For Whom the Bell Tolls

Note: As my primary Lenten discipline, I have chosen to take on the practice of writing a devotion for each of the forty days of Lent. I will post them here daily so others may benefit from them, and so I may be held accountable by all of you in keeping up the practice. This is the first devotion.

Ash Wednesday – Feb. 25

Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel. Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper starred in the movie. Metallica sang the song. But the phrase “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was initially made popular by English poet John Donne in his Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. The text can be found here.

I find Donne’s words rather appropriate for today, Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the day where as Christians, we are called to confront our own mortality. In Donne’s day, the custom was to toll the bell of the church when a member of that parish lay dying. When the bell was heard, each household or neighborhood sent a representative to the church to ask “for whom the bell tolls.” Once the representative returned, prayers were lifted up for the dying parishioner.

Donne supposedly wrote this meditation as he lay dying, confronting his own mortality. He heard the bell tolling for someone else, yet he knew it just as well could have been tolling for him. This understanding came from the connectional nature of the church. “The church is catholic, universal, and so are all of her actions,” Donne wrote. “All that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me…And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and in one volume.”

We are all mortal, “so this bell calls us all.” And when the bell tolls for one, it tolls for all, because “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

The final words of Donne’s meditation are perhaps the most famous of all: “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.”

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee. It tolls for you. It tolls for me. It tolls for your best friend. It tolls for your arch-enemy. It tolls for each one of us sooner or later, and when it tolls for anyone, it tolls for everyone. Each time the bell tolls, it tolls for all of humankind, who has lost another part of its one body.

This is the grim reality we face on this day of the Christian calendar, Ash Wednesday. We approach God at the altar, literally or figuratively, because we need to hear those words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We do not want to hear those words, but we need to hear them. They are words that toll for thee; words that toll for humankind. Let us be thankful of this reminder as we begin our Lenten journey of reflection and self-examination.