Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 32
January 13, 2015
The privilege of the balanced mind
Gleanings found here and there:
Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world, and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved.��
~ Bah �����u���ll��h
The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind ��� and the search for an equilibrium is essential — to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.��
~ Mark Tobey
Photos: D. Kirkup / https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns
Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo. We ourselves become His echo and His answer. It is as if in creating us God asked a question and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.��
~ Thomas Merton
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
January 10, 2015
The secret life of alleys
An editor reviewing my novel manuscript asked whether I might include a smidgen more variety in my use of sensory details. I tend to engage with life visually, like scenes in a movie, and must remember that we humans need all of our senses satisfied.
A curious surprise surfaced in a notebook when I set to work on revisions, like a postcard from the Universe: jottings I’d made last spring and then forgotten. They record what my senses encountered as I hurried through alleyways in a small German town one rainy day.
Perhaps it was the confinement of those narrow spaces immersing me in shadows and light that made everything seem so pronounced and strong that I was moved to sketch it down from fresh memory the moment I was inside a warm caf��.
Maybe, as sensing and comprehending beings, we need a scale of manageable size in which to experience what we encounter, like the pathways I navigated on my way to these rediscovered impressions:
When she stopped for me at the crosswalk, it felt like a rabbit-hole of role-reversal.��SHE��was the one on the red, four-wheeled scooter with its sticker that grants parking and other privileges to those traveling through life with disability.
Her nod was authoritative as she waved me across, adjusting the strap on her helmet while she waited. When I took too long in my confused indecision, she squeezed a horn that played bars of a Brahms lullaby. Teasing this laggard, perhaps?
A long-haul lorry slowed and panted behind her like a smokestack. I scurried across, a startled chicken, and heard her hoarse cackle — a smoker’s. Not unkind, but unquestionably satisfied. Her scooter’s motor was a roar, then a whir, then a faint whine as she sped away, lumbering lorry in close pursuit.
Enveloped by a cobble-stoned alley, I was greeted by tinkling piano scales, nearly machine-like in their precision. They grew louder when I neared the open window that was letting them escape. I reached the house as a steel-haired man arrived from the opposite direction carrying a sewing machine under one arm. 
When he unlocked the door, a face-full of frying-onions fragrance blasted out at us so forcefully, I was sure I’d never smell anything else again. My mouth watered instantly. Even the insistent piano sounds, louder, now, seemed muted by this aroma.
It followed me past three more doorways before a thin ozone of rain on cobblestones replaced it. The drops gradually grew larger and louder as the speed of their fall increased.
Overhangs on the buildings jutting into the alley sheltered me nearly as well as my umbrella would have, had I remembered to bring it.
The piano was having the last word as the caf�� door shut behind me.
My glasses steamed up over a bakery case lying in wait, crammed with sweet temptation, inescapable as a huge, friendly dog.
“Why, yes, a slice of that warm strudel WOULD be lovely with my coffee, thank you.”
January 6, 2015
By the light of burning bridges
“Giraffe on Fire” – Salvador Dali
Gleanings found here and there:
You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free.
Everything that is contradictory creates life.
~ Salvador Dal��
The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.
~ Richard Peck
Drop your maps and listen to your lostness like a sacred calling into presence.
Here, where the old ways are crumbling and you may be tempted to burn down your own house.
Ask instead for an introduction to that which endures. This place without a foothold is the province of grace.
It is the questing field, most responsive to magic and fluent in myth. Here, where there is nothing left to lose, sing out of necessity that your ragged heart be heard.
Send out your holy signal and listen for the echo back.
~ Toko-pa
January 4, 2015
Warmest thanks in wintry days
It’s a writer’s never-ending delight to hear from readers.
Recently a thoughtful one sent this image of Snow Fence Road that evokes how inviting it can feel to curl up with a book on days of wintry chill – or in the sunshine, maybe at the beach, for those of you in our southern sister hemisphere.
Reader Sabrina Laumer touched on an atmospheric theme of her own in a review at Goodreads:
“This book was absorbing and comforting, with characters that were engaging and distinctive.
Set in a frozen winter scene in Maine, it made me feel like curling up with a hot cup of tea while I read.
… a story that keeps you engaged and guessing at its secrets right up until the the truth is revealed.”
Dear readers and friends, at the start of the year that’s the halfway mark of the decade, I thank you for the time you make to read my books, and your generous response of telling others about them, whether with helpful reviews or the other sharing and recommending that you do. It’s a blessing. I especially love receiving photos of readers with the book, or of the book in far-flung parts of the world.
My thanks, too, to those book clubs in Virgina and Maine who’ve added the book to your 2015 reading list. I’m always happy to “visit” with clubs
, virtually or in-person, and I offer discounts for group purchases.
Through all of publishing’s unexpected developments and surprises, I have a heart full of gratitude for the grace of being able to share with readers those nagging scenes and stories that won’t leave me alone until I help them find their way onto pages.
It looks as though 2015 may be the year to bring out two more of them in new books.
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Find more about Snow Fence Road, and all of my books in print or Kindle, at:
http://www.amazon.com/Phyllis-Edgerly-Ring/e/B001RXUFD6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
January 2, 2015
Tending the smoldering fire
Artwork: Judy Wright
The use — and misuse — of the power of speech has certainly been in the spotlight lately. At what point, I wonder, might our collective values rise to a high enough level to affirm that freedom of speech was never intended as license to debase others — and ourselves?
The Bible calls the tongue a double-edged sword.
Baha’u’llah encouraged refraining from idle talk, reminding that, “the tongue is a smoldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison.
Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endureth a century.”
There’s one childhood memory that continues to serve as a reminder about policing my speech. 
My best friend’s father was one of my favorite people, the quintessential great dad. He was kind, soft-spoken, gently humorous and thoughtful. A hard-working man with a big family, he always made time to interact with his kids and their friends, whether drawing caricatures of us as we watched, giggling, or hunkering down his 6-foot-6-inch frame to help us construct the miniature villages that took over his living-room floor. Whenever he spoke with me, as he always made time to do, I felt supremely special, as though I truly mattered.
One day, this kind dad gave me a real gift, even though it felt like something quite different at the time. I was riding in the back seat of his wood-paneled station wagon after he picked up a small gang of us from a Girl-Scout party. We were all comparing the gifts we’d drawn in the gift exchange, and I wasn’t very happy with mine. When one of my peers leaned over and observed under her breath that someone had obviously spent the low end of the price range for it, I felt license to begin holding forth on how worthless and disappointing it was and how unfair that I got it. I was probably enjoying my companions’ attention as I bewailed my plight and began berating both the gift and the giver. 
I’ll never forget the look in that dad’s eyes as they met mine in the rear-view mirror and he said evenly but firmly, “Hey now, that’s enough.” I’d never heard this man raise his voice, and he didn’t this time — just set an unmistakable limit. Although I wanted to disappear in that moment, I’m as thankful today for this unexpected disciplinary action as I am for the hundreds of kindnesses he bestowed on me.
Knowing that he was disappointed and displeased with my behavior had an enormous impact on me. I was stunned and then, appropriately, embarrassed and remorseful.
He didn’t need to point out things like how potentially hurtful what I was saying was, how the donor of that gift could have been sitting in the car, for all I knew. Awareness of all of this came very quickly once I was jolted out of my little rant. 
All he had to tell me, this man whose opinion I cared about so much, was that it was time to stop, with four words that changed my life forever. He spoke up when my behavior was eroding into meanness and helped set a limit for me that has somehow become internally reinforcing. I believe that he helped activate my healthy sense of shame, and I’m eternally grateful.
Obviously, we’re responsible first for our own behavior. But what kind of change might we effect if, as adults, we accept the role and authority that maturity supposedly confers and determine to intervene and intercept that deadly poison of hurtful speech, even if it’s awkward to do so?
Some people I know creatively interrupt such things by leaving the room, creating a distraction, or changing the subject.
The always-thoughtful Kindness Blog is posting installments called The Year of Speaking Kindly. As I take more responsibility for the power of speech, I’m finding it a helpful companion:
http://kindnessblog.com/2015/01/02/the-year-of-speaking-kindly-day-2-by-mike-oconnor/
Blog post adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details -
December 31, 2014
To leave the world richer
#wangpingvision
every speck of dust has the potential to be a star
every sentient being is a promise to a new dream pic.twitter.com/viVcqmgmDw
— Wang Ping (@wangjingping) December 20, 2014
As the lovely passage from poet Wang Ping above reminds, on the edge of every year, and every moment, the power and great possibility of unrealized potential await.
And, as Eleanor Roosevelt once described, the manifestation of that potential, the deepest meaning and purpose of it, invites us far, far beyond the limited range of what is merely of this world:
“Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave, was one of the greatest successes we know of, a man who in his early thirties had poured out his inexhaustible gift of music, leaving the world richer because he had passed that way.
To leave the world richer – that is the ultimate success.”
December 28, 2014
To forgive the world
Photo: David Campbell
After both of my parents had died, I put off sorting through the boxes of their belongings that came back to my house.
Then I woke one day with the urge to explore them.
I was plunged into stirred-up memories and stored-up feelings.
As if whispered into my thoughts, an idea I’d encountered years ago in the work of psychologist Erik Blumenthal reminded:
“The person who comes to understand his parents can forgive the world.”
The writer, who grew up Jewish in Nazi Germany, knew firsthand how painful experience often makes forgiveness seem impossible. Yet he emphasized two needs that he believed eventually call to each of us: to become more understanding, beyond our rigid “certainties”, and to accept the freedom that forgiveness bestows. 
As I unpacked my parents’ things, I gained a deeper view of what they had faced and the weight of the efforts and decisions they made. When they met, they were two people in their 20s entering a cross-cultural marriage at a time when no one knew what the next day would bring, who would live or die, or even what language everyone would be speaking, depending on the outcome of the biggest war the world had known.
I can now see, and appreciate even more fully, that whatever their circumstances, troubles, and significant mistakes or missteps, they made a place for me in this world, and stuck with that commitment.
I’m reminded of words of Rumi’s:
“When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was.”
As I uncovered a broader view of my parents’ lives, I could see that most of my own resistance to forgiveness was forged at a stage when the imprint of my parents’ perceived omnipotence led me to believe that they were always in charge, in the know, in control of all situations.
I now share with them the certainty that that was never true, and the humbling realization that, whatever the hurts, it is not, indeed, as I thought it was. 
It’s been observed that many people hold back from forgiveness because they believe it might go against the grain of justice, might excuse a wrong or deny its occurrence.
But when we find a willingness to see beyond our own view about any situation, especially the actions and choices of others, it disarms that tendency our perception has to keep us wedded to beliefs that not only make us feel bad, but impede our healing and progress, too.
Adapted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details
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December 26, 2014
The trees of our hearts
Photo: Eric Olson
May you become as growing plants.
May the trees of your hearts bring forth new leaves and variegated blossoms.” ~ ‘Abdu’l-Baha
Photo: Nelson Ashberger
Arguably, the most important question in the entire process of engaging our spiritual intelligence is this:
What sort of person do I wish to be?
It is a question most of us seldom call to mind, yet which we answer many times every day in the decisions and choices we make.
It literally shapes our life, so it is worth pausing occasionally to give it some conscious thought. ~ Dave Tomlinson
The spirit, I think, is a stream, a fountain, and must be continually poured out, for only if it is poured out will more and clearer streams come. ~ Brenda Ueland
December 23, 2014
A reboot of spirit
Delighted to share this Guest Post from Tracey E. Meloni:
Photo: David Campbell / http://gbctours.com
After a lifetime of moving as an Army Brat, Navy wife, and Federal drifter, I settled into my present home at the end of 2000. Looking for Christmas tree ornaments that first year, I came across a box labeled, “Somebody Stole My Boots.” It turned out to be the box of the best Christmas Past.
Photo: David Campbell
At age 19, I was a newly married scholarship student in Boston University, making ends meet on $75 a week. My in-laws sent much-anticipated plane tickets so we could go home for a Connecticut country holiday, but Mother Nature intervened. On Christmas Eve, monster snow not even Boston could overcome brought our plans to a halt. Christmas became an impromptu event, with an empty larder and equally empty wallets.
Down the hall lived friends Joe and Noni, another married student couple also stranded by weather and not much better supplied. We decided to pool our meager resources and make the best of things.
Photo: David Campbell
We took the then-MTA of Kingston Trio fame to the old farmers Haymarket (now a much trendier spot) and bought as many fresh, cheap veggies as we could carry just before the vendors went home.
We also bargained for a scruffy tree and dragged it onto the subway, laughing and waving at the conductor’s halfhearted warnings that no trees were allowed.
The engineering-student guys built a terrific tree stand. We trimmed the tree with popcorn, cranberries, and paper chains and installed it in the outside hallway for all to enjoy. Then we split up the cooking duties.
Photo: David Campbell
My mother had sent goodies from the venerable (now defunct) S.S. Pierce. Our Haymarket bounty was transformed into hearty vegetable soup, Delmonico potatoes, and what my husband called “painless beans,” the green bean-mushroom soup casserole. Joe and Noni defrosted their famous Bolognese sauce for Christmas Eve “SpagBog,” as the Brits call spaghetti Bolognese. We heard from two more stranded couples: one had a turkey, the other had cheese – and wine! Our Christmas feast seemed assured. We all arranged to meet for midnight services at a nearby church.
Photo: David Campbell
At church, our little band collected two more couples (fruit and rolls, guitar and flute) and we all trudged home to my building through deepening snow, feeling quite a contented glow.
A sad and ragged man armed with a sketchpad trailed behind us. We ignored him. Back at the apartment, my husband left his $10 boots in the outside hallway by the tree to dry out.
On Christmas morning, when we went to look at the tree, the boots were gone. We found a scrawled note following the cadence of The Little Drummer Boy: “Somebody Stole Your Boots, ta rup a tum tum.” Next to the note was propped a charcoal sketch, perfectly capturing us all, laughing as we walked home from Christmas Eve services – and oblivious to our portraitist.
Finding that note and the sketch brought memories flooding back. My coat was emerald green, even though it is shown in black and white. The images of my husband’s young and carefree face, and mine, make me smile – we did not know, when our unknown artist captured us, what horrors half a world away would derail our lives just a few months down the road. The charcoal, so hastily done, preserved our young innocence for all time.
Beyond that, the Christmas “Somebody Stole My Boots” taught me a most important lesson. Sometimes having no money is not a curse – it means you can’t blur spirit with commercialism. Still, even that year, I blindly overlooked someone much more needy than I, and will never forget the shame I felt that Christmas morning. Not only did Boot Man forgive our indifference – he rewarded it, and so perfectly.
Rediscovering the boot memory helped renew an old tradition in a new house. Once again, I’m putting out a modest pair of boots for needy Santas.
Tracey Edgerly Meloni won first prize in Ingenue Magazine’s short-story contest when she was 14 and just kept on writing. Her most recent award is a first place in feature writing from the Virginia Press Association. Formerly press secretary to three California Congressmen and Virginia’s senior Senator, she contributes regularly to several magazines, writing about food, health, the arts, and travel.
December 20, 2014
The Light keeps a place for each of us
Photo: David Campbell / http://gbctours.com
For two years in a row, I had the pleasure of wandering around the fairy-tale scenes of Germany in Advent. It’s a time full of the beauty and light that the Solstice brings, even as it’s paradoxically the time when our ancestors huddled near fires hoping their stored-up harvest would last long enough.
One December day, I made my way to the market I purposefully frequent for my own supplies. It’s a store that probably would have been put out of business by the much larger one built on the edge of town recently were it not for the one resource it provides that the other behemoth cannot: community.
Every employee, without fail, says hello, even shares a thought or remark that invites conversation.
The aisles are narrow, yet we all seem to be able to find what we seek and, as if by tacit, unspoken agreement, move thoughtfully, so there never seems to be jostling or haste. Shoppers go to the larger store, if they’re looking for those things.
Customers wait patiently in the single check-out line, actually talking to each other, as the cashier assists the pensioner who moves quite slowly, and then forgets to retrieve his cane.
A young man leaves his place in front of me to run after him with it.
I watch their silent exchange outside through the window behind the cashier, who has also stopped to watch, along with the mother and toddler who are next in line.
Nobody seems to mind that this incident has brought everything to a halt.
The old man’s face first looks startled, then lights like a sun. For an instant, it’s a boy’s face again.
The young man looks modest, then happy.
They part with a wave.
Seconds later, he reappears inside the store just as I’m arriving at the cashier. He shows no sign of expecting anything other than heading to the end of the line.
I have so little German – mainly a smile, and enough words to thank him, and tell him that his place in line has waited for him, right here, as I point in front of me.
Photo: David Campbell / http://gbctours.com
His face is a precise reflection of that sun in the old man’s.
My heart feels as though all time, and all happiness, are here with us in the perfect oneness of this moment. There is enough light in us never to leave anyone in the dark, nor cold or hungry, or lonely or forgotten.
What a bonus comes home with my shopping bags – the very Spirit of the Christkind, the Christ Child.
It didn’t cost me a thing. Yet how much poorer I’d feel without it.
