Somehow I missed an important connection. I’ve known that “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was a 1940 novel written by Hemingway and that “No Man Is an Island” was a song of the 60’s and 70’s (with rather sappy lyrics, by the way). But how did I miss that these two titles, now common phrases, were originally written by a 16th-17th century English poet and priest? Not only that, but these familiar phrases are part of a collection of meditations or brief sermons? Here are those two phrases originating in John Donne’s Meditation XVII.
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. —John Donne (1572-1631)
You can read the one page meditation here. And you can read the article that made the connection for me here.
In a time of human history when there was plenty of war, terrible disease and religious divisions, John Donne speaks of the deep way humankind is connected to one another. He also speaks in the paragraphs before and after the one quoted above of how we are all connected in the universal Church. We are all a part of the Church (the body of Christ) and if one dies, a piece of me dies too. Hence the bell tolls.
How timely is this? Or is it simply timeless? Stalled debates in our governments. Wars around the world. World economies reacting to each others’ news. Some people starving while others are overfed. The tense balance between human consumption and the planet’s health. Instant connection to people around the world via the web.
On a smaller scale, in my little playing field, Lutheran congregations are learning that they need each other to do mission together. And some Christians are realizing that no one can be an effective messenger of the good news of Christ all on their own. Didn’t Jesus send the followers out by twos (Luke 10)? We truly need one another, whether that happens in a formal or informal way, to grow in faith…a concept that runs counter to the “I’m-spiritual-so-I’ll-just-do-my-own-thing” idea.
Donne addressed all this centuries ago. Except Donne puts it so much more poetically: that if a clod of dirt were washed into the sea, Europe would be the lesser. That when I hear a church bell tolling a death, a piece of me dies too. That no man is an island; we just think and act like we are sometimes. When are times when you have sensed that profound connection with the whole that Donne is writing about?
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