Bells, bells, bells

I’ve been thinking about how to present the notion of “the history of the richness of an encounter” in a way that is vivid and graspable. After all, appreciating such histories is the point of our Reflecting, and lessons drawn from such meditations inform our Risking. Yet the phrase is more like a pillowcase of words than a something visualizable that someone can contemplate with interest and profit. 

My journey began with the question of how we pick the encounters, 2nd person Other-oriented interactions, out of the teeming crowd of our many actions and impressions. Robert Farrar Capon gave me a clue: ln the braided stream of our attention, look for ‘magic hat’ moments. Magic hats became ‘wunderhorner’ and those became bells and related members of that percussion family. There were some days of idea wrangling, and this is what I’ve come up with.

I remember the powerful bell-casting scenes in Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and the sobs of the boy Boriska waiting in agony for the first peals of Grand Prince’s bell. “Oranges and lemons, the bells of St. Clements” brings to mind the acoustic landscape of medieval London. The eight 8-am bells from St. Francis de Sales tell me each morning how much I need to speed up to get through my loop in time. Can I forget my late mother-in-law throwing herself on the bank of bell evers to ring the Sunday morning hymns in Dedham? How about the precisely tuned bell collection buried with Marquis Yi of Zeng that dates back to 433 BCE. There are sleigh bells, cowbells, great historic bells with honored names, and also gongs, chimes, and other related instruments. The family is huge, varied in designs and materials, significant in history, central to religious and civic culture. 

So what about thinking of the ‘richness’ of an encounter as its ‘bell,' and appreciation of the richness of the encounter as appreciation of the qualities of its bell. A bell can be thought of in terms of its physical presence-its design, material, engravings, and so on--and in terms of its sounds (what a language of bell sounds: ring, toll, chime, jingle, clang, and so many more). We can think of the physical bell as representing the drama component of richness (what is vivid, potent, urgent) and the sound as the depth component (what is suspenseful, intriguing, impressive.) The bell as object offers an immediate experience of itself; the bell as speaker reaches out into the future and the environment, participating in both, shaping both. 

When we have a fresh encounter, or an occasion of an on-going encounter, we can think of a ‘bell’ coming into existence that, drawing on the multiplicity of bell forms, materials, sounds, and meanings available, somehow expresses the special qualities of the experience. Bell sounds particularly extend their influence to what happens nearby and next. Often the reverberations travel far and last long. In reflection, we can appreciate the ‘bells’ of our experiences and 'swing' the clappers again to hear their tones and partials or even ‘adjust’ the bells to produce even more tones. Subsequent occasions of an encounter can ring these bells again with even more energy and effect, enriching or possibly even damaging the bell. Perhaps a new occasion inspires a new bell as different aspects of the otherness of the Other are recognized, acknowledged and addressed. Perhaps there are new ways for us to be impressed or intrigued. In these and other ways, the bell can represent of the richness of our encounters in ways we can appreciate.

What about handbells? May this be the music of two or more, in mutual encounter and aware of the fact, playing together and creating a sonic world builds on itself forever?

If all this is about the richness of the encounter, then the history of that richness is the story of all the bells created in that particular 2nd person Other-oriented meeting. The history of modifications by design or accident, of augmentations and diminutions, of companion bells and their mutual resonance or discord, of sounds clear, clangy or muffled, of regular or erratic expression is the history of the richness of an encounter.  I can think of the many years of encounter that constitutes my marriage as many bells ringing. Some have stopped sounding altogether, others are tolled only infrequently; some are mournful; others are cheerful; some are brand new; others have not ever stopped ringing. The tones and overtones of these pervade our relationship and our world and the bronze of these bells is ever polished with looks and touches. 

I can imagine looking ahead to look back on a whole life represented by cascades of pealing bells, each expressive of a particular encounter and each encounter expresses and partakes in the wooing of God-in-love and the beloved Other.