A Meditation on a Meditation

upon reading Anthony Esolen on John Donne's Meditation XVII

I am indebted to Anthony Esolen's Substack Word & Song for recently shining a light on the phrase 'no man is an island' and its provenance in John Donne's Meditation XVII. This little truism reflects in the negative our human connected-ness, and if squinted at perhaps even our composite mimetic nature where every human relationship layers our being in ways as intricately as a Hellenistic mosaic. However, it was a surprise to find this sentiment ensconced in a reflection on illness, suffering, and the certainty of our earthly demise. Donne’s meditation begins with the phrase, ‘for whom this bell tolls’ which Ernest Hemingway adapted as the title for one of his most well known novels. Of course the sound of church bells in John Donne’s 16th century was more common and carried more information than we are aware today. Gil Bailie outlined this transition in his reflections at the Notre Dame Ethics & Culture conference some years back in a talk entitled Bells & Whistles. He summarized this diminution in the church bell’s significance in a quote:

It is as if a particular language skill had been left to atrophy, and therefore a whole realm of life, custom, and reality for which this language was the medium has become lost.

The tolling of church bells to tell of the passing from this life of a member of the community was felt as Donne understood to be more than just what we might call ‘information’. The bells’ sounds conveyed a depth of meaning that echoed in the soul of the hearer and in his case brought the knowledge of the certainty of his own death into his consciousness.

That ‘any man’s death diminishes me’ is yet another phrase from Donne’s Meditation XVII that resonates in our language, most recently coming from the anti-war activism of past decades. Being ‘involved in mankind’ again lends a sense of our human connected-ness and possible mimetic features beyond mere relational bonds of family, tribe, or interest.

The positive value of suffering is not something many moderns would hold to. (Or pre-moderns for that matter viz. Stephen Foster’s Hard Times Come Again No More) Whether physical or psychic - pain and suffering is to be extinguished with the help of the many therapeutics and pharmaceuticals available (for a price…) from the shamans of medicine. But then we discount the real pain, suffering, and inevitable side effects of the doctor’s ministrations in hope of present relief. Few would consider what monks and ascetics of ages past understood, ‘No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.’

‘if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security’ - That the hearing a church bell tell of the passing of some soul out of this world might bring to mind the trials and tribulations he endured and so cause one to reflect on his own plight before God is a grace to be greatly desired. Perhaps the current ‘breaking news’ stories, or instant updates of social media informing of the death of some prominent or infamous figure serves just as well. It is unlikely that such intimate reflections could survive the noise, however.

We owe a debt of gratitude to John Donne the son of a recusant Catholic in Elizabethan England for such thoughts and words that have marked our language down the years; and Anthony Esolen for highlighting them again recently in Word & Song. Rave on, John Donne.