Like millions around the world, I watched in horror yesterday as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames. A building that has stood for centuries, and has survived wars, revolution, and Nazi occupation has been partially destroyed. My initial thoughts turned to my own memories of visiting the cathedral with my family […]
Another Buckeye Bell
Awhile back I attended a concert of the Eric Whitacre Singers at the Cathedral of St. Paul. During the intermission, I joined a long line waiting to enter the restroom. Sitting just outside the ladies room was this bell: As you can well imagine, I am immediately drawn to church bells, so I gave it […]
Casting a Bell
Each time I discovered an old bell in China, I found myself wondering “how in the world did it get here?” They were, after all, from the United States, Russia, France, and Germany. I didn’t give much thought to how the giant bells were made. So when I ran across this video recently, I was dumbfounded. […]
Casting a Bell
In my book The Bells Are Not Silent, I write about the origin of the use of bells in the church: Catholic tradition has it that the first time bells would have been heard in a church was in the Roman city of Nola, near modern-day Naples. Saint Paulinas, the Bishop of Nola, initially used […]
Friday Photo: St. Paul’s Church
One of the bells I write about in my book, The Bells Are Not Silent: Stories of Church Bells in China hangs in the bell tower of this old Lutheran church in Qingdao. Here’s how the chapter opens: Amy and I slipped quietly into the pew at the old St. Paul’s Church in Qingdao, now known […]
Twin Bells?
The second bell that Noël Piper and I found in China was at a church in Ya’an, Sichuan Province. Like the bell we had found the day before, this one was cast in a foundry in Cincinnati, Ohio. The pastor didn’t know what had happened to the bell during the Cultural Revolution, and how it had survived. […]
