Being a police officer in today’s environment is challenging, to say the least. Every single shift has the potential to be filled with danger and trauma, amidst the more routine calls for service. Today we have the opportunity to hear unique insights from a police officer who just concluded 40 years of service with the Providence Police […]
Frederic Reamer
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This I Believe New England – Honoring MLK
It’s no secret that we live in a world with deep and wide divides. In matters of politics, race, and religion, we’re surrounded by chasms that many of us wish weren’t there and that many of us yearn to shrink. Fortunately, amidst the omnipresent tensions are lots of inspiring, earnest efforts to reach across the aisle and […]
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This I Believe New England – Shakespeare
Imagine yourself as a high school English teacher trying to inspire your students to grapple with the complex nuances embedded in Shakespearean literature. Not an easy task, you may be thinking. But as many of us have come to know and appreciate, often decades post-high school, Shakespeare is chock full of profound insights and life lessons, if […]
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This I Believe New England – Empathy
Empathy – real empathy – is a mysterious phenomenon. The poet Walt Whitman wrote, “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.” It is reasonable to ask whether we have the capacity to truly tune into other people’s experiences, particularly when they’re traumatic. Perhaps we get closest […]
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This I Believe New England – Miracles
The nineteenth century novelist Joseph Conrad once wrote, “My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.” And that is exactly what this public radio series aims to do. Featured essayists stitch together […]
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This I Believe New England – On The Side of Love
It’s a truism, isn’t it, that life is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, tugs to the right when we were planning to turn left. One measure of a life is how we cope with adversity. The poet Mary Oliver wrote, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took […]
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This I Believe New England – Fellowship In Disagreement
It’s no secret that we are surrounded by passionate, partisan, and divisive political and ideological debate. Our daily news and social media are saturated with all manner of vitriol and vituperation. Many of us, perhaps most of us, yearn for more civil discourse, where we can agree to disagree agreeably. The ancient Greek playwright Euripides got it right: […]
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This I Believe New England – Psychiatric Care for the Homeless
In recent years, so many of us have become keenly aware of people struggling with homelessness. We see them at traffic intersections, huddling in doorways, and sleeping under bridges. Many others are hidden from view. In Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, an impressive coterie of professionals spends their days and nights reaching out to those in need, offering […]
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This I Believe New England – Hospice Care
It may seem all too hackneyed to say that death is a mysterious, often anxiety-producing, subject. The truth, of course, is that so many of us struggle to wrap our hearts and minds around the meaning of dying and death. When will I die? How will I die? Will I have the opportunity to choose to die […]
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This I Believe New England – Falling Back
Seasons, especially the shift from one to the next, are complicated. For some, the shrinking daylight and chillier air are filled with foreboding. But others of us relish the changing solar and lunar dance. As Mark Twain wrote, “I think that to one in sympathy with nature, each season, in turn, seems the loveliest.” For Leigh Vincola, it’s […]