"In a perfect world, we'd spend more time talking about spiritual things instead of minutiae," says Phyllis Edgerly Ring, a Baha'i columnist featured on www.religionandspirituality.com .
Ring, a prolific, seasoned writer and editor from Exeter, New Hampshire, creates that "perfect world" in "One Light, Many Lamps," her Tuesday column on religionandspirituality.com, which is operated by UPI (United Press International).
The site serves as a "big tent" for news and commentary on faith and belief and to "build bridges between peoples and cultures," says Larry Moffitt, vice president of planning and development for UPI. To date, 50 columnists from different faiths and beliefs gather under the big tent.
Ring, a former nurse, "writes from the heart" about unity and oneness, but not just as pie-in the-sky concepts. Rather, she illustrates how these ideals - two of the core beliefs of the Baha'i Faith - play out in everyday life. In a recent column, Ring wrote about the sense of peace and family closeness that blossomed as relatives gathered around her dying father-in-law. In another column she examines our impatience for patience and the virtue of serenity.
"There is one light from God, but many different lamps to reflect that light," says Ms. Ring, explaining the meaning of the name of her column. And we're put here to recognize that light and those lamps. One way is to recognize how unity and oneness are manifested in virtues.
"What is real is our virtues, our spiritual qualities," she says. "I try to show how virtues lie between the lines of a story. We're in a soup of negativity these days; we're steeped in it. But we don't have to wallow in it."
Mr. Moffit appreciates that in Ring, whose writing, he says, "is smooth and effortless. Her ideas are fully baked and deal in universal ideals. She's thoughtful, and she knows her craft."
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, is the fact that Ms. Ring has been a Baha'i for 30 years. She served as program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine.
Ms. Ring is also a published poet and short-story writer and has written for a variety of publications including Christian Science Monitor, Chicken Soup for Every Mom's Soul: 101 New Stories of Love and Inspiration for Moms of all Ages, Dimsum: Asia's Literary Journal and The Best of the Magazine Markets for Writers.
Courtesy of Special-ideas.com