On the Third Day of Christmas...

My true love gave to me...

Three Chiming Bells, Tim Duncan Love and a "Team Tiger" reversible tee.

Allow me, if you will, a slightly more personal rant. I know that this may come across as slightly self-indulgent but-

"Everything you do is self-indulgent. That's what a blog is you pampas @$!"

Ooookay. Fair enough...Allow me to CONTINUE to be self-indulgent. I live in a small village in Western New York. It's the kind of sleepy little hamlet, located on the Erie Canal, that has a train running through it and a working dairy farm. It's the kind of place where they shut down the streets for the Little League, Homecoming and Memorial Day Parades. Where people paint each other's fences because they need it and where you will always find a piping hot apple pie resting on your window sill.

I recently discovered that the vestry of one of our local churches agreed to silence its church’s bells between the hours of 11 PM and 7 AM because of a single complaint. This is disappointing not only because the bells have been an important part of the fabric of my community for almost one hundred and fifty years, but because the decision to placate one individual was made without any investigation as to the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of the members of the church or the other villagers. For 141 years nobody had a problem with these hourly chimes, little Ms. Gets-Everything-She-Wants-Veruca-Salt moves into the village and WHAMMO no more bells.

When I asked some of the vestry members why they came to they came to this decision I was told that it was the “neighborly thing to do.” Really? Arbitrarily placating one neighbor is the neighborly thing to do?

And the neighborhood is not limited to the one house next to the church there are five or six other houses that are equidistant from the church and they weren't asked their opinion on the matter. And what of the other members of the village? None of the other villagers were asked either. Nor were the members of the church solicited. How can a organization hide behind a word like neighborly when they didn't take the neighbors into consideration. And I would submit that the very idea that someone would move into a community and insist that a peaceful tradition like church bells be changed, altered or ended, in order to suit their personal desires, is also rather unneighborly.

The vestry made a knee jerk reaction to a complaint without investigating the issue. The idea of changing a 141 year old tradition should have called for that and consideration should have been given to the village and the church's membership. If that consideration was given and the vestry still felt the need to silence the bells, I would have been disappointed but the decision would have been made with all of the information.

As a villager I love the bells. It is an essential part of Village life and part of the ambient noise that also includes midnight trains, traffic and the occasional late night revelers from some of our local watering holes.

Church bells are used as a call to worship, a method of exaltation, and can be found in every major religion. But the hourly bells are much more than a marker of the time, they are a reminder of our community, be it parochial or secular. The stories of weary travelers hearing the bells of a church in the wee hours of the morning are too numerous to mention. The importance of the bells in those stories has nothing to do with the telling of time, they are a mechanism used to remind people that there is a safe haven for each of us. That, as alone as we may feel, we are each a member of a Church, a Village and a Community. It is during those times when the world seems the darkest that we need the bells the most.

This issue is a perfect example of where our country is failing. Long gone are the days when people would stand united to defend the principles and beliefs that they share. It's easier to cow to the person that complains the loudest. Placating is the easy answer, the path of least resistance. It is the reason that there aren't Christmas Trees in schools or Menorahs in front of Town Halls. Cave in, oil the squeaky wheel and hope that they don't complain about those insipid Wedding Bells.