It is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. a day we all gather to be thankful for the blessings in our lives. There is a debate as of where and when the original celebration of Thanksgiving was and below is a Wikipedia Excerpt and link to original article for you to explore.
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In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition traces its origins to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. There is also evidence for an earlier celebration on the continent by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony.[7] The initial thanksgiving observance at Virginia in 1619 was prompted by the colonists’ leaders on the anniversary of the settlement.[8] The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. In later years, the tradition was continued by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.[9][10][11] While initially, the Plymouth colony did not have enough food to feed half of the 102 colonists, the Wampanoag Native Americans helped the Pilgrims by providing seeds and teaching them to fish. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.[12]
Read the complete Wiki Article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#In_the_United_States
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Regardless of which of the Thanksgiving celebrations were the first one, the whole idea is to be thankful for not only the food you harvest but also that you have been blessed with family,friends a good community and hopefully good health. So much we can be thankful for that we seem to take for granted in our every day life. Thanksgiving is a time for us to try and remember those things and be thankful for them as well as for being alive yet another wonderful day. It good we have one day a year to reflect and to be thankful, but we should be thankful for each and every day we have. We should cherish the gift of the present and be thankful we have had a past as well as happy we may have tomorrow to enjoy. I pray everyone has a good thanksgiving and do not forget we should be thankful everyday that we wake from our slumber.
Happy Thanksgiving to all
Raymond Barbier
1 Corinthians 8 – 13
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Slow down and enjoy the little moments that make life so wonderful, for life is too short to waste it rushing around blind to the beauty of this world. Stop putting your job and or career before your family, friends and your own life. Yes we all must work, but working is not the sole purpose or meaning to our existence. Having fun with friends and family as well as some alone time are all important parts to our short life that we live. We started working so we can pay the bills and to provide a decent lifestyle for ourselves and our family, but if that work consumes all of our time it leaves both ourselves and our families lacking in quality time together. It seems it is rare for a family to sit down and eat at the kitchen table anymore, daddy is at work, mommy is juggling being a mother and a working woman as the children run to their electronic escapes from the world.
The family unit is slowly dissolving or morphing into something with little closeness and that is very dysfunctional. Luckily there are still some families that function quite well, but they are becoming far and few between in this modern world. The family unit is where children learn their life skills and develop their emotional blueprints to their adult selves. For one of the most important things in life is the family unit and we need to start focusing on its development. Though it may be hard to balance time between work, family, friends and yourself but it is a crucial element in the development of children to have a good home life. It will take an effort from every person within the family to maintain a functional family, every one will have to sacrifice something in order to make time to be together. For those sacrifices they will gain family closeness and well as love and respect between the family members.
The Family unit is the foundation to ones entire life, for a strong foundation can create a sturdy infrastructure.
May Love, Faith, Hope and wisdom guide your every footstep.
Raymond Barbier
With the Holidays season upon us it is once again time to think about friends and family as well as the less fortunate people of the world. We should not only be thankful for our own blessings, we should be bringing blessings and joy to others. The gift of love goes a long way as well as the gift of charity, to be in service to our fellow humans goes even further. Holidays also seem to remind us of the those we lost and the dreams that never came into fruition. To reflect on those things is perfectly normal but to wallow in the loss and or grief is not. We should celebrate the things we have received and rejoice in the time we had with those we have lost. Remember the love they brought into your life and the change they made in both you and your life. Dreams that never become reality are but seeds for new dreams that could come true.
During this holiday season try to share your love and kindle hope in others and most of all keep the faith.
Love, Understanding, Charity, Faith and Compassion be the main theme in your daily life.
Happy Holidays
Raymond Barbier
In this life we can either be a force for good or a force for evil. Most of us walk a thin line between the two, but eventually one side or the other we shall fall to. It is better to choose your path and stick with it than to waver between two, this is an easy way to become lost as well as confused. Though we all have to go through the middle of the road syndrome in order to make a choice of which path to follow, but to stay in the middle of a road for too long one may be ran over. Even in the bible there is a reference to this idea .
“Revelation 3:15-16: ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. “
Of course being lukewarm in this verse is referring to being a part-time Christian or one does not love god and worship him full heartedly. The bible teaches this and the fact one can only serve one master as well as a house divided upon itself shall fall. One should be one minded and walk one path as well as choose which side he will be a force for. Doubt, Fear, Indecisiveness are the enemies of us all, for they only confuse and distract one from truly living life and serving the forces they choose. For I am a firm believer in free will and believe the spiritual / religious path one walks is solely a personal decision and they have the right to believe in the way they desire. But with free will comes both a price to pay and the responsibility of who and what may have been influenced or effected by the choices made. So always think and ponder on both the choices before you and the consequences that surely will follow. Choose your path wisely and walk in faith, if you choose wisely then in the end you can pass away thinking or speaking the verse “2 Timothy 4:7 – I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. “ .
Until that day comes I pray that we all can walk in faith.
Matthew 7:7 – “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Paranoia, self-doubt and low self-esteem are some the most difficult thought processes to correct. They play a significant role in ones chances to achieve success and in living a happy life. It seems for the most part the roadblocks to happiness stem from one troublesome root. That root cause appears to be fear, fear of failure, rejection and the fear of not being able to be in control. Fear seems to control so much of our decision-making that it controls a part if not all of our life. Though fear has its place in one’s life it is not supposed to control our life. Fear is a lot like a wild dog, once it is in the chicken coop it will keep killing the chickens until it gets tamed. Just like the wild dog, fear is something we all need to learn how to tame. Because if we allow fear to run wild it will kill our hopes and dreams before they have a chance to materialize as possible realities.
The fears we all have to face seem to be deep-rooted and they had their beginnings far in our youthful past. The worst of them usually come from our childhood and teen years. The only way I know to face such fears is to discover the time and place of origin. If we can discover the original source then we can find a way to overcome the fears hold on us.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
In a nut shell the only way to conquer or tame your fears is to discover their root and face them head on. Once you do overcome your fears then you are on the path to becoming your true self and will be able to live to your full potential.
Just some random thoughts on fear
Raymond Barbier
Too much politics and not enough creative thinking in congress, they rather focus on the differences between their political parties and the upcoming elections than on finding solutions to the problems at hand. The lack of the ability to compromise for the common good in congress wastes both the taxpayers money and time. The longer they play these political games the worse our nations problems will grow. The congress seems too focused on the upcoming elections and their parties agendas that they can not find any true solutions to our national debt or the declining economy. Maybe if they would put as much effort into fixing the problems at hand as they do the propaganda and political spin they spew out to the media they might be able to work together to find a solution.
The immaturity the congress is displaying along with their inability to co-operate will not only allow our nation to slip into ruin but it also will tarnish this great nations global reputation. We are supposed to be a guiding light and the shining example for the world to follow, but how our government is in chaos due to the political games being played we will not be able to be such a guiding light. For a house that is divided upon itself surely will fall, so we need to get our house in order before it falls.
So congress, you can either keep playing your political games and bring this nation to its knees or work together and fix the problems at hand. The choice is solely yours to either govern or to play political games. Either way you will be responsible for the choices made as well as the results. For We the People have given you the power through the elections and now we place the responsibility upon your shoulders.
God Grant them the wisdom to see the error of their ways.
Raymond Barbier
In life we must face the fact we will make mistakes and sometimes choose unwisely. This is all a part of the lesson plan in the great school we call life. The sad part is sometimes we are doomed to repeat a mistake or poor choice many times until we finally get the message or learn the lesson we needed too. I believe up to our last breath and thought we are learning something new. It’s all apart of our spiritual evolution or education. Question is do we come back to live here again in this world until we learn all the lessons that can be taught here? Or do we simply move on to another place, dimension or even heaven or a hell. Those questions are really the kind that you can not answer for you will not ever know until its time to move on from this life. Personally I hope there is a heaven and a very forgiving god waiting on the other side. What I was brought up to believe is the Christian faith and I still hold on to that belief as I try to keep an open mind to other religions and philosophies. Each philosophy and religion carries with it some form of lessons both in morality and discipline. For the most part they seem to teach humility and selflessness along with compassion and self dignity, They try and inspire us to strive towards a more civilized and compassionate world, a world were greed and lust are no longer as well as a world where no one wants nor needs due to the lack of selfishness. Unfortunately too many of us overlook the lessons in both the philosophies and religions. This leaves us in a world where the select few who have the power and the money are in control as the masses who barely make a living or are starving to struggle just to survive.
So far we have come in the short time we have inhabited this world but we still are so far away from our true potential spiritually and as a species in whole. We have had the stone age, bronze age, iron age, steel age, industrial age and now the technological or information age. We still need to reach our spiritual age before we become our own executioner. For we have technologies that could destroy all life on our planet and yet we are still children spiritually and this leaves us in harm’s way. Without spiritual growth and wisdom we are likely to cause our own extinction before we ever reach our full potential as a species.
Just my two cents worth,
Raymond Barbier
One Lifetime Blog 
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