Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Phyllis Edgerly Ring's writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Christian Science Monitor, Ms., and Writers Digest. Former coordinator of programs at Green Acre Baha'i School in southern Maine, she has a book of inspirational essays due out soon. More information about her current projects can be found at www.phyllisring.com." target="_blank">http://www.phyllisring.com.
Phyllis Edgerly Ring's writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Christian Science Monitor, Ms., and Writers Digest. Former coordinator of programs at Green Acre Baha'i School in southern Maine, she has a book of inspirational essays due out soon. More information about her current projects can be found at www.phyllisring.com." target="_blank">http://www.phyllisring.com.
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For whom the bell did not toll
Column: Life at First Sight
Jul 3 2008 08:14PM
If you look at the history of the Liberty Bell, and of the life of one woman who lived about five feet from where it stood, you find an interesting interplay between the words with which we often speak of liberty and the actions that have resulted in its
Toolkit for the workshop of life
Column: Life at First Sight
Jun 9 2008 02:26PM
Much like life skills, values, aren't something we acquire only by listening to someone tell us about them. Most of us learn by seeing them in practice, then trying them out ourselves.
The Thorny Road to Unity
Column: Life at First Sight
May 21 2008 09:44PM
Humanity's heedlessness of God’s call in this day continues to lead down the same awful roads and more often than not, the real victims are the totally helpless and innocent.
Green is a part of everyone's rainbow
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 29 2008 09:39AM
The real answers appear to come not through anybody’s political rhetoric, or promises, but through commitment manifested person by person – and one neighborhood at a time.
Every Sacred Trust is on Loan
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 16 2008 07:27PM
Our human nature usually wants to take better care of something that we know must be returned and for which we’ll be held accountable.
Listening for heaven, even on earth
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 25 2008 02:43AM
Even as my body's sensations echoed this inner awe of my heart, a portion of me stood apart like an observer and thought: 'What on earth is this?' Nothing earthly at all, it would seem.
The way home
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 11 2008 01:41AM
Baha'u'llah's invitation to see the Face of the Beloved in every one of our fellow inhabitants on the planet still extends itself to all of us, as it did when He walked in the Holy Land more than a century ago.
A timely dose of the best medicine
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 26 2008 12:16AM
While we may have to dig deep some days to find the humor of human experience within them, the effort itself can be a kind of healing balm.
A balm for every wound
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 12 2008 02:34AM
'One for each of you,' I could hear my deceased mother's voice say, whether in imagination or actuality. The tone of her voice to my inner ear was real enough, as real as her resolve always was to treat her two daughters fairly.
The invitation in forgiveness
Column: Life at First Sight
Jan 29 2008 01:10AM
Forgiveness comes hard in the face of the kinds of things that often remained too painful for families like mine to even talk about. Yet it's also the invitation to a nearly overwhelming freedom.
Why I'm not a party girl
Column: Life at First Sight
Jan 15 2008 12:26AM
The Baha'i Faith's approach to the democratic process leaves no room for partisanship and thus increases the likelihood that those elected will not be bound by narrow interests, but will rather seek the well-being of all.
Hope blossoms with prayer
Column: Life at First Sight
Jan 1 2008 02:24AM
Prayer, and what we can offer to each other, are the most precious resources not because they make the problems go away, but because they change our experience and our perceptions within them.
My father's new garden
Column: Life at First Sight
Dec 25 2007 02:42AM
While the pain of physical separation remains for those left behind, for the one who dies, it's as though a wise gardener has transplanted a struggling plant to a place where it can reach a whole new level of growth.
Try to leave the light on
Column: Life at First Sight
Dec 18 2007 02:32AM
Every once in a while, a piece of truth that's been looking me in the face for years, making no attempt to hide itself, literally stops me in my tracks.
The true spirit of giving
Column: Life at First Sight
Dec 4 2007 02:09AM
What a gift it is to us when life allows our giving to be the precise answer to someone's need.
The legacy of a happy heart
Column: Life at First Sight
Nov 20 2007 12:57AM
Marian treated everyone like precious little mines of gems, and maintained a happy, positive tone in this treasure hunt that simply left no room for negativity to make a nest.
Oh, baby, do we know how big we really are?
Column: Life at First Sight
Nov 6 2007 01:57AM
Heaven forbid someone would flunk a course because I fumbled a plastic baby, or let it cry too long on my watch.
Wisdom that arrives on wings and paws
Column: Life at First Sight
Oct 23 2007 12:47AM
The sun was barely up and the animal kingdom already had me humbled and thankful -- two things that are usually very good for me, maybe the biggest gifts of the day.
Your 'visit' is in the mail
Column: Life at First Sight
Oct 9 2007 12:39AM
You can't write or read a letter and give your attention to anything else at the same time. It is truly a visit, a deliberate choice to 'spend time together.'
Join the circle
Column: Life at First Sight
Sep 25 2007 02:22AM
True friendships have nothing to do with life's outer appearances and everything to do with that inner light that glimmers in each life. They are soul connections, as important to genuine life as clean air and water.
The remedy still resides in us
Column: Life at First Sight
Sep 11 2007 02:27AM
What, I wondered, was our life as a nation going to be like, now that it had, like those four flight plans, taken such an abrupt and terrible turn?
A fortress for well-being and happiness
Column: Life at First Sight
Sep 4 2007 12:36AM
In the Baha'i marriage ceremony, the couple speak a vow that makes the marriage a contract of three parties, a contract that extends well beyond their own life.
A language that needs no translation
Column: Life at First Sight
Aug 21 2007 01:35AM
A smile, a kind look, an encouraging gesture are all something we can recognize wherever we go, whatever our mother tongue.
Thinning yields life's choicest fruits
Column: Life at First Sight
Aug 14 2007 01:03AM
Things add up, and while that sometimes can be a useful concept in the conservation of even minute bits of important resources, it can dwarf our lives, and our time, when we don't make choices.
Culture-shocked, and learning to like it
Column: Life at First Sight
Aug 7 2007 01:10AM
Culture shock often interrupts for us those things we just do and haven't spent much time thinking about - yet.
Parents, don't miss the big picture
Column: Life at First Sight
Jul 31 2007 12:27AM
Messes can be cleaned up, while it's very difficult to retrieve a child's sense of dignity.
You can learn a lot from your cells
Column: Life at First Sight
Jul 24 2007 02:24AM
Most of us recognize the 'flow' when we're connected with and functioning from that true center, a sensation of essentially just showing up in life and seeing a remarkable number of factors appear to simply fall into place.
How to avoid a big stink
Column: Life at First Sight
Jul 17 2007 01:57AM
What if real wisdom - and freedom - comes from knowing what to overlook, as well as what to heed?
Peer into their lives a little
Column: Life at First Sight
Jul 4 2007 02:31AM
As every parent knows, or eventually finds out, it's really the 'who' in their child's life that matters the most.
My father's new garden
Column: Life at First Sight
Jun 26 2007 01:23AM
While the pain of physical separation remains for those left behind, for the one who dies, it's as though a wise gardener has transplanted a struggling plant to place where it can reach a whole new level of growth.
Cultivating a culture of encouragement
Column: Life at First Sight
Jun 19 2007 01:18AM
It wasn't until I got back to the United States and no longer heard these things that I realized how much I'd appreciated such sources of encouragement. They had a lovely sound to my ears -- and they were empowering.
Hope blossoms with prayer
Column: Life at First Sight
Jun 12 2007 12:31AM
Prayer, and what we can offer to each other, are the most precious resources not because they make the problems go away, but because they change our experience and our perceptions within them.
Even at gunpoint
Column: Life at First Sight
Jun 5 2007 01:40AM
Imagine a commitment to human unity so strong that even the prospect of death doesn't eclipse it.
A day that will not be followed by night
Column: Life at First Sight
May 29 2007 01:30AM
In a life beset by darkness, Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith, shed unfailing light.
The first rays of dawn
Column: Life at First Sight
May 22 2007 01:31AM
The Bab declared that the next Messenger of God, awaited not only by Islam but by all the peoples of the world, would bring a revelation that would usher in the age in which peace would finally dawn in the world.
For richer for poorer ... in war and in peace
Column: Life at First Sight
May 15 2007 12:30AM
If anyone deserves to stand up and be honored with our patriotic best, it's a military spouse.
The ultimate fear factor
Column: Life at First Sight
May 8 2007 12:48AM
Within hours of becoming a mother, I was appalled to discover my mind envisioning the most dreadful scenes of potential danger for our new little daughter.
Some things call for intolerance
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 24 2007 01:23AM
At what point might our values determine that freedom of speech was never intended as license to debase others - and ourselves?
Stewardship and storage lockers
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 17 2007 01:09AM
As landscapes overflow with complexes of storage lockers, our consuming culture now makes money housing the disparity between our needs and wants. And even forgotten and unused, those goods are still consuming energy.
A spirit of life in the body of the world
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 10 2007 12:40AM
An intermediary is often needed to bring extremes into relation with each other. As we survey our world of seemingly irreconcilable extremes, just what might the intermediary power of the Holy Spirit help us reconcile?
Easter's essence is renewal
Column: Life at First Sight
Apr 3 2007 01:30AM
Whatever our faith, or lack of it, spring brings that glorious reminder that, no matter what has happened, no matter how long our personal winters may have been, the new life in the spiritual pulse of springtime always offers us another chance.
The gift of a winter's grace
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 27 2007 01:48AM
Like birth, so much about the process of death can be orderly, purposeful and quite wondrous by design.
A season for happiness
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 20 2007 02:40AM
Spring's flowers remind us to be happy, as though God had treasured an invitation in each one, then spread them abundantly about the landscape to be sure we wouldn't miss it.
Fastening my eyes on heaven
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 13 2007 01:57AM
A day can become something quite remarkable when fasting frees its rhythms from the demands that food so often imposes upon them.
Raising children with prayer
Column: Life at First Sight
Mar 6 2007 01:47AM
What my 5-year-old son taught me is that the degree of faith we have in prayer has a direct bearing on the flow of those blessings, and our ability to see them.
My first teacher is still 21
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 27 2007 01:49AM
Mothers truly are our first teachers, which may explain why we can feel so inexplicably alone once they're gone. What they teach will include things we'll eventually come to prize, even if we didn't initially.
God knows what's best for us
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 20 2007 01:55AM
It is only in the experience of parenthood that we discover that babies have a way of bringing with them all the love they will need. What my friend is discovering is that they also bring the love that we need, too.
Not enough, not nearly enough
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 13 2007 12:36AM
They were everyday sorts of heroes who sacrificed their personal comfort or safety, or even risked their lives, to represent truth in the face of seemingly unyielding ignorance, indifference and injustice.
There's no such thing as small change
Column: Life at First Sight
Feb 6 2007 12:20AM
The kind of change that moves away from blind imitation of the past is nearly always an act of real moral courage, however small it may appear at first.
Within calamity, providence often resides
Column: Life at First Sight
Jan 30 2007 02:18AM
We are very connected to each other, supremely related. And there's so much more going on than we can see.
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