The mechanical clock represents one of man's discoveries that stand on the border between the Middle Ages and the New Age. It is an expression of the modern spirit that man organizes his life on this earth as best as possible, and uses it as rationally and planned as possible for his own and general benefit. There were, of course, clocks before (hourglass, sunglass), but this is a visible shift towards a more comprehensive capture of time, and our attention so that, if possible, we miss as little as possible. Even when such clocks, somewhere from the 17th to the 19th century, were mounted on various city towers, clock towers and church belfries, their ticking meant that the entire society was engaged in terms of time planning and worldly organization.
Why am I pointing out that modern watch springs and hands are an expression of concern for the "mundane"? Because big city clocks were preceded by church bells at least a thousand years ago, during the medieval period. Their sound is made to warn of a "higher" time. More - than our everyday, and on some other topics, different - compared to these earthly ones. Until the appearance of new clocks, sound sirens and alarms, church bells performed the function of socially useful whistleblowers, informants and gathering factors on the occasion of mobs, unexpected cataclysms and mobilizations, as well as celebrations. However, this was their secondary (for a long time - significant and audible) purpose in relation to the sacred, liturgical character of their use. In their social function, they will be changed much more effectively by means of public advertising in the 20th and 21st centuries. Elem, throughout Europe and our modern world, church bells will continue to ring, for some reasons, in parallel with the existence of large city clocks.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, with the growth of the secularization process, there will be various initiatives to silence or marginalize the sound of church bells, especially in urban areas. He, like the voice of the muezzin from the minaret, tore "secular ears", and caused the discomfort of the presence of "topics that divide citizens". And some simply, without delving into the content or motive of the spiritual tones, were looking for peace and the necessary silence for the rest of the working class or the aristocracy, who were disturbed by the church bell ringer on one side or the hodge on the other side with their melody or tone of voice. And yet, the bells mostly survived. The large clocks on the church towers became an expression of the compromise between the church and the city authorities, so that the church remains the place from which the official notification about the passage of time arrives, and that, if possible, these notifications are as little religious as possible and as much secular as possible. Namely, the information that "it's three o'clock in the afternoon" is of a universal civil character, and does not refer to a call to prayer, if someone personally has no reason to understand those beats that way.
Today, after decades of ideological uniformity, we live in a time when the basic purpose of the bell is almost forgotten. In our climate burdened with mourners and "penitents", there remains a vague memory that if you even hear the sound of a bell, the first thing that will happen is that "someone has died". The slightly better connoisseurs of the local tradition still distinguish the tones of the slow "dead man's" ringing in one tone, from the "festive", cheerful, multi-colored one. This difference was also assumed by Hemingway, that is, the older writer of "Meditation", whose line served the famous Nobel laureate as the title of his novel. The bell that rings in this title refers to the departure of a man from this world. And in that detail I find inspiration for this text of mine. As a reminder of the fact that, unlike modern clocks, church bells point to the "beyond". Among other things, they indicate the border between this world and the next. In this sense, the bells are rung when a person comes into this world (on the occasion of baptism), when a new family is born, in front of the altar and with God's blessing (during a wedding), and when a believing person is sent away from the earth (in the prayer procession of his relatives and priest).
But also, that is, before and more importantly, the bells call the believing people to prayer. On the morning and evening ones during every day, as well as on the Sunday and holiday ones, during the week and the year. Once upon a time, in pre-modern times, there was almost no difference between the term citizen (of a European city, before 1500 - let's say) and the term believer. Today, "being a believer" is only one of many ways of social and spiritual life, among many other ways and citizens. But what we call acquired or found rights and religious freedoms also left the sound of bells in public traffic, as a common good, which will motivate some people to go to church, some to just make the cross piously and continue "on their way", while some ignore them. All three acts often fit into one personal life over time and various existential upheavals. And of course, between all three acts there is an uncountable number of varieties and combinations of reactions to the church bells, in accordance with the folk saying: "As many people, as many tempers".
It should be emphasized that human history knows about something deeper and more than this opposition: either all citizens are believers - or only some citizens are. Namely, before the Constantinian era of European and church history, before the merger and merging of the Church with the state, the Church lived in the catacombs, as if exiled, for at least three centuries. It was the most difficult but also the most fruitful period of its history. So it is neither new nor strange to her and her believers that now, in the secular age, they live only as "one among many others, different from them". And it is neither new nor unknown to her when they verbally and in other ways persecute her, accusing her of anything and everything...
The bells don't just ring for the newlyweds, nor just for the deceased. Their basic purpose is to remind of Njegoš's deep thought, essentially biblical and priestly, that for man "it is not the earth". That is, that we humans are here on earth in a journey, in a useful and necessary - passage. They pass to something bigger and more important. Therefore, the importance of the future and the eternal makes this life very important and interesting, but certainly not final. This is the reason why some of us, in today's sea of alarm clocks, alarms and reminders, like to hear the church bell. A bell that wakes us up, alarms us and reminds us that "the form of this world is passing away" and that precisely because of what awaits us and what we hope for, we need to forgive and overcome each other, all that is ugly and offensive, which is behind us, and brings us back like a weight back, forever glued to that past event. Because, even that church bell, if its tongue "sticks" to only one side, and is unable to separate from it - it will not produce any sound, and it will not send any message.
And his basic message could be rephrased as: "Let's go further".
Bonus video:
