Phyllis Edgerly Ring

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What a gift it is to us when life allows our giving to be the precise answer to someone's need.