto and did some extra research. According to Wikipedia a grotto is any type of natural or artificial cave that is associate to modern, historic, or prehistorical use by humans. Basically it is a cave that has been decorated in the inside and in this case the decorations are religious stuff and a place to pray. It was crazy to read that the plan was to build nine and eight are finished. Both father were working on these day and night. That is a lot of dedication to one project most people wouldn't want to put forth that much effort into something. Blackmon started being involved with the church at young age. One quote that i found funny in his profile is when he was having gas problems and would take medicine, but the pastor said if you don't need it if you believe in God. In the text we see Blackmon say, " So when I got outside the building I threw the pills away! I haven't even told people I wanted to join the church yet! Do you know it was about three months later that I realized I was completely healed? No more gas!". It was to see how he was able to survive on the road being a ministry. He was pretty much a ministry hobo.  Blackmon would go around and pray for people and in return they would sometimes offer him food. One thing that was kinda surprising is that someone wanted to pay that much for a sign and now its artwork and he is making money off it.

In these two profiles both men are religious men and work with God. Greving is building a grotto and Blackmon preaches to a small congregation. Greving work with his mentor until his mentor passed away and continued building the grotto after he passed. Blackmon wanted to be a pastor but the pastor who was his mentor didn't want Blackmon to be one in the fear of losing his congregation. This is what lead to Blackmon going on the road. One thing that is different in the style of writing in Blackmon profile is there is a sample of his sign writings. This gives the reader an idea of what his signs look like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotto