Posted on 03/31/2005 12:33:10 PM PST by lightman
On March 31, 1631, English priest and poet John Donne entered into life everlasting. He is Commemorated this day on the calendars of the Episcopal and Lutheran churches. His most well known essay is "for whom the bell tolls".
Nuc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.
Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.
...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...
The death of Terri Schiavo on Donne's feast-day has diminished us all; and has caused the tolling sound to come forth from that cracked bell in Philadelphia which once "proclaim[ed] liberty to all the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof."
All who would confess the self evident truth that the Creator's gift and right is LIFE should be appalled at the tolling sounding forth today.
The consistent rulings of the courts, despite the valiant efforts of Congress, have shown that we are all at risk for a similar devaluation of life, hastened by a devaluation of marriage vows.
The bell tolls for thee, and me.
Was there more that we could have done to prevent or reverse this travesty? Are we all responsible for sins of ommission? For all of us journeying to the final tolling of the bell, Fr. Donne has these words:
Wilt thou forgive that sin, where I begun,
Which is my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I’ve run
and do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou has done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin, by which I won
others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
a year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou has done, thou hast not done,
for I have more.
I have a sin of fear that when I’ve spun
my last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore
And having done that, thou has done,
I fear no more.
I love Donne.
From Meditation XXII
"When therefore I took this farm, undertook this body, I undertook to drain not a marsh but a moat, where there was, not water mingled to offend, but all was water; I undertook to perfume dung, where no one part but all was equally unsavoury; I undertook to make such a thing wholesome, as was not poison by any manifest quality, intense heat or cold, but poison in the whole substance, and in the specific form of it. To cure the sharp accidents of diseases is a great work; to cure the disease itself is a greater; but to cure the body, the root, the occasion of diseases, is a work reserved for the great physician, which he doth never any other way but by glorifying these bodies in the next world."
Death be not Proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Thank you.
God Bless Terri.
God help us.
Love that poem. Had to memorize it once.
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