Listen

Listen. 

(Click on the link and listen as you read.)

This is the sound of Sunday morning in Cambridge. It’s 9:30 and I am sitting alongside King’s Parade making my way to St. Bene’t’s Church just a block away for Sunday Eucharist.

This is the sound – almost a cacophony – of change ringing echoing through the streets from several of the local churches. Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in successive sequences, known as "changes." This creates a form of bell music which cannot be discerned as a conventional melody but as a series of precise mathematical sequences. It is not merely random noise!

Computer-controlled machinery produces none of this. It is human art and effort. That is its beauty. Each bell is controlled by a single rope, which is pulled by a human being in time, in sequence. Listen again - each note sounded independently in its proper order. Each bell rung with precision tells a story of the willingness of individuals to work together, to play one small part to create a magnificent and joyful noise.

Listen.

Listen, too, for the sounds of life going on in the public square – the voices of children walking by with their parents – some hustling their way to church, others just marveling at the architecture around them, others just looking for an open coffee shop.

St. Bene't's - Founded in the 11th century

Soon it was time to leave the public square for the confines of St. Bene’t’s just half a block away. Just inside – six bell ringers with their captain, busily at work until just moments before service was to begin. As each “change” completed, the captain would call out the next and off they went for several more minutes. Less cacophonous now that only these bells could be heard, but just as joyful.

Mind you, that joy was bittersweet for the people of St. Bene’t’s as in the past week, they laid to rest a much beloved vicar, whose death came suddenly and unexpectedly. A parish in mourning and still celebrating the resurrection gives this city an ultimate witness to Jesus’s words: 

“I am Resurrection and I am Life …”

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Just a note ...

St. Bene’t’s is a contraction of the name St. Benedict’s. For more information on St. Bene’t’s Parish, check out its website at https://www.stbenetschurch.org/. St. Bene’t’s was the first parish church I attended here upon recommendation of my dear colleague from the Stevenson School for Ministry, Dr. Deirdre Good, who apparently knows me all too well! Ironically, I exercised my first parish ministry as a priest in a parish under the patronage of this same saint!