In Two Straight Lines

Handbell ringing can be fun. I have taken workshops on and off for several decades, but since I usually direct, I don't get to play much. Hence my angst at trying to regain competence at weaving and marting and fishhooking and all those techniques I am now so rusty at. Our professor is marvelous - he has a real gift of teaching, and his patience is phenomenal. You can tell he loves what he is doing - AND he just graduated from here last year, so he still remembers what it is to be a student. Of course, all our professors are excellent here. Its one of the reasons I keep coming back (that and I want to finish the degree!). Its so much more wonderful to learn things with the church perspective always at the heart of things instead of learning how-to, then figuring out on your own how to apply it to service.

Today we rang a processional written by the organ professor here, Dr. Behnke. Professor Walters had us ring it, then told us to memorize it (just 4 little measures), and look up when we had it. As soon as everyone was comfortable with it, he instructed us to go to the hall outside the chapel. We clattered out of the classroom, through the tunnel, up the stairs and congregated outside the chapel doors where the wooden and the stained glass Jesus bless the hall. Per instructions, we lined up in two columns and stood in order of ringing entrances. I was towards the end of the line, paired with another person ringing my same part.

I felt like Madleine of storybook fame - you known, Ludwig Bemelman's Madleine -

In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines,
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.
They left the house at half past nine,
The smallest one was Madleine.

There we stood in our straight lines, bells in each hand, marching through the hallways of the building, ringing the processional. What am amazing feeling! It was grand. The sound resonated and reverberated and swirled around us until every molecule of air was filled with the joyous vibration. When we finished, we begged to ring it again. It took some convincing, but we rang it all the way back to the classroom and kept ringing until everyone was in place and the professor finally cut us off.

We laughed and chattered happily and it took some time for us to come to enough order to move on to the next piece. I know there are others on campus - the deaconesses, soccer camps, a nursing program, an education course, some business and esl things. I'm sure they wondered what on earth was going on. Or maybe, just maybe, it made them stop and listen and enjoy life a bit before getting back to work.