On Bells, John Donne, the Pandemic and Old Friends Remembered.
This morning our Mid-Week service reflected on the life of John Donne. This brought to my mind a conversation that I had had with dear Hazel Hubbard back in July 2020, and the Rectory Ramblings that emerged from our chat back then. Thanks Hazel for the thoughts ..
A few weeks back I was listening as Hazel Hubbard reminisced about times past. Hazel was remembering how, as a child, her mother had woken her each New Year’s Eve to listen to the Church bells as the time approached midnight. A bell was tolled to signify the ending of the old year, and at precisely 12 o’ clock, a full peal of bells delightedly rang in the New Year. From her home at Inwood Farm the young Hazel White could hear the bells of six churches in the otherwise silent night air: Nether Stowey, Stringston, Stogursey, Over Stowey, Holford and Fiddington. Hazel also told me about the bell that used to be tolled in the village when someone passed away: 1 toll for a baby, 2 for a toddler, 3 for a child, 4 for a woman, 5 for a man. No doubt those labouring in the fields would have stopped work, doffed their caps, and quietly paid their respects to their neighbour.
This got me thinking about John Donne’s poem and immortal words: ‘This bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die … Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ These words come from a poem entitled, ‘No Man is an Island”, written by Donne in the 16th Century. More recently words from this poem have featured at the start of the popular film ‘About a Boy’, starring Hugh Grant and based on the novel by Nick Page: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’ The character played by Hugh Grant, forty-something, comfortably off and rather against any emotional attachment, is convinced at first that he can live his life as an island, entirely independent of emotional involvement with others. Throughout the course of the film he discovers otherwise ; and that indeed, inspite of the complications, life with others is richer and more meaningful.
These past months have brought home to us just how interdependent and interconnected our lives are. We, in our relationships, are the source through which the coronavirus is transmitted. Yet it us through our relationships and our involvement with one another that our communities have been sustained through the pandemic and people living alone cared for. As we enter these coming winter months with the virus alive and kicking, we realise that our well-being lies in responsibility for ourselves and to one another. We are not independent islands who can do whatever we want without regard for the whole of which we are a part.
This attitude of mutual care and responsibility is there in the pages of the Bible. When Jesus is asked by the teachers of the Law, ‘Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?’ Jesus, having first responded that to love God with all one’s heart and soul is the greatest commandment, pointed out that the second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Matthew 22: 34 – 40). In the letters of St Paul to the young churches, the Apostle is anxious to point out that the way we act must build up the community and be for the common good. There was for instance in both Corinth and Rome argument about whether meat which had been sacrificed to a Roman God should be eaten by the Christian community. Paul points out that although some in the community might well be aware that the sacrifice had no meaning and the gods did not exist, there might be weaker brethren who might fail to understand this, and believe thereby that sacrifice to foreign gods was within the new Christian remit. St Paul concludes, therefore, that if in fact by eating the meat sacrificed to an idol a weaker brother may be led to stumble in his allegiance to Christ, then better that all should refrain from eating the meat in his company (1Corinthians Chapter 8). Taking responsibility for one another’s well-being and each acting for the common good.
John Donne’s poem was written a number of centuries ago now. He is classed today as a ‘metaphysical poet’. This means that his poetry divined into things beyond the human eye. He lived in an age when the existence of God was taken as a given. His words contain much wisdom; and a wisdom indeed needed in these current times.
Rectory Ramblings 