For whom the Bell Tolls
John Donne

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From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - "Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
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; 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.
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.
There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? 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.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours.
Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.
Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it.
Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

John Donne (rhymes with gun) wrote this when he was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He was a mystic Christian poet, or sometimes maybe just a mystic poet; but I think this is one of the most poetic things ever written by a seventeenth century Anglican cleric who preached to the King.

Think about what it means. Forget about Hemingway for now. Why does he say no man is an island? What island is he talking about? Think about it. I guess everybody knows that in former times, simpler times, the church bells tolled--they rang slowly, evenly, mournfully--whenever somebody had just died. People would stop their labors and remove their hats, and bow their heads, all the time wondering who had just died. Maybe somebody they sort of knew.

But really, whom does the bell toll for?

Robert A. Heinlein

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, pitch manure, solve equations, analyze a new problem, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

(Notebooks of Lazarus Long)

Brigham Young

Shall I sit down and read the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Covenants all the time?” says one. Yes, if you please, and when you have done, you may be nothing but a sectarian after all. It is your duty to study to know everything upon the face of the earth, in addition to reading those books. We should not only study good, and its effects upon our race, but also evil, and its consequences….

And inasmuch as the Lord Almighty has designed us to know all that is in the earth, both the good and the evil, and to learn not only what is in heaven, but what is in hell, you need not expect ever to get through learning. Though I mean to learn all that is in heaven, earth, and hell, do I need to commit iniquity to do it? No. If I were to go into the bowels of hell to find out what is there, that does not make it necessary that I should commit one evil, or blaspheme in any way the name of my Maker.

6 February 1853

Journal of Discourses, 2:93-94

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Insects. People who will not go out fishing for ideas. People who are content with what they grew up with, and don’t want to find out about anything else. People who sit on recliner chairs with greasy armrests, whose greatest technical achievement is mastery of the TV remote control and the game box thingies. Who listen to the nightly news for 24 minutes—unless you count the commercials as news, then it’s 30—and that’s all they want to know about the world. “Tiger kills man…chewed off arm last year.” That’s all they need to know about the world. And they believe the global warming hoax, and think Algore deserved the Nobel. (Good lord, these people run the risk of getting up one day and going down to the precinct to vote! Nahh. Not to worry. They never registered.)

Insects. People who are geniuses at math or some quantitative area, techies, gonna be rich someday off of computer programs or new materials invented in a lab, but have not a clue who Charles Dickens is, or Baudelaire, or Goethe, or Pushkin. People who are great at sales or playing the stock market, sons of daytraders, who are going to be rich but ignorant. And so many already are. Rich. And ignorant. Who go see a movie that is meant to propagandize them into a new socialist world, where these poor ignoramuses will be the drones—until the system collapses, as all socialist systems collapse.

Insects.

Christmas

I’ve heard that Charles Dickens pretty much made Christmas into a big deal with his A Christmas Carol. I’ve read history that Christmas was observed, but not with such fête and frolic and festivity and in fact religiosity until his story got published and read all over the place. He shortened his story so he could give public readings, and it’s here: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/carol.htm

For what is life? This life? My life?

It is even a vapour,

That appeareth for a little time,

And then vanisheth away

Away dark night, away

I wend my way through windy days

And grope through fearsome night

Eyes shut against the dusty dark

Praying for the light

Groping in the umbral sand

Searching for some light

Dust thou wert and dust thou art

Feeble in the wind

All flesh is as the grass

The flower of the grass

The flower blooms, and fades, and dies

And doesn’t know its end –

Will I? Or will I leave this mortal vale

Taken instantly, not knowing where or when?

And brightly wake in paradise?

What win I if I gain the thing I seek?

A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.

Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?

Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

Shakespeare

The Rape of Lucrece

211ff

What is the greatest expression of love? What is the most powerful and meaningful way a boy and a girl can show their love?

Too often, a boy, or sometimes a girl, will say that the way to show love is physical. They will say that the supreme way to prove your love is physical—by having sexual relations. That is a lie. That lie comes from the devil. He puts it into people’s minds and their bodies agree. That act, the act by which spirits enter physical bodies and are born into this world, is a sacred act. True, it is a supreme expression of love between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully married; but to try to talk someone into doing that sacred act before marriage or outside of marriage is wicked. It is the opposite of love. It is the supreme act of selfishness. It is using another person to satisfy your own lusts. And it is done with another person’s body, not their heart or spirit. If it were right, it would not be followed immediately by feelings of guilt and shame.

The greatest expression of love was said by Jesus: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) The greatest way we can show love is to be willing to put another person’s well-being above our own. Their comfort above our own. Their happiness should be our purpose, and “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

If we love someone we will not use them to satisfy and gratify our carnal instincts. We will protect them. That’s love. Getting someone to break God’s commandments is not love. It’s being a user. People who use other people don’t love other people: they only love themselves. Yes, they will talk all kinds of “sweet-talk” and give a false sense of caring more for you than for themselves. That’s the user mentality. It’s the con game. It’s not love.

The greatest expression of love, the most meaningful and powerful way a boy and a girl can show their love is to protect one another from harm—physical harm, psychological harm, spiritual harm.

Son visage disait tragédie mais bien cachée, et sinon lointaine au moins profonde, de sorte que son sourire n’atteignait jamais grand succès ; et de larmes elle n’en avait plus, les ayant toutes déjà et, il y a de ça longtemps, épuisées, dépensées sur une histoire que personne, semblait-il, ne saurait découvrir, puisqu’en l’épuisant le rideau du théâtre avant-garde de son être, de son existence psychique, se déchirerait et les mécanismes du drame—les cordes pour faire descendre les rideaux de la mémoire, les roues pour faire élever les panneaux du souvenir—seraient exposés, et peut-être même les acteurs et les actrices en train de faire croire au public que la fiction devient dans la lumière fausse des phares de scène la réalité seraient accablés, et elle crèverait devant tout le monde, vidée de toute atmosphère intérieure de femme spirituelle.

Salva me, ars…

I have noticed something lately. Things have been stressful—I think that’s a fair use of the word—and I have drawn great solace from the pages of the Book of Mormon. (I have been reading it in French.) But also, and in no way comparably, I have noticed that I have drawn great comfort and pleasure from art. My experience with art is limited to listening to CDs of music and turning the pages of art books. But that’s enough. I have been inspired by my new Vivaldi CD that Steve got for me, listening to the scordatura of the cellos, and by Patrick Casaday’s Famine: Remembrance, and other beautiful things. But in a very parallel way I have loved turning the pages of my art books, picture after picture of great paintings. And I have loved reading my new Paul Johnson book, Art: a New History. It’s a reflection as much as a history, and I like how he sees it. I recently purchased Painters of the Wasatch Mountains, collected and edited by three people, but mainly Robert Olpin, who was on late nights on the Utah Education Channel that nobody watches. He was a prof at the UofU, and Utah born, probably a back-slid Mormon, but knew Utah arts and artists from Dan to Beersheba, or Snowville to St George. It has some pretty good paintings, some really great paintings, and some paintings that are incredible. And many of the paintings are of mountains I recognize… which means I’ve seen that mountain, and the artist did it up well enough that I recognize it. Like one called “Lazy Afternoon,” or something, but I could drive you up to the Midway turnoff right before Heber and stop by the river, by Kohler’s dairy farm, and you would see that exact view of Timp. And then to go through a cheap art book called Masters of Modern Painting, or something like that, that I got at the fashion shop that by accident has some odd-lot books, mostly stupid cooking or cocktails or salads books, but then the occasional art book. I have been perusing the greats, and talking about them: Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Fragonard, Gainsborough, then on to the Luminists, the Romantics, the Impressionists, etc. That Modern Painting book has many artists and pictures that I have not seen before, some from famous artists—Caneletto, Caravaggio—but canvases I have not seen before. There has been something soothing and uplifting about searching one corner of a painting to the other, taking it all in for minutes, not seconds, before turning the page, and then going back to it a day later and savoring it again. It has not just been entertaining (“Entertainment is the happiness of those who cannot think”—Alexander Pope), it has been exhilarating, uplifting, and even spiritual. Now that word is so misused today that it begs defining in context, so I mean spiritual in the sense of the New-Age ommmmmm-groaner, but more so spiritual in the sense of uplifting the spirit, giving joy to the soul. As Elder Maxwell said, “After all, brothers and sisters, when we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.” Ars longa, vita brevis, said Goethe, after he read it in Montaigne, who got it from Cicero. There is a rock foundation in art that endures. It may not endure beyond the time of the telestial phase of the world, especially those paintings that are actually untoward, and even those that are perfectly moral, but nevertheless portray the nude, or scenes of a telestial world. But for as long as this level of our existence endures, art will provide exhilaration and elevation. Proust said friendships, love, even family, may fade—only art endures. I’m not of that opinion, or don’t see that what he saw is necessarily so, but in fact many human relations can turn, where art is always there, always what it is.

“While rashness is a crime, boldness is not incompatible with caution. Nay, it is often the quintessence of prudence.”

—Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, CSA, General Order No. 26, 1863

Am I bold? I sometimes accuse myself of velleity, and certainly others may have thought my ways to fall into a category of timidity. Do I strike while the iron’s hot? Usually not. And if I do, I regret that action. Shoulda waited. So here we are in Christmastime, and I am again the other half of the Grand Dichotomy—the Xcrooge half. I will pay my devotions to heaven, and curse mammon all the while. Curse you, Mammon, in your department stores and big box stores and catalogues and commercials. Curse you all wrapped up in pretty ugly wrapping paper. Come, January, bring me relief. I sink in my own cursings.

How quickly yes it turns from this to this,

and brightest day in sunny glory is a memory, while a chill and bleak snowy scene has its own radiance, numinous apparitions of white on white, what once may have been green or brown, or even scarlet, now white as snow, actually snow, no longer a fence but snow in the shape of a fence, snow in the shape of a tree, snow as pasture, and in the still and chill a calm of dying down and being still, chilled and stilled by winter’s grip, yet pleased with all the equanimity of noncolor that makes us believe again in change, change from our peccant ways to find some level of peace, inner peace with an outward expression.

Both pictures taken within minutes of each other. Just like life, looking up and seeing one thing, looking down and seeing quite another. What do you want to see? How about seeing both, accepting both? I think about what has been, and then I think about what could be, might be, shall be; but then I think about what is. Which one counts the most? Shall I wear a red shirt? Blue? Or White? I grow old, I grow old… shall I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled? Eliot borrowed from Laforgue and made it quite acceptable. And Baudelaire, and Dante, and Wagner, mein irisch Kind; and it’s OK to do that now. He did it.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy …

What’s your sign? If somebody looks at my profile to the right here, they will see that my sign is a scorpio. That is mentioned not by me, but by the computer that read my birthdate info required, and automatically assigned me a sign. If I could choose my own sign, it might be the St Andrew’s Cross, or the chi-ro, or a thistle. I detest the very idea that anybody would think of me in terms of an astrological sign. That does not make me. I am not a product of the season I was born in. What makes me would be my choices. I was born into an environment—a time, an era, a place, a milieu—but what I chose to take from all that is what I am.

So let us all then choose wisely. We choose every day what we will be in the obituary, in the minds of those who think about us long after we are gone over into that next place. We choose on the basis of our morality. We must choose, though, between two moralities, and we cannot make up our own, regardless of Rousseau, who said, “All the morality of our actions is the judgment we pass on them ourselves.” Wrong. There are two moralities: morality and immorality. We can choose life and freedom, or captivity and death. And the choices are evidenced in the clothes we put on in the morning, the music we choose to listen to, the stuff we search for on the Internet, the words we use to, with, for, about, against others.

Swift the days like fleeting clouds that race across the sky go on from here and find their way into the long halls of memory and future times like mirrors on opposing walls that catch the sense of eternity and let you see from here to there to there forever into a distant future past where we were and soon will be and cannot always find our way but with each other’s calls halloo and here and come and follow and now we catch a glimpse and think we see each other far ahead or there behind and yet we were so recently together but now not so closely by and yet not so distanced either.

Frisch weht der Wind der Heimat zu; mein liebsten Bruder wo weilest du?

I believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in their anthropomorphicity and their munificence and their closeness and their corporeal reality.

I believe the world of spirits is here, all around us, composed of such fine matter that it is imperceptible to our keenest instruments; but nonetheless there, real, true.