Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee

Meditation #17 By John Donne From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII:
Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris (Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.)

You might think my morning meditation a morbid one, as it seems to be focused much on dying. Certainly, in America, we love to maintain the myth of eternal youth. Men, during their mid-life crisis, divorce their wives and marry one half their age. Women, are encouraged to Botox, facelift, and fill any wrinkle - lest they surrender to the inevitable aging we all encounter.

In those days when we lived in small villages, it was hard to ignore the tolling of the church bell. It's ringing was loud enough to pierce any veil of ignorance. It said clearly "we all must die".

Death is an inevitability, but - unfortunately - living seems to be optional. So many of us, lemming-like, merge onto the freeway every morning with all of our peers. We park in the same spot. We drink the same coffee, tea or soda to fortify our souls for the day's long slog. Tragically, many of our days repeat endlessly like the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day".

In that movie, the boorish hero is given the gift of reliving the same day - over and over and over - until such time as he is no longer a man-child, but becomes a man.

Many of my days as a parent seemed similar. I walked the same path laid out for me by my fellow congregants and coworkers. We changed diapers, read bedtime stories, kissed our wives and children goodbye as we headed to the office.

I expected this life to bestow on me the meaning and the purpose for which I hungered. There was in me a yearning that truly was too deep for words. Whether these were Pauline stirrings of the Spirit or merely universal wants - I cannot say. But my whole life I have known this hole in my soul - this dry and cracking thirst that seemed unquenchable.

I, like many of my Bible-Belt peers, were promised that Church and Faithful Living would satisfy and bring fulfillment. It took me nearly 50 years to learn that - at least for me - that spiritual food was non-fat and no-calorie. It did not satisfy and it left me hungry for more.

For me, I was destined to find that "road less traveled" which - upon traversing it - learned that it was well-traveled, but often avoided due to its difficulty.

I am no saint - and surely no prophet. But, my Irish ancestors would recognize my lament as their song, too. Because we all - if we do not quell it - have a similar hunger and thirst. We look for the common cures and the latest fads to feed us.

But no amount of technology or fine cuisine can satisfy a hunger that is not of the body - but of the soul. I am someone fixed on the topic of soul, having just finished the wonderful book by Thomas Moore, "Care of the Soul".

Moore's book is over 25 years old, and Donne's words were written almost 425 years ago. But both sing from the same hymnal. Both soul-songs are written in the same key.

Donne was a cleric, and Moore was a seminarian who left the priesthood and became a therapist. Both of them - to varying degrees - understood that we all have soul-needs that once were met by church and liturgy.

Donne continues:

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated;"

Years ago, when I was still a Sunday School teacher, and sometimes even a preacher, I found these words from a kindred soul, the English poet and cleric, John Donne. According to Wikipedia, Donne is "considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets".

The sentiments of Donne, although difficult to grasp in his almost 500 year-old English, are words needing translation into our common tongue. Despite constant contact via FaceBook and Twitter, we seem to have lost the old idea of commonweal and connectedness.

Desmond Tutu, the South African cleric gives us an African version of Donne's sentiments when he speaks of "Ubuntu".

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, 'Yu, u nobunto'; 'Hey so-and-so has ubuntu.' Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, 'My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.' We belong in a bundle of life.

Some 500 years ago, John Donne had a faith that might seem quaint and archaic to us. And yet, there must be some truth here - why else would his words have survived the centuries.

God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

This idea of God's hand in all things is common for today's Evangelical Christians. They sometimes have pointed to hurricanes as evidence of God's wrath toward gay Americans. We have all seen the news stories on local TV where the relieved survivor of a Southern Tornado thanks god for answering their prayers for safety. Of course, these same pilgrims never seem to see the irony of the destruction wrought on their neighbors. Is God's hand there, as well?

Donne's answer is a bit more nuanced, and he seems to avoid the specifics of his God's handiwork. It reminds me of the hymn we sang in many childhood church services - "God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform".

Here are the lines of Donne's sonnet most often quoted:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

In the neighborhood of my youth, life seemed harder then. We had only 3 channels on the TV, and all programming ended shortly after midnight. Our phones were fixed to the wall, and our music was mostly obtained from cheap AM radios. Many cars lacked any air conditioning other than what we referred to as "460" - four windows rolled down at 60 MPH.

And yet, that difficulty brought us closer, as we knew we all suffered the same fate. The mothers on our street seemed to have some sort of secret communications network, as they somehow always knew when we were behaving badly. They freely shared this intelligence information amongst themselves.

Although I suspect none of them knew of or had ever read John Donne, they instinctively understood his sentiments. They believed that their fate was bound up in the fate of their neighbors. They brought casseroles when someone was sick. They shared cookies and cakes at Christmas.

These days, our neighbors are being persecuted. We may not know them, but our neighbors of color or of immigrant roots are threatened by our new President, his policies, his followers.
Let us not forget that their fate - unless we act - might soon become our own.

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent German pastor who became an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler. He spent the last seven years of Hitler's rule in Nazi concentration camps. Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Many of us have been shaken by the election of Donald J. Trump - as we thought that part of America had long ago died. We are both chagrined and saddened to be reminded that selfishness and ignorance never die, but only ebb and flow like the ocean tides.

But, lest we think our times unique or tragic, history tells us that our current experience is - unfortunately- neither rare nor unexpected. And whatever our faith, our ideas of patriotism and neighborliness, it seems that our time calls for renewed vigor and a more steely vision if we are to rightly judge these times.

I leave you finally, with the words of the Colonial firebrand, Thomas Paine.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
― Thomas Paine, The Crisis

dg

1/31/17

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