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| The Bourdon Bell being installed in the National Cathedral |
The Bourdon Bell is the largest bell in a Carillon, known to the commoner as the bell tower of a church. In the Washington National Cathedral that particular bell weighs 5 ½ tons. That‘s 11000 pounds. Yesterday, as the sun set on the capitol of our nation, that bell in the National Cathedral rang repeatedly. 500 times, representing one thousand deaths with each reverberating ring. I listened, over National Public Radio, through the speakers in my car. It was sobering. Repeat, repeat, repeat. One ring for every 1000 American deaths from Covid 19. I even took out my phone and clicked on my guitar tuning app so I could decipher the dominant pitch. It appeared to be Ab.
The part of me that delights in symbolism felt this before I knew it. We all know it, on some level…that music creates moods. The interesting thing is, as I was driving along the interstate listening to that tolling bell, I glanced down to notice I was going just under the speed limit. This is against my nature. My instinct, I suppose, told me to slow down. (I should listen to tolling bells in the key of Ab more often.)
With each reverberating tone I Imagined faces scrolling before me, like the rapid fire shooting in television commercials. There was no way, in the time each note was played, that one thousand faces could pass in any recognizable fashion. So I imagined them passing by, each particular life lost to Covid 19, like the broken lines on the road keeping us in our lanes. And I thought, out of reverence, I should stop, pause by one single dotted line, and say a prayer for those who loved them. But instead I plodded ahead, on the edge of mournful. And the bell tolled on.
Last year, during the season of Lent when I force myself to think, and write, every single day, Covid 19 had just been named. We here in America watched it emerge, out of its Asian womb, and flutter down to our friends in Italy, and Spain, then eventually to our own shores. Each day, at the end of my writing, I posted the number of Covid 19 deaths in the world. When I started posting those numbers, on Dave’s birthday last year (March 30) the number of deaths worldwide was 37,830. Today that number is roughly 2,480,000, and rising by the minute.
What a year its been.
On the same website where I got that number, I also noticed that today in America, there are 502,000 deaths. The harmonic tones of those ringing bells go on and on, maybe going away from our earshot but never fully disappearing.
There is just so much to make us sad. So much.
Then again, in that same book, from a century ago, Key Characteristics, there is this. Right next to Ab, the key of the Bourdon bell, one half tone up, is the key of A.
A major: This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one’s state of affairs; hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.
Maybe it’s time to step up.
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| The National Cathedral in Washington CD |
