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We should take care of our brothers and sisters.


Hands of Homeless Man Receiving Bowl of Soup --- Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis  So many going hungry, starving and malnourished across our globe and there is plenty of food to go around. Many of the nations across our planet have a large surplus of food and a good bit of it will go to spoil, yet there are many people who are going hungry. So much food waste in restaurants, grocery stores and even in our homes that could have been a meal for a less fortunate person. Luckily some grocery stores do donate close dated food to local food banks and organizations. More businesses need to focus on using their near dated food as donations to food banks and charity organizations. Almost all of the religions on our planet support the idea of feeding the hungry and helping the less fortunate. We need to get beyond our religious differences and work together to help our fellow humans survive.

MP910221024 The welfare of our fellow humans is our responsibility as a species, we should take care of our brothers and sisters. If more of us were to volunteer to help food drives, food banks, soup kitchens or one of the many other efforts in aiding fellow humans there would be far less hunger, homelessness and suffering in the world. Helping the less fortunate is a pure form of compassion and is the way we should be. Regardless of your political, religious or philosophical view, the welfare of our brothers and sisters should be one of your high priorities. For one day you may be one of those unfortunate, homeless, hungry brothers or sisters in need of help.

We can go from fortunate to unfortunate in a matter of one day, so we should always have compassion for those in need and do what is within our abilities to aid our fellow humans.
Ray Barbier

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Change our focus back on God as well as the family.


There are so many unhappy, lonely and lost people out in the world. Some have the perfect mate, job or financial situation but still they are searching for something or someone. They get caught up in the illusion something external is going to make the happy or fill the emptiness inside. The only one who can make you happy or fill that void within besides yourself is God. You have to make the choice to be happy before you can find happiness, you must choose to love yourself before anyone else can love you. You must accept the love of God and start a personal relationship with him before the void will be filled.  You can have the perfect husband or wife and still feel the loneliness and the emptiness of the void within. It isn’t that your mate isn’t the right one, It more than likely the lack of a personal relationship with God. Even people who go to church every Sabbath and read the bible each day can still need to have a personal relationship with God.

God will help those who help themselves basically says that you have to make the first move in faith and God will be right beside you helping you along the way. In this modern world we focus too much on how much money we can make, what kind of clothes, gadgets and toys we can buy for ourselves and our children. We lost the closeness of family and we need to change our focus back on God as well as the family. The stress of keeping up with the Joneses or the Smiths keeps us so distracted from God and the family. We must remember we should live our lives for God first then the family and lastly for ourselves.  When we put other things and people before God we cease to worship god and begin worshiping materialism and the self. God wants us to be happy and have things but he wants us to do so in his honor and for his glory not our own.  This is where the emptiness comes from, when we tend to put other things before God, when we do that we close the door inside our hearts and minds to God’s love. That’s the pit, the emptiness, the lack of his love within us.

God, Family then the self.  The order in which things are needed to be done.
Ray Barbier

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So there is no rest for the mind, heart or for our weary soul.


p10056Too much information coming at us all and you can tune in 24 hours a day to all the murder and mayhem. Some of it fact, some conjecture the rest is not much more than rumor. Dirty laundry of the famous, wars on distant shores and the world’s next worse scenario. Too much negativity, violence and tragedy for the human heart to hold. Our mind get stuck in the fight or flight mode and it fills with fear of a possible disaster both far away and near. All of our technology makes us all like next door neighbors and brings us news instantly from across the globe. Too much, too fast and too often is the onslaught of the cold hand of reality and the bad news it brings. So there is no rest for the mind, heart or for our weary soul. We should just turn off the information flow and be happy, but we are way to addicted to it all. We love the adrenalin rush and the feeling of power we get from knowing of all the news and information flowing across our electronic universe.

tpl_7_ppl We are addicted to all the stimulation we get from television and we are heavily influenced  by the multitude of messages that they bring. We live in a generation of fear and we are paying for that mentally and physically. Independent thought is becoming a rare thing because we can’t escape the opinions we hear all day long. If you hear something said enough times you sometimes begin to agree with it or at least accept it. I love my electronics as much as the next guy and feel they are an asset to our species if we don’t forget to be human. We just need to turn them all off once in a while and just be human.  We need to interact with each other face to face, we need to have time to think our own thoughts and opinions as well.

Too much, too fast is too hard on our whole being. Take a break and breathe, enjoy the simpler things in life once in a while. Let your mind wander and let your imagination grow.
Ray Barbier

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Still the same person deep inside


rayraydI remember as a child I would befriend anyone at a drop of a hat, I didn’t care about your religious beliefs, color of your skin, nationality or if you were the same or very different from me. When I was a child all the prejudices and complications of having different religious beliefs were not a concern to me in any way. I accepted everyone as is and if you didn’t like me or were cruel to me I just would avoid you until you were friendly and nice to me. Forgiving others for me as a child was second nature and accepting others as they were was my first nature. Now that I am older I still pretty much follow the same philosophies as when I was young, the only difference is I have to fight all the influences of the world as I do. Seems when we grow up we start making a simple process much more complicated for reasons that yet elude me.

I believe a lot of the problem with us when we grow up is we begin embracing the fear we shrugged off as children. Instead of letting go of fear and embracing compassion and understanding we embrace fear. The fear we faced as children was easily shrugged off because we had faith in our family, friends, other human beings and in a higher power. As we grow older we lose faith in one or not all of those things or at least our faith is weakened considerably as we grow older. I looked at everyone and everything as a part of my world and a part of a large family as a child. No one was a stranger and if you were a stranger it wasn’t for long. Some say that was naïveté and ignorance to the dangers of the world, I say it was faith in my fellow humans, compassion and understanding at work.

003The only times I was mad at others as a child is when I believed someone was being treated unkindly or unfair. I didn’t seem to like people taking advantage of each other, bullying each other or causing some kind of pain to others. But even though I would get mad and if I could stand up for the oppressed I quickly forgave the person or persons doing the wrong. Seems I lived in the now and let the past go easier back then. It is amazing how much we can learn from our youth both from the good things and the mistakes we had made. Though I know its impossible to be a child again and think exactly like I did, I can try to embrace the better qualities I lost during my years of life. I can revisit the memories of who I was and re awaken the child within me. Though I have grown up I am still the same person deep inside, I can shed the fear and the need for complication within my life.

Who I was as a child is the core of who I am now. It is that core which I must embrace and it is fear and the complication complex I must shed.
Ray Barbier

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I am worth no more or less than any other


eye Sometimes I find I am way to sensitive and get hurt too easy, it is because how much I care about others and some of it is my desire to be accepted. Though I have come a long way in the insecurity department, I don’t rely on other people’s opinions about me or if they accept me or not as much as I used to. A lot of the reason I don’t get bothered by it as much is I have learned to accept myself as is and realize my family, friends and love of my life are the only ones that matter in the end. Not everyone will like me or accept me, but those that do I will cherish and embrace as a part of my extended family. Self confidence and self-worth have been issues I have dealt with since my teen years. Now 44 I am finally getting a grip on reality and the truth of it all. I walk in faith now instead of fear and know God accepts me and loves me and so do those I love.

I am worth no more or less than any other and I am as confident as I need to be. I can do what I need and want and that is all that matters to me now.

God’s love heals, builds character and inspires all.
Ray Barbier

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God gave us a wonderful home and we should cherish it


001With the Mayan Calendar countdown to zero pending in our minds and all the shows pushing doom and gloom there is a lot of people living in fear of the end. Fear not the end of the world it will come when it is destined to come, waste no time worrying about what can not be changed or avoided. When we get too involved with the fear of the end of our lives and the world we forget to enjoy the time we have been blessed with and to thank god for our blessings as well. Fear is a tool of the darkness to distract you from your relationship with god and away from walking in faith. If we spent as much time living in and for the glory of God as we do in fearing death or the end of the world just think how much better this world would be. Instead of embracing the fear we would be embracing God’s love and spreading his love to all human kind. If we spent more time fixing the problems of our world than we do worrying about the outcome of our mistakes we may be able to improve our world.

0992012 may be the end or the beginning of the end of the world but if that is so then there is not one thing we can do to change that fact. All we can do is focus on the here and now and live our life with love and in faith. We should take our role as stewards of this beautiful blue planet more serious than we do. Clean water, Clean Air, Woodland Preservation along with the preservation of all the living creatures including ourselves should be our main focus. God gave us a wonderful home and we should cherish it and try to preserve it for the future generations.

 

We should take our jobs as stewards of this planet serious and preserve this miracle planet for generations to come.
Ray Barbier

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God gave man power in love, hope, faith and compassion.


His Only-begotten Son and the Word of God 1885...

Love, one of the most powerful emotions and a great gift from god. We should love God first before all others especially ourselves. Then we should love the family, friends, the rest of humanity and then we must love ourselves. Loving ourselves last is a reminder not to have a prideful love or a love full of vanity for ourselves. Loving God first reminds us to give all the glory to Him and to keep our focus on him as well. Love is one of those things that has no limitations except for what you put upon it. It has no boundaries or limit in quantity and can be shared with all living things. Love is one of those gifts that keeps on giving and it has proven to be viral, the more you share love the more it spreads.

Love can cure ailments of the mind,, heart and sometimes even the body. God’s love can cure-all ailments if it accompanied with faith. Faith is the belief in God’s love and promises so in its own way faith is also love. God gave man power in love, hope, faith and compassion he gave us all his love through the life and death of his only begotten son Jesus. Forgiveness which Jesus taught is one of the many forms of love God gave us and wishes for us to practice. Love is the key, the answer and the power that we should embrace.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 K.J.V.

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If it wasn’t for all of you


dd43853Today I started looking back upon my life, remembering all the friends I had. I have lost some to death and others through time and distance. I remember them all and miss each one of them. Today I write this post for them, a dedication or celebration of having known them and to thank them for being my friends. To those of them I may have done wrong or left behind unintentionally I apologize. To those that forgot me I will still remember you within my heart. If it wasn’t for all of you I wouldn’t have had such a great life so far. Now that I am growing old and have lost most my friends I realize how lucky I was to have all of you. I just hope that some of you will remember me as a good guy. I hope all of you are happy and living a decent life.

I will always be a friend to all of you and will be here if you ever need me. God bless all of you and once again THANK YOU!

 

Friends are the anchor that keeps our feet on the ground and the lifesaver that keeps us afloat in the ocean of life.
Ray Barbier

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Each day is a blessing and a gift


HPIM0622My eyes open to see another day, the stress, fear and aggravation of yesterday is gone and the hope, faith and anticipation of another blessed day of life fills my heart and soul. What happened yesterday is left behind and no regrets, sadness, pain or frustration of days gone by will interfere with this gift of life for another day. I don’t live in the past nor do I live in the future, I live here and in the now. So no worries of what might be or what could have been will influence me. All I have is thankfulness for yet another chance to live, love and experience this world and its wonders. Yet another chance to make a difference, to make a mark on this world and to enjoy the day with those I care for and love.

Each day is a blessing and a gift, cherish it and give thanks to God for another chance at life.
Ray Barbier

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It could be the last time that you might meet.


p10057The time we have on earth is very short and limited, Time flies by so fast it seems like just a day has passed and you went from 16 to 44. The older you get the faster time seems to get, this is why we should cherish the family, friends and loves we have each moment we can. We should find the beauty in everything we can and enjoy each moment we are blessed to have in this short life. We should always express our love and show kindness to others and they should do so in return. We can only control our own lives and make choices for ourselves so we must set an example for others to follow. They may see the goodness in having a kind heart and enjoying every moment with others.  Just remember that the next time you see a friend, family member or loved one it could be the last time that you might meet. Grim sounding but it is the truth of the reality we live in, no one is immortal nor do we know when our last breath is going to be until it arrives. So don’t let any chance of being happy or to be kind to others slip you by in life.

Just some thoughts.
Ray Barbier

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