Article
Awe and wonder
Change
Community
Time
7 min read

The bells that awaken awe in the new year

We need new rhythms if we are to navigate the world as it is today.

Elizabeth Wainwright is a writer, coach and walking guide. She's a former district councillor and has a background in international development.

Restored church bells lined up in a cathedral, as crowds mill around them.
Notre Dame bells.
Notre Dame de Paris.

The jackdaws flap and caw as they come in to roost. The sun sets behind the bare trees; its fiery farewell doing nothing to warm the cold air. The village church bell rings out 4pm. My young daughter stops what she is doing, says “ding dong”, then carries on. That’s what we all used to do: stop what we were doing and be called to something else, the bell’s rhythmic tolls cutting through our individuality and unifying us for a time. Perhaps we would go to church, or stop to pray, or remember the dead for whom the bell tolled. I have been thinking about that often-quoted poem by John Donne:  

No man is an island, 

Entire of itself. 

Each 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 thine own 

Or of thine friend's were. 

Each man's death diminishes me, 

For I am involved in mankind. 

Therefore, send not to know 

For whom the bell tolls, 

It tolls for thee. 

Now, church bells ring out the hours of the clock, and occasionally still ring out mourning and celebration too. They seem also to ring out a quaintness, a nostalgia, a past that is slipping away. I have been sitting by the old stone church listening to them, wondering what else they might be tolling for, what else might be slipping away. In Donne’s poem, he says the bell tolls not for them, but for us, because we are all connected. Each person’s death diminishes the whole from which they were a part, and so diminishes me. The bells used to remind us of that whole.  

The bell could be melancholy but I notice how it tilts me toward hope, even in this deep winter stillness; an audible distillation of light ringing through the dimness. I think it is the hope of mankind which Donne tells me I am involved in. These old bells seem to ring defiantly despite the many other chimes that ring just for me: digital pings, messages, notifications, news, an algorithm that tried to force me down my own lone path. But echoes of communal life persist. Now, I hear the bell say:  

Ding: listen 

Dong: lift your head 

Ding: look  

Dong: life is a whole  

Ding: face each other  

Dong: this is the only way we will meet the future 

A few days later, my daughter and I step into the village hall. We surface together from evening darkness into the light of song: it is the carol concert, we are late, and the music is about to start. The singers are decked in lights and earthy greens and rusty reds. They are a group from Exmoor who conserve and share traditional and local songs, as well as singing the songs we all recognise. My daughter’s cheeks are pink, her eyes blaze with delight. In a few days, the solstice will be here, and the earth will pause in its movement before turning back to face the light. Here in this old hall, the songs seem to reach towards that coming light: we are here, we are together, and we choose to lift our individual voices as one chorus of community.  

I think about the people in this hall gathering to mark other things — memories, celebrations, vision, care — and I wonder about the more figurative bells that draw them together to do so. What are the bells that keep us together now, when so much encourages us into isolation and individualism? — The bells that remind us we can never be the islands that we are so often encouraged to be: independent, tough, believing consumption will heal us, packaged into a personal brand; everything encouraging us to be seen, not known.  

I try to listen for these bells, to hear how to inhabit time reverently and with reciprocity, not with urgency and isolation. In many places the actual church bells are silent, but I think we still need the bells of communality: bells that call us into share rhythms, reminding us to pause in our individual movement, reminding us to gather, to mourn, to remember things and find the light and the hope in each other, just as the tilting of the earth pauses at the solstice before it turns to face the light.  

Nature’s cycle is one way of doing this: tuning in to the turn of the year that makes new life possible. The solstice and equinox; wassailing in January to bless the apple trees; noticing when migrating birds appear or leave; sharing planting and harvesting days. Liturgical calendars are a way that Christian communities kept and still keep time: advent, Christmas, lent, Easter. These rhythms become familiar, reminding us that time isn’t linear, much as the myth of infinite progress would have us believe otherwise. Time is cyclical, expanding and contracting; old events revisited regularly in new ways.  

Knowing that it is not just me looking at these stars, but people across the world and through time, brings me into a peace, a reverence that can be hard to come by.

And there are other things that can bring us together too: causes, hobbies, interests, protests. These can take on the role of bells perhaps, drawing us together around shared purpose – but shared purpose and shared existence, shared being, are not always the same thing.  

Perhaps we need new rhythms if we are to meet the world as it is today. Imagine if a bell tolled — literally or figuratively — not just for human funerals, but whenever a species went extinct, or a tree cut down. Imagine if neighbourhoods gathered to light candles and share stories and soul and care each week, offering a space that church used to provide to lots of people through the ages. And what if we resurrected old traditions for a new age: ‘beating the bounds’ as a way to mark not just the boundaries of land but the places that need restoring and regenerating now; harvest festivals not just as something for school children and rural churches, but as a way we can better connect with food and farming. What if we looked at old wisdom; the way the church calendar aligned with the farming calendar, asking us to remember that food and the soil it comes from are sacred things.  

Our friends were near the beach in Costa Rica. They noticed that at the end of the day, everyone stopped what they were doing — fishing, fixing, working — and watched the sunset. This moment of beauty seemed to bring people together into synchronicity. In his book Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder, scientist Dacher Keltner shows us how experiencing awe can, amongst other things, help us to experience humanity, see patterns in life, and better collaborate with each other. He says: “The last pillar of the default self—striving for competitive advantage, registered in a stinginess toward giving away possessions and time—crumbles during awe. Awe awakens the better angels of our nature.” Perhaps putting ourselves in the way of awe might help us hear the bells — old and new — that ring in this current age, and that might bring us together and love each other well. If love only exists in relationship, and love is what helps us to see and to care, then protecting and restoring relationship seems to be vital work for our time.   

Now, the winter sky is dark and the stars shine brightly above. They shine with a clarity that matches the peal of the bells in the village. They call me beyond myself into something unified, something older, something necessary. They call me into wonder and awe. Knowing that it is not just me looking at these stars, but people across the world and through time, brings me into a peace, a reverence that can be hard to come by. I step back into the house but my mind faces outwards into the world.  

Church bells used to call people together to worship, bringing a sense of shared time and purpose. They still ring, but they can be hard to hear against the noise of individual time. I think they are calling us together again now. And if we can’t hear them, perhaps we need to set new bells ringing. May the bells that ring this New Year’s Day inspire us to do so. 

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Comment
Community
Sport
4 min read

What really happens when the Grand National comes to town?

Enjoy those great experiences but remember the neighbours.

Stuart is communications director for the Diocese of Liverpool.

Smartly dressed people crowd a station platform and stairs.
Racegoers arrive at Aintree station.
Merseyrail.

I love watching the periphery of events. Frequently I will be at a gig and find my eye and mind drifting to what is going on at the fringes of the stage. Security distributing water to the thirsty souls of the mosh pit whilst removing the crowd surfer of crushed individual (who invariably rushes back through the stadium to dive back into the fun). You have the semi interested standing at the back trying not to let a good gig interrupt their conversation. You see the road crew retrieving dropped mics, endlessly swapping guitars and nervously following the antics of the lead performers. It is all part of a community drawn together for a couple of hours, from the passionate obsessive to the mildly involved all being sucked into the occasion. 

And for over 30 years I have watched the very fringe of the world famous Grand National event. My wife has taught at a school about half a mile from the famous racecourse so twice daily we pass it by to and from her workplace. I have been to corporate events, our diocese has even held some there, in the stands so have overlooked the course but I have never nor will I ever attend the race meeting. 

But I am fascinated to look in and see the build-up. 

It starts around February as you start to see the white hospitality marquees being erected. You get the big advertising wraps proudly displaying the meeting’s sponsor. Then this week the TV outside broadcast vans turn up, signs directing people to the correct car parks and drop off points appear and the sense of the scale of operations looms large. 

Then there are the signs that someone like me trying to go about the ordinary business of the week don’t want to see. Road closures, no parking zones, diversions all being signposted telling me that this week will be challenging. Gone are the days then I was able to easily move house on Grand National day snaking past the ground while the horses hurtled round the course. 

Travelling in early on race day mornings you see the workforce that comes in to support the enjoyment of the many on race day. A small army of mostly young people dressed in the white and black of waiting staff decamp from the early Merseyrail trains heading to set up in readiness for the day’s punters.  

That’s the bit I mostly miss but it is when the community kicks in. Hordes of people in cars, coaches and trains descend on the area and while most are fine I know from friends living in the area that problems of low level anti-social behaviour affect many local residents when high jinks and too much alcohol spill over to a lack of self-control. And potentially a lack of respect with the notion that my enjoyment trumps anyone else’s rights. 

To be fair I see this type of things coming out of a gig. The moment the house lights go on the crowd that had not minutes before been singing as one voice to the bands biggest hit become engaged in the understandable desire to get home, to get the car out of the car park. As we boisterously leave the venue hyped up by the adrenalin rush you get from a good gig the signs plea to respect the venue’s neighbours is readily dismissed or overlooked. Of course, that sign doesn’t apply to me. 

Behaviour specialists will have no doubt studied the way this works in more detail and there is some research on how crowds behave which I believe informs safety management. This has got to be a benefit for all. And this may have been how things always were but around these events more and more local communities suffer from the impact of thousands suddenly descending and rapidly disappearing. It is similar to the impetus that has led to a backlash against tourists in cities such as Venice and Barcelona. Yes, these events do bring money into the economy, Taylor Swift’s Anfield concerts brought a great amount of revenue for Liverpool. However, a question would have to be how much that benefits the communities that take the brunt. 

The Grand National is big but not unique. And I hope the hundreds of thousands who visit have a tremendous experience but as they do I also hope that they respect the community that they become and the community they land in. 

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