1. 804
    2
    Jun
    spiritualinspiration: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” -1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV Spiritual maturity isn’t measured by how long you’ve been a Christian, how much you know, or how often you go to church. Spiritual maturity is measured by the way you treat other people. It’s measured by the love you allow to operate in and through you. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a picture of what love looks like. When we are walking in love, we treat other people with courtesy and respect. In other words, are you kind to the person at the checkout counter that may be moving too slowly? Are you gentle when you are driving down the highway and someone cuts you off? Are you patient with your family and coworkers? These are all characteristics of love. The Bible tells us that love is patient. It is kind. It does not envy; it is not proud. It is not rude. Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrong. Love never fails. Notice that these characteristics don’t have anything to do with feelings. Love is a choice. You can choose to walk in love toward people even when you don’t feel like it! Today, look for ways to cultivate the greatest thing in your life — love! Let love grow in you because it is the sign of spiritual maturity and opens the door for God to operate in and through you.

    spiritualinspiration:

    “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” -1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV

    Spiritual maturity isn’t measured by how long you’ve been a Christian, how much you know, or how often you go to church. Spiritual maturity is measured by the way you treat other people. It’s measured by the love you allow to operate in and through you.

    1 Corinthians 13 gives us a picture of what love looks like. When we are walking in love, we treat other people with courtesy and respect. In other words, are you kind to the person at the checkout counter that may be moving too slowly? Are you gentle when you are driving down the highway and someone cuts you off? Are you patient with your family and coworkers?

    These are all characteristics of love. The Bible tells us that love is patient. It is kind. It does not envy; it is not proud. It is not rude. Love is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrong. Love never fails.

    Notice that these characteristics don’t have anything to do with feelings. Love is a choice. You can choose to walk in love toward people even when you don’t feel like it!

    Today, look for ways to cultivate the greatest thing in your life — love! Let love grow in you because it is the sign of spiritual maturity and opens the door for God to operate in and through you.

    (via zoet123)

  2. 1910
    28
    May

    Chuck & Sarah <3

    I miss the series!!

    (Source: neuralmente, via the-absolute-best-posts)

  3. 104443
    6
    May
    the-absolute-best-posts: ladysouth: As seen on Facebook. (posted by Homestead Survival) A sweet lesson on patience. A NYC Taxi driver wrote:I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboardbox filled with photos and glassware.‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drivethrough downtown?’‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’.We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.They must have been expecting her.I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.‘Nothing,’ I said‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

    the-absolute-best-posts:

    ladysouth:

    As seen on Facebook. (posted by Homestead Survival)

    A sweet lesson on patience. 

    A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

    I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

    After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

    By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

    There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard
    box filled with photos and glassware.

    ‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

    She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

    She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

    ‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
    through downtown?’

    ‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

    ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

    I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

    ‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

    For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

    We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

    Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

    As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’.
    We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

    Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
    They must have been expecting her.

    I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

    ‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

    ‘Nothing,’ I said

    ‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

    ‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

    Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

    ‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

    I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..

    I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

    On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

    We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

    But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

    (Source: mishalmoorebloggyblog)

  4. 6
    May

    Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo

    I didn’t take any pictures at the Trockadero ballet performance, but I loved it!

    Thank you for an amazing day :)

  5. 10
    29
    Apr

    We are what we choose

    “We are What We Choose”
    Remarks by Jeff Bezos, as delivered to the Class of 2010 
    Baccalaureate
    May 30, 2010 
     
    As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.
     
    At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”
     
    I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”
     
    What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
     
    This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.
     
    Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.
     
    How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?
     
    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
     
    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.
     
    Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.
     
    How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?
     
    Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?
     
    Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?
     
    Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?
     
    Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?
     
    Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?
     
    Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?
     
    Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?
     
    When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?
     
    Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?
     
    Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?
     
    I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!

  6. 2151
    29
    Apr

    the-absolute-best-posts:

    perrrolike:

    dynamicafrica:

    Photo Series: “African Love”

    Photographs by Seydou Keita, Malick Sidibe and Jean Depara.

    I’m so happy this photo set has as many notes as it does and even more so that these photos exist. I compiled them on a whim one night as I was tired of seeing ‘national geographic’-style photos of Africans that were taken from a tourist/anthropological perspective, not saying much about the individuals in them. We really need more African photographers to capture ourselves in a way that only we can. 

     Submitted by face—the—strange

  7. 21779
    29
    Apr

    "I have the deepest affection for intellectual conversations. The ability to just sit and talk. About love, about life, about anything, about everything. To sit under the moon with all the time in the world, the full-speed train that is our lives slowing to a crawl. Bound by no obligations, barred by no human limitations. To speak without regret or fear of consequence. To talk for hours and about what’s really important in life."

    -

    (Source: herarbitrarymusings, via mithich)

  8. 1
    15
    Apr

    Haven’t written about Good Friday and Easter. But this is simply my tribute to the King of Kings. I see your face in every sunrise, in all the beauty you’ve put in the world for us to enjoy and to experience the peace and joy you bring. Thank you for your sacrifice. You’ve made everything beautiful in your time.


    I see Your face in every sunrise
    The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
    The world awakens in the light of the day
    I look up to the sky and say 
    You’re beautiful

    I see Your power in the moonlit night
    Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
    We are amazed in the light of the stars
    It’s all proclaiming who You are
    You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

    I see you there hanging on a tree
    You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
    Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
    Soon we will be coming home
    You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful

    When we arrive at eternity’s shore
    Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
    We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring 
    Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
    You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

    I see Your face, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

  9. 15
    Apr

    A Tale of Two Revolutions

    Article: Syrian Refugees in Libya Compare Notes on Twin Uprisings


    He has purple, bruiselike depressions beneath his eyes. She stares at the floor. The faces of their three young children are covered in mosquito bites. Together, they sit on a pair of thin, donated mattresses on the floor of their temporary home. He does all the talking.

    By the time the family fled Homs two months ago, the city had become Syria’s most infamous killing field. Residents say President Bashar Assad’s forces lobbed shells and bullets at besieged residents like they were animals in a cage. Massacres begot funerals and demonstrations that begot more massacres. Mohamed (whose name has been changed to protect the loved ones he left behind) remembers he dropped to the ground at one such funeral as Syrian forces opened fire — only to feel the bodies of those who were slower fall lifeless on top of him. “They didn’t fall fast enough and they killed them,” he says, his voice cracking.

    The family’s escape several weeks later was no less harrowing. The shelling barely missed them — four adults and six children — as they abandoned their home and fled south for the Jordanian border. Now they’re safe, they say, because they’re nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away from Homs, in Benghazi, Libya.

    Syrian refugees have fled to Libya in the thousands in recent months, although no official figures are available. In the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, Yahya al-Jamal, who helps run the Union of Syrian Revolutionaries there, a humanitarian outreach group, says he registered more than 700 new Syrian families in March alone.

    Most of them fled the southern Syrian cities of Homs and Hama as the Assad regime shelled and shot at civilian areas where residents had staged protests and the rebel Free Syrian Army had found strongholds. But those who have made the long trek to Libya say that the North African state — currently going through its own tumultuous transition since the revolution that toppled the 42-year regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi last year — has been far more welcoming than most.

    Libya’s transitional government was one of the first foreign governments to formally recognize the opposition Syrian National Council, and it said in February that it would donate $100 million to the Syrian opposition. Across the country, Syrian refugees say that Libya has not only offered them a safer haven than Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, but that local volunteers have also helped keep them off the streets. “No one is living in refugee camps,” says Mohamed Tarek Ziad, a young activist from Homs, who escaped a death sentence from the regime and settled in the eastern Libyan city of Darnah. “People have offered us houses and are working to get us assistance,” he says. “Even the imams in the mosque — in each prayer, they pray for Syria. And sometimes they join us in demonstrations.”

    There’s something bittersweet about the hospitality in Libya, and the reason is lost on few. “The Libyans have tasted the same pain,” says al-Jamal, whose organization has shipped medical supplies to the refugee camps on Turkey’s Syrian border, in addition to keeping hundreds of local refugee families afloat. “So that’s why they’re helping.”

    But it’s more than that. The reason Libya is safe for Syrians, many say, is because unlike Syria’s own ongoing struggle, the Libyan revolution succeeded. Libyans not only killed their dictator Muammar Gaddafi but also toppled his regime — and conspicuously, they did so with help.

    Overwhelmingly, Libyans argue, that’s why NATO, Europe and the U.S. have every reason to support the Syrian resistance. “Bashar al-Assad is the same as Gaddafi, and what we see happening in Syria is exactly what happened to us,” says Salah Buhliga, the commander of the Zawiya Martyrs Brigade, one of Benghazi’s largest rebel groups during the revolution, which, after months of NATO-assisted fighting on Libyan front lines, is now being incorporated into a fledgling national army. “Why did NATO intervene in Libya? For the injustice. So for the same reason, they should help Syria.”

    In Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, that sentiment is particularly acute. Just over a year ago, in the final hours before a U.N. resolution authorizing NATO intervention was passed and implemented, Gaddafi’s forces had reached Benghazi’s doorstep, hurling tank shells and mortars into the city’s outer neighborhoods. Many remember their fear at the time: that a massacre was imminent. “If NATO had done nothing, Benghazi would be finished, and I’d be dead, God willing,” says one Benghazi resident, Saad Abdel Ghader, who used a recent Friday afternoon to picnic on the city’s grassy outskirts with his family. It’s a hindsight widely echoed across the country.

    But the Syrians who have fled Homs for the relative safety of their Arab Spring counterpart believe there’s a far more sinister reason that Homs is not Benghazi. “It has been 13 months, but no one has helped us because it’s not in their interest to do so,” says Ammar, a Syrian refugee in Darnah, who declines to give his last name because his parents remain in Homs. “Libya has gas and oil, but we have none of that.” His friend Mohamed Tarek Ziad puts it differently: “Libyans can pay for their war. They can pay NATO back.”

    Analysts and foreign policy makers say it’s far more complicated than that. They point to Syria’s sectarian dimension — its divided opposition and multiethnic, multireligious tinderbox of a population. They note its proximity to Iraq, where a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 sparked years of sectarian bloodshed and instability that have yet to see their end. And they point to the seemingly larger proportion of regime loyalists in Syria, compared with Libya — as well as powerful foreign backers, like Russia, China and Iran.

    But the families who fled a nightmare on the streets of Homs to the safe but unfamiliar refuge of Benghazi aren’t buying it. “We’re a poor country,” says Mohamed, whose family now resides in Benghazi. “Is that why they don’t care about us? Is that why we have no media inside? Libya had the chance to get media inside to expose a lot of secrets, and maybe that’s why [the U.S. and Europe] helped them.” He pauses, his face contorting with sadness and anger. “Is it because they want a price for our blood?” he continues. “Or is it to protect Israel and Assad is the best protector of Israel?”

    On April 11, the Assad regime agreed to a cease-fire brokered by U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan. The U.N. says 9,000 people have already been killed in the war that has dragged on for more than a year; nearly a quarter million have been displaced. And the Syrian opposition has said it is suspicious of any government pledges to halt the violence as previous declarations have preceded more military assaults on opposition strongholds.

    “In America, the vicious killing of a dog or cat would make people sad for that animal,” says Mohamed. “In Syria, it’s children and humans who are getting killed on a daily basis,” he says, staring imploringly at his foreign visitor. His 4-year-old daughter watches closely from the floor. “So now there’s another question,” he adds. “Is it because we’re Muslims?”

  10. 65873
    12
    Apr
    Is this real o.O

    Is this real o.O

    (Source: ForGIFs.com, via irlillian)

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