Reflections

The Bells

• By fannieb
• June 23, 2015
• No Comments

Bells ringing, clanging, cleansing. On Sunday, church service was held at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston South Carolina only four days after Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine Bible study participants.

CLANG-CLANG, clang-clang-clang,CLANG-CLANG, clang-clang-clang, CLANG-CLANG, clang-clang-clang, rang the bells. On and on they tolled. As they rang out I was moved to tears and I wasn’t quite sure why. What had unearthed such deep emotion in me? I was saddened and disappointed by the murders of these faithful nine (several of them women from my mother’s generation) and maybe a bit irritated that there appears to be a war against Blacks in America. It seems like not a week goes by without there being a murder of or an assault on a black person by a white one. And this week nine were murdered seeking deeper understanding of the Lord’s word.

As the tears streamed down my face a more profound understanding was dawning on me as to why my mother’s mother, who was born in 1893, had told my mother never to go below the Mason-Dixon line. And in this moment I was garnering a partial understanding of why I am looking for a change of scenery, to be where people have cultural beliefs not rooted in America’s history of slavery and Civil War.

I raised my head and through eyes blurred by tears I took in the image mounted on my living room wall of Rose Grice, my grandmother. In this photograph she is seated in the front row of her graduating class of the H. E. Dolan School for Embalming. I looked at her and tried to imagine the racism and discrimination she endured and then I gave her a nod almost as if to say, I hear you. I heard Mommy. Now I’m listening.

Wrapped up in these emotions I was overcome by a deeply spiritual insight – those church bells ringing continually for minutes on end and whose rich vibrant sound gracefully seeped into my being, bringing me to tears, was clearing the hatred and heavy energy that had been left behind by this unthinkable crime. The resonating frequencies emitted by the striking of those bells was cleansing the church and the city, making way for healing to begin and for the renewal of a nation’s faith. I learned of the idea of clearing energy from a room, building, or body from Denise Linn, a professional space clearer, during a webinar she hosted. Denise spoke of using sound to do this. She demonstrated her technique using, among other things, bells.

I had watched the news coverage of the massacre sporadically- media coverage of any high profile story is tedious and depressing anymore – newscasters reporting incessantly the same pieces of information, bringing in this expert or that to dissect the horrific crime up one way and down another, it’s maddening and it has the effect of numbing me to the gritty reality and shame of what has transpired. I close down and shut out the event on an emotional level. It’s almost like I don’t care, which is not the case at all. But that’s the way it seems.

This tolling of the bells cracked something in me. It diluted an anesthetic I’ve been soaking in, and I felt anguish. I felt sorrow too because of the hatred that exists and has existed, racism that my mother experienced, her mother experienced, and her mother before her experienced too. This release of emotions was divinely set off by the sound of ringing church bells miles away, cleansing my soul’s energy so that I can continue on my way, more aware of who I am, of what I’m seeking, and why.

Photo Credit: Justin Rumao