Eight-year-old Christian Golczynski accepts the flag for his father, Marine Staff Sgt. Marc Golczynski, during a memorial service. Marc Golczynski was shot on patrol during his second tour in Iraq (which he had volunteered for) just a few weeks before he was due to return home.
Stan Patz, Etan’s father, reportedly spent Memorial Day on a bike ride through lower Manhattan, where he silently rode past 448 West Broadway, the address where Pedro Hernandez allegedly killed his son.
There are two islands — known as the Diomedes, about two and a half miles apart — right smack in the middle of the Bering Straight. One of them, Little Diomede, belongs to the U.S., and has a hardcore, weather-bitten population of about 150. The other island, Big Diomede, belongs to Russia and is uninhabited. The space between these two islands marks not only an international border, but the International Date Line as well, making it possible for the folks on Little Diomede to wake up on a Sunday, pour themselves a cup of coffee, and peer across the water to Big Diomede, where it’s already Monday.
Read the full text here: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/104762#ixzz1w2QDYyfz
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I am trying to get to know you, through the quiet pauses.
hope
(Source: icanread)
There is peace by the riverside, where joy like rays of sun burn under your skin. The weight of summer drags you up and away from pieces of winter. You can only dance now, fully under the blanket of heat that makes you dizzy. You forget that some things burn heavier and deeper than the pain you’ve known. You close your eyes and let your heart say ‘okay’ to believing in messages left in bottles and castles built on sand.
You can’t tell what’s happening except for that you’re alive and you can feel it right down to your toes, your soul. You feel life on your face, in your skin.
How much will it cost for you to let me sit here? Can I pay it in years? In pieces of peace I’ve found? Let your hand hover over me. If you listen you can hear the silence echoing in the hollows of your mind. Let it reverberate into your fingertips or make its way into the curve of your smile.
Vice President Joe Biden today delivered a deeply personal and, at times, emotional address to survivors of slain U.S. military service members, recounting his struggle with intense grief after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident almost 40 years ago.
“For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide,” Biden told a Washington gathering organized by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), a non-profit advocacy group, to commemorate Memorial Day.
“Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts, because they’d been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again, that it was … never going to be that way ever again. That’s how an awful lot of you feel.”
Biden described how he first learned of the accident on Dec. 18, 1972, just weeks after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware. While he was in Washington, D.C., his wife, Neilia, one-year-old daughter, Naomi, and sons, Beau and Hunter, were Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Del. Their car was struck by a tractor-trailer. Only Beau and Hunter survived.
“And just like you guys know by the tone of a phone call - you just knew, didn’t you? You knew when they walked up the path. You knew when the call came. You knew. You just felt it in your bones something bad happened,” Biden said. “And I knew. I don’t know how I knew. But the call said my wife was dead, my daughter was dead, and I wasn’t sure how my sons were going to make it.”
The vice president told the families he genuinely understands the “black hole you feel in your chest, like you’re being sucked back into it.” And, he said, while the ache never goes away, it “gets controllable.”
“Just remember two things,” he said. “Keep thinking what your husband or wife would want you to do. Keep thinking what it is, and keep remembering those kids of yours, or him or her the rest of their life, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, because, folks, it can and will get better,” he said.
“There will come a day, I promise you, and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye,” he said. “It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I’m telling you it will come.”
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yes.
more and more lately, that I am such a cold person! Now hear me out, I care about the well-being of people, I care about social issues, I care about the things on God’s heart. But for some reason, when it comes to people. I can detach with a lot of ease. And it’s getting to the point where it scares me, why are people so dispensable to me? I’ve been going over it in my mind a lot… is it that I’m a big picture person? Is it because I’m so stubborn and individualistic I don’t think i need anyone? Am I scared that I’ll make them matter and realize that I don’t matter to them? How can I numb myself to the point of letting people flow out of my life as easily as they entered it?
How can God use someone that has so little commitment to people that he loves? I’m not saying I don’t like people or care, because I do, I’m the happiest when people come into community and come to the Lord. But this applies to everyone, after a certain point I can let go.
I guess, I think I don’t need anyone.
Where do I go from here?
In LIFEgroup, we were challenged to give up something everyday in order to spur us on to worship rather than focusing on works and how ‘busy’ we can get. So… here we go
Monday: facebook
Tuesday: sweets
Wednesday: gchat
Thursday: food (because I’m fasting for CSMP/Host)
Friday: 1 hour of undivided and uninterrupted time with God.
Saturday: Secular Music
Sunday: Texting, call me…
As an ESFJ, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you deal with things according to how you feel about them, or how they fit in with your personal value system. Your secondary mode is internal, where you take things in via your five senses in a literal, concrete fashion.
ESFJs are people persons - they love people. They are warmly interested in others. They use their Sensing and Judging characteristics to gather specific, detailed information about others, and turn this information into supportive judgments. They want to like people, and have a special skill at bringing out the best in others. They are extremely good at reading others, and understanding their point of view. The ESFJ’s strong desire to be liked and for everything to be pleasant makes them highly supportive of others. People like to be around ESFJs, because the ESFJ has a special gift of invariably making people feel good about themselves.
The ESFJ takes their responsibilities very seriously, and is very dependable. They value security and stability, and have a strong focus on the details of life. They see before others do what needs to be done, and do whatever it takes to make sure that it gets done. They enjoy these types of tasks, and are extremely good at them.
ESFJs are warm and energetic. They need approval from others to feel good about themselves. They are hurt by indifference and don’t understand unkindness. They are very giving people, who get a lot of their personal satisfaction from the happiness of others. They want to be appreciated for who they are, and what they give. They’re very sensitive to others, and freely give practical care. ESFJs are such caring individuals, that they sometimes have a hard time seeing or accepting a difficult truth about someone they care about.
With Extraverted Feeling dominating their personality, ESFJs are focused on reading other people. They have a strong need to be liked, and to be in control. They are extremely good at reading others, and often change their own manner to be more pleasing to whoever they’re with at the moment.
The ESFJ’s value system is defined externally. They usually have very well-formed ideas about the way things should be, and are not shy about expressing these opinions. However, they weigh their values and morals against the world around them, rather than against an internal value system. They may have a strong moral code, but it is defined by the community that they live in, rather than by any strongly felt internal values.
ESFJs who have had the benefit of being raised and surrounded by a strong value system that is ethical and centered around genuine goodness will most likely be the kindest, most generous souls who will gladly give you the shirt off of their back without a second thought. For these individuals, the selfless quality of their personality type is genuine and pure. ESFJs who have not had the advantage of developing their own values by weighing them against a good external value system may develop very questionable values. In such cases, the ESFJ most often genuinely believes in the integrity of their skewed value system. They have no internal understanding of values to set them straight. In weighing their values against our society, they find plenty of support for whatever moral transgression they wish to justify. This type of ESFJ is a dangerous person indeed. Extraverted Feeling drives them to control and manipulate, and their lack of Intuition prevents them from seeing the big picture. They’re usually quite popular and good with people, and good at manipulating them. Unlike their ENFJ cousin, they don’t have Intuition to help them understand the real consequences of their actions. They are driven to manipulate other to achieve their own ends, yet they believe that they are following a solid moral code of conduct.
All ESFJs have a natural tendency to want to control their environment. Their dominant function demands structure and organization, and seeks closure. ESFJs are most comfortable with structured environments. They’re not likely to enjoy having to do things which involve abstract, theoretical concepts, or impersonal analysis. They do enjoy creating order and structure, and are very good at tasks which require these kinds of skills. ESFJs should be careful about controling people in their lives who do not wish to be controlled.
ESFJs respect and believe in the laws and rules of authority, and believe that others should do so as well. They’re traditional, and prefer to do things in the established way, rather than venturing into unchartered territory. Their need for security drives their ready acceptance and adherence to the policies of the established system. This tendency may cause them to sometimes blindly accept rules without questioning or understanding them.
An ESFJ who has developed in a less than ideal way may be prone to being quite insecure, and focus all of their attention on pleasing others. He or she might also be very controling, or overly sensitive, imagining bad intentions when there weren’t any.
ESFJs incorporate many of the traits that are associated with women in our society. However, male ESFJs will usually not appear feminine at all. On the contrary, ESFJs are typically quite conscious about gender roles and will be most comfortable playing a role that suits their gender in our society. Male ESFJs will be quite masculine (albeit sensitive when you get to know them), and female ESFJs will be very feminine.
ESFJs at their best are warm, sympathetic, helpful, cooperative, tactful, down-to-earth, practical, thorough, consistent, organized, enthusiastic, and energetic. They enjoy tradition and security, and will seek stable lives that are rich in contact with friends and family.
