For Whom The Bell Tolls

I was in a conversation and the lyrics of this prose kept coming to mind.  Actually, aside from the conversation, they have often been on my mind for the past many months ...

I seemed to remember a movie about the Spanish Civil War and the lines of this were used in the movie or title or something and somehow I was sure that the story was about Ernest Hemingway's work as a reporter during the conflict ...

But, then again, I have pea soup between my ears.  Nothing comes easily if it is pre-surgery.  Nothing really makes any sense if it does ...

So, I searched on the words:

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.

 

These words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem - the passage is taken from the 1624, Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and was part of a sermon done in prose.

Wow!  1624!  Almost four hundred years ago!  I do not know if you realize the significance there.

Donne was a priest, a lawyer, a poet of his day and a self confessed - well known, sex addict.  The above passage, gives one the idea of the solidarity of man, to all men surrounding him - known and unknown.  This was a bit of a radical view in 17th century where solitary man was more of the concept and he was a Roman Catholic in Elizabethan England.  The bell of course refers to the ringing of the town's bell for each year of your life when you die.  As a child, I can remember counting the rings - in a small town you could know whom just died by counting the ringing of their age!

Donne's radical thought, that we are all interconnected was also carried forward by a piece attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The family of man has been horribly fractured through the years - bad theology, bad politics, bad leaders, bad men - all being allowed to get away with their deeds by those whom will do nothing to stop the stampede to destruction unseen forces mankind towards.

A lesson Donne finally figured out late in his life.
A lesson  Niemöller had to live through.
A guaranteed future for all of us, if we can not understand that as Christian we are not a part of this world and its corrupt ways.

Live your life by the rules of the world (Satan's) and you will suffer eternally.
Live your life by the rules of Jesus and understand that you will suffer in this life but be given peace in the next.

For whom does the bell actually toll?
For this world, whose days are numbered by its creator ...