A Meditation on a Meditation by Elizabethan Poet, John Donne

A while ago I put up a post jokingly called, "Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls" about the (prematurely announced) death, by drowning, of my phone. The post right before mine in the Team Australia new post line up started with the words, "No man is an island". It was quite the coincidence, and it occurred to me that many people have heard these lines without being aware of what is in between them.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was written by John Donne, a contemporary of Shakespeare. It is often presented as a poem, but is actually taken from a longer 'meditation' (Meditation 17). The meditations are short prose pieces that Donne wrote regarding his thoughts on life, change, illness, death, God - all the big questions. The relevant part is short, so I'll reproduce it here:

No man is an island, entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were,
As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Source

Although it's a prose piece, I have presented it in shortened lines like poetry. I think it helps readability, so we can take each phrase and consider it before passing on to the next.

These words, having come down to us from the seventeenth century, have lost none of their relevance. So much current politics is the politics of division. Our tribe does not like that tribe, so we will cut ourselves off from them. When we hate someone because of their skin colour, religion, sexual preference, gender, political beliefs or whatever else, we want to avoid them. Lessening the diversity that we are exposed to often makes us feel more comfortable.

John Donne knew that when we cut ourselves off in this way, we diminish ourselves; we make our continent that much smaller. He says, "If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less." and, in the same way "any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." Metaphorically, each piece of land belongs to a different person, but each also goes together to make up the continent. The metaphor points to the universal truth that, though we may regard ourselves as individuals, each one of us is part of a larger entity: humankind.

The bell tolling is a reference to the "death knell". They didn't have the Internet back then; deaths were announced by the ringing of church bells. Each time the bell tolled to announce a death, Donne stated, he lost a piece of himself. Just consider the active sense in which he claims, not just that he is a part of mankind, as the promontory is part of Europe, but that he is involved in mankind. It is not a passive relationship.

It is also not an easy relationship. There are plenty of things that other people do or say that may annoy us, even disgust us. In the same way, any parent will tell you that parenting is hard work. It can be disgusting, exhausting, frustrating, even terrifying. Yet those same parents will tell you that parenthood is the most fulfilling thing they've ever done. Stepping outside our comfort zone is the only way to feel truly fulfilled. Being part of something larger, doubly so.

This lesson hasn't sunk in over the last four centuries since this piece was written. For those of you who pray, meditate, or just think deeply, spend a little time during your devotions to consider what the world would look like if we sincerely regarded ourselves, and every other person, as part of the continent that is all humankind.

PS: The image is an original drawing by me, of John Donne, modeled on the image of a painting on the Internet. My next post (or at least a post coming in the next day or two) will be about the process of drawing it!