Ringing the Bell

For most students, yesterday was the last day of classes here at William and Mary.  The last day is known as “Blow Out,” which probably has something to do with the fact that thousands of students blow their brains out with drunken revelry from sun-up to well into the wee hours of the night—people dancing around in the Sunken Gardens, mobs roaming to and fro.  This is about as close as W&M gets to what party schools consider normal.  I’ve never totally understood the liberation that such students feel; big kahuna final exams are always right around the corner, and so the school year is FAR from over.

For seniors, the last day of classes is extra special though; it isn’t just the close of the school year, but the close of an important part of one’s life.  All the class, all the homework, the papers, the late nights, the tests, the grades, and on this day, you can finally smell the end: a mix of pollen, pancakes, and whatever lies just up ahead and around the bend.

For decades, centuries perhaps, seniors have entered the historic Wren Building to ring the Wren bell, one by one.  It’s a way to announce to the world, “I’m about to graduate! HARK UPON THE GALE!”

There are many traditions in which I don’t take part, and the end of my undergrad experience has been a little disjointed with not having been in school this past fall or spring, working at Colonial Williamsburg, and still needing to finish one class this June.  But having my chance to ring the Wren Bell was of symbolic importance and something that my soul needed.

So during my lunch break at work, I headed over to campus.  Dressed in a shirt and tie in contrast to all the frolicking casually-dressed students, already between two chapters of my life.  A sense of eager anticipation, almost a touch of nervousness.  The weather can’t be more perfect, a slight breeze, the sun beaming into the Wren court yard as I stride up to the steps.  Amid the happy din of laughter and glee, the steady tolling keeps resounding.  I’m not sure if it is coming from the Wren or my chest.  A brief stop on the porch and then up the stairs, up, up, up.

And there is the rope…my turn.  Here it is.  What am I supposed to think right now?  What’s supposed to be streaming through my mind?  Sometimes in life you have those momentous occasions that you anticipate and think about, and then you are there, right in the midst of it, and it’s all happening so quickly.

Someone suggests that I give it a pull.  Okay.  Grab the rope.  Pull hard.  And there is my knell echoing across campus.  That’s it?

My heart is sated.  I can go back to work.  I can leave this chapter of my life and enter the next.

Lord of the Kings

Among my favorite cinematic productions is The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  While no film is a perfect translation of its respective novel, the LOTR movies come pretty close: so much epic grandeur and depth and sublimity.  In the end, after the evil Sauron has been vanquished, the gritty Aragorn mantles himself in an air of stateliness as he accepts his crown.  Eons have passed, but the kingship has finally been restored to Gondor, the shriveled white tree finally blooms again, and ivory-colored petals fill the air as at the grandest of celebrations.  The king has returned!

One can’t help but notice that LOTR is dripping with Biblical parallels.  After centuries without a king, Jesus appears as David’s heir, through sacrifice he conquers death, then later he is arrayed in splendor in His heavenly form as depicted in Revelation.  I could go on and on with examples.

Which makes me wonder, why hasn’t anyone made a Jesus film with the same epic grandeur, depth, and sublimity that LOTR has?  Many of the Jesus films out there just seem to me to be a bit on the folksy and lame side.  The Passion of the Christ captures a lot of gravity and grittiness, but many Jesus films, while depicting Jesus’ humanity quite well, just don’t quite capture the essence of His divinity.  I want to see Jesus the warrior-king riding forth upon His steed with his fiery eyes, crowned with many diadems, white robed, bronze-footed, His face like the sun shining in its strength.

I’ve been reading the Letter to the Hebrews recently.  At the outset, the author says, “He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  So God-rays emanate from Jesus Himself.  Wow!  Then near the end of the Hebrews letter, the writer announces that “at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”  The “consummation,” or as some translate it, the “culmination” of the ages.  The climax of climaxes.  This is pretty epic!

So here is call-out for a Jesus film with the cinematics of The Lord of the Rings!

(A blockbuster King David film would be pretty rockin’ awesome too!)

Luna

Here I sit next to my dining room window late at night.  The moon in all its fullness is beaming down.  I often think about how this is the same moon, or those stars the same stars, that the Caesars saw when they looked up at night.  Kings and popes, Newton, Nietzsche, Columbus, The Queen of Sheba, the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and the Persians too, Harriet Tubman on all those nights of leading slaves north, monks gazing out the windows of their monastery walls, the Pharaohs, the laborers who built the pyramids for the pharaohs, the laborers who always seem to be building something on William and Mary’s campus, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, all those heart-broken people in Japan and Libya and all the other devastated places in the world that we’ve temporarily forgotten about because they aren’t prominently featured in the news right now, the President, the Laundromat guy, and the man from the warehouse, and me—we’ve all seen that silver medallion with its familiar somber expression, a sadness and yet a peace.  Under this same moon, some will cry out in agony tonight while others gently sleep.

As different as we all are on this Earth—tomorrow will have its share of strivings and strain, budget battles, tests, performances, competitions, wars, lifting of weights at the gym, trades, and discussions—we all share in the same moon, and we have for eons. 

Shine

I’ve always enjoyed the vibrancy of the David Crowder Band’s music and the creativity of its music videos, but this one knocks it out of the park (click to follow link).  Beautiful!

Wisdom in Laundromats

I typically don’t think of laundromats as places where I might gain a richer and deeper perspective on life.

The other night I was doing laundry.  Except for the janitors performing their nightly ritual, the place was empty.  One of the particularly outgoing janitors decided to strike up a conversation—“conversation” isn’t quite the right word, “monologue” is probably more accurate.  Having my face buried in a book must not have been much of a deterrent for Mr. P. who helped himself to my attention taking the opportunity to tell me all sorts of random life stories.

This kind of thing can be annoying; no matter how many times you say, “uh-huh,” the stream of consciousness just keeps flowing like the Amazon.

But as I stopped simply hearing and started actually listening, “uh-huh’s” gave way to questions and disinterest morphed into fascination (though listening was a challenge—after cutting through his un-annunciated speech, I probably only understood between 60% and 70% of what he said).

He elaborated on Williamsburg’s past, on some of the darker aspects of the city’s social dynamics, and he reflected on some of the decisions that he had made during the course of his life, some good, some bad, some serious, and some hilarious.  I realized that even inarticulate laundromat janitors have a corner on wisdom, if you have the patience and the willingness to hear them out.

Apparently the balcony of one of the apartment buildings near where I live recently collapsed.  Mr. P. told me that he had warned management about a growing fissure in the concrete for over a year.  He warned them that the balcony would eventually collapse, and that it needed to be repaired, or at least roped off so that no one would be hurt or killed.  Even though he had been in the concrete business for much of his life, his warnings fell on deaf ears.  Who would believe a lowly janitor who could barely pronounce his words?  No one was harmed by the collapse, but people could have been seriously injured, or worse, all because of the reckless negligence of someone who “knew better.”

As an attorney, someday I’ll be in a loftier position as one of the higher-ups.  I’ll have my liberal arts education with my Juris Doctorate, and I’ll probably have less educated, simpler folk working beneath me.  And ultimately I hope that I’ll be the kind of person who listens to the laundromat guy.