basic czech math

Jerry+Ceska Drahy (Trains)= intense loathing and hatred!

hot off the press

Here is a new poem I wrote this morning. No one else even knows it exist right now. I travel a lot by train and most of that time seems to be by myself. Last weekend as I wa son the train the rough ideas of this poem came into my mind.

My time on trains
Some times I sit and try to forget
here I am and that its not home
I try to get lost in the sky
and the colors on the trees
or words on a page
as I let my music cover me
I pretend that I'm not lonely
and that I'm quite by choice
I try to think I'm back home
and the strange names are new places
some immigrant town on my way home
But i always know the truth
the rumbling train is enough to keep me awake
and away from the dream I long to sleep.
This is what I do on a train.

...among the youth of eastern Europe...

One Percent from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.


http://www.2x3campaign.com/

A movement of God...

http://www.2x3campaign.com/


Next Generation from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

I love my parents.

I've been reading this great book called 20 something essays by 20 something writers. I highly recommended it if you are 20 something or happen to love a 20 something. The book is a collection of 29 essays from 20 somethings each essay deals with life.
This past Friday I was riding on the train heading to one of my weekend visits. I had been reading this book and loving because it had been helping me process a lot of the hardships in my current life. I was nearing the end of the book and I stumbled across an essay that made me but down the book and cry.
The essay is called The Secret Lives of my Parents and is written by Kate McGovern. The essay is about the struggle of growing up and seeing your parents as people not just Dad and Mom.
I started thinking about all my parents have done for me. My parents once were people like me. Young, brash, irrational, full of hopes and dreams as well as piss and vinegar. But when my brother and I came along...all that changed. The older I've gotten the more I've realized their sacrifice but now I'm starting to really understand it especially as my friends are starting their own families.
I feel bad because I don't know my parents. No let me rephrase that. I know my parents. Who I don't know are Dale and Fran or Raye Nell and Donald (My parents are divorced and both remarried for those who didn't know.) I don't know what my Dad wanted to do growing up or what he thought of Europe while he was stationed here. I don't know any stories of Donald's time in Saudi Arabia or why it is he loves my Mom and decided that he would take her two sons along with her. I don't know why my Mom doesn't want to leave Texas. I don't know what she thinks about the church or why she goes. Fran I might know the best as a person but there are still mysteries like Why she never moved back to New England, why live in Minnesota or did she ever want to live in NYC growing up?
I began wondering what it must be like to let me go. When I call to trust their parenting job and treat me like some one competent to make good decisions. When I call not knowing what to do to give me advice instead of telling me what to do or even what they would do.
All that to say I love my parents. This seeing them as new people is something I'm going to enjoy doing.

The second of my freedom poems

Freedom Lies

Freedom lies on her bed at night
and cries herself to sleep
she wonders when it changed
that instead of men protecting her name
all they do is rape and shame
she cries for a man of old
that would take a stand and not withhold
an ounce of strength to hold her up
yet all her princes become thieves
who cloth their agenda in her majesty
only to swap her out for a mirror of lust
and fall in love with their power
as their world turns to dust
and freedom lies on her bed at night
and cries for those who believe the lies

read and enjoy

I've decided to begin posting my poetry on my blog so I can share it with more people. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.
This summer I found myself thinking about freedom. I ended up writing to poems about it, here is the first.

Freedom Cries
Martin Luther King once had a dream
he wanted to see freedom ring
from shining sea to sea
but what does freedom mean?
For King it means opportunity
regardless of race or creed or poverty
but could a man have these
and still be bound to slavery?
What if freedom means
something beyond all these things?
What if freedom was itself a creed?
Would this freedom creed mirror
the life we find in Christianity?
That's what Jesus sought to bring.
But I think behind church doors
lay something he'd abhor.
A congregation of freed slaves
with no chains on their feet
and yet too scared to leave.
Yet, we wonder why no one believes
while the messenger won't leave his seat.