Phyllis Edgerly Ring's Blog, page 48
October 26, 2013
Deep in the heart of … reunion
Fifty years ago, I was the only kid in my neighborhood with a snowsuit (perhaps the only kid in town who owned one) when a freak snowfall arrived in El Paso, Texas.
Our military family spent a year there while my father was stationed at Fort Bliss before we moved to a place where snow’s more familiar – all the way to Germany. Each school day in the village where we lived, my older sister got up before dawn to make the hour’s journey to the American high school in Würzburg. 
Like many military kids, she made sacrifices — but she also got to have her senior prom in a castle. How cool was that?
Somewhere in the vicinity of that high school lived a boy named Jonnie Ring, who would grow up to be the man I married. He had his own military-kid stint in El Paso, too, though his came after his family returned to the U.S. from Germany.
Almost from the beginning, our lives seem to have entwined, on two continents. We both love Germany and return every chance we get, but this week has brought an interesting confluence that finally merges Germany and Texas for us once again: my sister’s Würzburg American High School reunion in San Antonio. Somehow, the Alamo, an abundance of schnitzel, and a lot of happy memories – and awfully nice folks — have all come together in one place. 
Reunion with “Brats”, whose lives took shape all over the world, is a grace, because at last, after decades of wondering, “Do I fit anywhere?” I remember: the ‘tribe’ I’m from is at home in the whole world. The echoes of that world, the resonance of what you experience in places all throughout this planet, is with you always. Like the eternal gifts that travel with you in your heart, they are never lost.
And every once in a while, life surprises you by bringing a whole bunch of them together again.
October 23, 2013
The building of the good
Fall slows me down, invites what I believe is essential to staying healthy and whole: reflecting, processing, and digesting.
This seems more vital than ever now we’re bombarded with information at every moment, from every direction. I find myself wondering, as I often do: 
- - Am I taking time to reflect and practice discernment?
- - Am I inquiring after truth, both with myself and with others?
- Am I focused on increasing what’s good, especially when the news can seem so bad?
I’m attracted by ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s urging, “Rush to share glad tidings; be in no hurry to share bad news.” Might that be because good news empowers us and bad news does just the opposite?
In a world that’s a mixture of ups and downs, “bad” news is often incomplete or invalid — frequently just a stage in a process of change that may turn out to be for the good. Sort of like autumn, then winter … both of which are necessary for each new spring and summer. 
Emphasizing a situation’s awfulness can paralyze our will, which keeps many of us from making the kinds of contributions that we could. There can be a near-addiction to sharing “bad” news, and dwelling upon it, and that can dishearten us, and put out the fire in our resolve.
Socrates has been credited with a fine mechanism for filtering out this dampening force from our lives. It’s said the philosopher was approached one day by an acquaintance who couldn’t wait to tell him something.
He asked first: was it true, was it good, and was it likely to be of benefit to the hearer?
That last element, in particular, seems like an essential part of responsible speech and action right now.
Excerpted from: Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details -
Photos courtesy Nelson Ashberger.
October 21, 2013
Flowing like life itself
Gleanings here and there:
Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before
how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so
many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance
whatsoever. ~ Isak Dinesen
In recognizing yourself as life itself, you are put right-side up.
You freshly live your life, rather than thinking it and then trying to live according to those thoughts.
You directly experience your life, and insights naturally follow that experience.
The thinking mind becomes the servant—rather than the master—to the direct experience of life. ~ Gangaji
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Photos courtesy Vanessa and Tim Jette.
October 18, 2013
The best gift autumn ever brought me
Thirty-five years ago this week, a kind, wonderfully humorous guy named Jon Ring invited me along on a visit to some friends of his in Keene, NH. (I’ve since come to believe those friends fashioned a little set-up.)
Very shortly afterward, this soulful man began to feel a lot like the person I imagined sharing my life with. My mother, ever the pragmatic soul, encouraged me to tell him so, after I told her.
I drove right back to Exeter that afternoon and did. He survived the shock with admirable grace and a short time later, married we were. That anniversary doesn’t come around for another few months, but it’s at this time of year that I always remember what began unfolding so beautifully in my life in those days.
Here he is in Keene, again in pumpkin season, in a more recent decade. I think that some days, living with me may feel something like living with that face the pumpkin is wearing. Way back in that autumn of ’78, I don’t think I yet possessed the capacity to imagine just how thankful I’d be today for his willingness to share the adventure of this life with me. Or perhaps my soul did see it coming, did see it all, right from the start.
It’s the second sweetest thing that ever happened to me. The first is how much we both love what is of God
Year by year, life together brings home the truth of that vow we uttered on the night that united our lives:
“We will all verily abide by the Will of God.”
October 16, 2013
Book giveaway, plus other goodies
Thanks so much to blogger Bookworm Lisa for featuring
Snow Fence Road this month.
Her blog is also offering a giveaway through October 27 that includes:
- a print copy of the book,
- a pair of hand-painted earrings from NH jewelry designer Diane Kirkup*,
- fragrant bath salts, and
- yummy chocolate.
*Suspended from 1 1/2-inch-long wires, the earrings’ hand-painted element measures 1 1/4 inch by 3/4 inch, accented with violet Swarovski crystals.
To enter, visit
Bookworm Lisa’s blog at:
http://lisaisabookworm.blogspot.com/2013/10/book-promotion-snow-fence-by-phyllis.html
Snow Fence Road – Where a village on the coast of Maine holds painful secrets—
the kind only the miracle of new love can heal.
October 13, 2013
The beginning in the endings
“Evolution is transformation. And transformation is happening all the time. It happens as we learn new things …
“Evolution is not an automatic ever-ascending spiritual conveyor-belt, but the result of our ability to face reality, adjust, adapt, and change,” says Christine DeLorey, author of Life Cycles: Your Emotional Journey To Freedom And Happiness. I also highly recommend her http://creativenumerology.com/ site.
Fall is that time when so many endings seem to arrive at once, as the summer skies in which our dreams have soared in days of endless light grow overcast, like the darker mornings that are pointing us toward winter.
The intensity of contrast can be shocking when it appears; perhaps even disheartening. It reminds us of all that we do not yet know, and of the freedom in embracing that.
Every autumn, a part of me feels sad, as well as reminded, and also — like those spiked hulls from which such bright shiny chestnuts emerge — freshly broken open, once again.
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable,” urges poet Mary Oliver. Theologian Paul Tillich reminds,“The first duty of love is to listen.”
“ … if you are willing to let your heart break completely open, with no internal narrative controlling the opening, you will discover the pure, innocent love that is alive in the core of every emotion, every feeling, everybody,” writes Gangaji. “It remains pure and spacious regardless of change or loss.”
Once this happens, then perhaps we are equipped at last for what these words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s invite:
“Make ready thy soul that thou mayest be like the light which shineth forth from the loftiest heights on the coast, by means of which guidance may be given to the timid ships amid the darkness of fog …”
Including those often-timid ships of our own small selves.
Photos courtesy Nelson Ashberger.
October 9, 2013
Life in a generous universe
My thanks once again to BoomerCafé for sharing a piece of mine this week:
The Hand That Gives Us Roses
by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
A proverb advises: “A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives us roses.” Mother Teresa described similar truth when she said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” 
I suspect kind actions reverberate even more powerfully.
The older I get, the more moved I am by inspiring actions from those who are still very young. A nephew of mine helped me understand that the practice of kindness, beyond being a beneficial thing in the world, actually requires us to believe that life itself is generous.
Read the rest at
http://www.boomercafe.com/2013/10/09/learning-wisdom-recognize-childs-kindness/
This essay is excerpted from Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details, by Phyllis Edgerly Ring, from Bahá’í Publishing.
October 6, 2013
The trailing beauty of joy
Gleanings here and there:
Whatever may be the tensions, the stresses of a day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy ~ Howard Thurman
Moderation is the key of lasting enjoyment. ~ Hosea Ballou
When all your desires are distilled you will cast just two votes: To love more and be happy. ~ Hafiz
October 5, 2013
Why I wake early
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
~ R.W. Emerson
Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
~ Louisa May Alcott
Song of the Builders
On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -
a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside
this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope
it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.
~ Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early, 2004
October 3, 2013
Our unique spiritual fingerprint
How each of us chooses to show love, receive forgiveness, and express other attributes is our own spiritual fingerprint, and just like our physical fingerprint, it is unique to us.
Nobody in the past, present, or future will love exactly the same way that each of us does.
Each time that we give or receive, an attribute of God – a facet of the infinite jewel – is revealed.
In this way, we make an invaluable contribution because we have added to what can be perceived of divinity.
And because we are all capable of making such a contribution, this means that each individual is absolutely indispensable.
Excerpted from With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality?, coming soon from George Ronald Publisher.
