Crying for Dr. Donne

Over on Bunnie Diehl , there's a bit of a discussion about whether it would be appropriate for churches to toll their bells on Friday to commemorate Mr. Reagan's passing. Some people object on the grounds that it mixes too much church and state.

I am as sympathetic as the next girl whose ancestors fled Germany because the State was too involved with the church and who hangs out with wild-eyed libertarians to worries about mixing church and state, but really there are limits as to how much one can worry about things. In my family worrying has been officially designated an Olympic sport but on this topic the limit has been reached.

The practice of the death knell is an ancient one in at least the English church. Doubtless it was primarily a parish wide notification system, but it was also a commemoration of a life and a reminder of mortality, for it was upon this aspect of it that John Donne mused in Meditation XVII, Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. The meditation begins "Perchance hee for whom this Bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knowes not it tolls for him." But its famous bit comes in the middle: "No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. "

So yes the bells should toll for Mr. Reagan, not because he cut taxes, or saved civilization, but because he was a man.

"if by this consideration of anothers danger, I take mine owne into contemplation, and so secure my selfe, by making my recourse to my God, who is our onely securitie."