27 Blog Post September 29, 2024 “Bells”
Imagine a world without alarm clocks, or smart phones or daylight savings time. Imagine that the whole town knows the time because the church keeps track of the time and lets people know when to get up, when to pray, when to take a break, when to go to church, when to rest.
This morning, and every morning at 7 am, our shutters are closed against the light of the rising sun, but at 7, the bells of all the churches start to ring. They don’t play digitally orchestrated music and they don’t have recorded tones. The sound of these bells is hearty and deep, heavy and round. When they start to ring, I am usually awake, but sometimes I am in that halfway place between awake and asleep, and the bells let me know that the world is waking up around me. If I am ambitious, I get up and walk over to the windows to open both the shutters and the windows in order to stick my head out to listen and to see if I can identify the churches around me whose towers are singing the new day into wakefulness. The sky is light, the air is cool and the streets below are mostly empty. It is a calm beginning to a new day.
At noontime, the bells swing again, first with one ring, then, as all the bells start to work together, a chorus of ringing to let people know it’s time to take a break, to rest, to eat.
But the evening bells surprise me the most. We aren’t sure if we just haven’t noticed, but these bells ring every 15 minutes from 5 pm to 7 pm and just now I heard the final ringing at 9 pm. The bells help us measure our day here and keep us connected to the churches that are everywhere in this city. Churches in Florence have helped us keep track of time by measuring it for us no matter where we find ourselves in the city.
I love the way the bells help me frame my life in this city in ancient tones that have been heard for centuries and that remind me that time is passing, that the day is beginning, or pausing, or ending. How many of us know that the leaning Tower of Pisa was originally built as a bell tower in the 12th century, and that bells still ring in the tower today, although they are no longer allowed to swing? Bells are everywhere.
These Florentine bells connect me back to St. John’s as well. I have always loved that our bells toll the hour beginning at 9 am and I was always a little smug, thinking of waking people up at 9 am on a Sunday to let the community know that church was about to start, whether or not they wanted to attend. Much like the bells of Florence, St. John’s bells toll every day.
Today we went to church in the morning, which started at 10:30 am—what a luxury! That meant we could listen to those 7 am bells toll, and still hang around, have a leisurely breakfast and coffee, and then start walking to church at around 9:45 am. We were blessed to attend a Church of England service in downtown Florence at St. Mark’s Anglican Church and I can’t tell you how great it was not only to hear and be surrounded by people who speak the same language we speak, but to sing and pray together with others who spoke our language as well. It was comforting to know the service, to feel at home when we are so far away from home. Good church does that.
The priest, Fr. Chris, was accessible and welcoming. In fact, we were invited to Coffee Hour as soon as we walked in the door, which I find very impressive. But it was the message that Fr. Chris preached that blew me away, not because it was so brilliant or erudite, but because I got to have one of those “How did you know?” moments in church. Fr. Chris preached a sermon all about welcoming people to the table, the table in church, the table at our homes, the table in our hearts. His sermon so closely paralleled my doctoral project that it was startling. It was also all about nourishment of the Body of the church around the table of Jesus, and I couldn’t believe I had traveled all the way to Italy to hear a sermon that mirrored my sabbatical theme, and my doctoral work. Our conversation after church was one of the richest parts of my day today, and helped strengthen the foundation of my entire sabbatical. Plus I got a new book recommendation and I am always excited about that!
But all this goes back to those bells at 7 am. I could have gone back to sleep. I could have allowed the bells to stay in the background of my day. I could have ignored them, ignored God’s call to worship, turned my back on God’s medieval timekeepers with their clanging tones and morning calls to get up, get going and go forth. But I paid attention and my day and my sabbatical are all the richer.
Much like the medieval frescos and graffiti I wrote about yesterday, I am surprised that another ancient tradition is resonating with me so strongly and providing a path for nourishment. How many others have been awakened by bells over these centuries and made the choice to let the bells begin the story of their day? Today the bells swung and sung me into a day full of God’s providence and generosity, from a familiar church family service to our final evening in Florence, and then to the close of day as the bells called us to sleep at 9 (I did not respond as quickly to the night time bells and I am still writing at 10:30 pm…).
Tomorrow the same bells will ring again, and as we get ready to leave for Rome, they will be welcome watchers of the dawning day, singing sentinels of time itself, ancient reminders to an entire city of days and hours shared, and to us, an ancient alarm clock we did not have to set, but one that will remind us that time is passing, and that we must go. Perhaps we will soon hear bells in Rome and we will continue to claim the rhythm of church and life intermingled in their clamor and call.
May you find music to nourish your soul today,
ML+
