I have this romantic notion about bells. Hearing loud city bells belting across landscapes from tall towers just makes my heart sing. I especially loved the bells in Jerusalem for a few reasons:
- I always thought of that Coldplay song “I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing…” and how cool it was that I actually did.
- It caused me reflect on the ancient times there in the city and all the bells that must have played through those streets during significant moments in history.
- It was a nice contrast to the prayer call that happened five times daily from Muslim Minarets throughout the city.
I studied at the BYU Jerusalem Center in the summer of 2011. There at the center, we were so privileged to have a massive, beautiful organ. The Jerusalem branch president who lived there played it, and he played it magnificently. Each week he was invited by the local YMCA to play the bells in its huge bell tower that stands several stories high and looks out over the entire city of Jerusalem.
Each Sunday morning at 11:15 (not the Sabbath – that’s on Saturday), he invited the students to join him in the bell tower and watch him play. Hearing this invitation, I was thrilled. We took the tiny elevator up the tower, and as the doors opened we saw him sitting at what looked like a piano on steroids. Instead of keys, it had big levers that he pushed with his fists. I was mesmerized by the sound.
After watching him for a few minutes, we walked up one floor to watch the bells ring. The sound in the tower was deafening. We could see the entire city from all sides of the tower, and I knew the song was reaching all the houses and buildings in sight.
When I came back down to where he was playing, I was surprised to see a student sitting at the bells, playing a hymn from the hymn book. He played beautifully and when he finished, the branch president asked if anyone else would like to try. A few other students did, so he had them practice once on the small bell set off to the side, and then they could move to the real ones.
I knew this was an opportunity I could not pass up. As someone who had taken piano lessons for years, but never really got to the point of being totally comfortable playing any hymn, I opened the hymn book to the shortest, easiest one I could find – “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”
I stumbled through it on the small set. It felt strange playing with my fists instead of fingers, and the overall feel of the instrument was foreign. After I finished playing on the small set, I was so nervous that I almost didn’t even try on the real set. Thanks to peer pressure (from my fellow classmate who would later become my husband!), I gave in and timidly set the hymn book on the bell set. My hands shook and my heart beat out my chest as I sat before this behemoth instrument, but after striking the first key, I was hooked.
I wasn’t just hearing Jerusalem bells a-ringing, but I was ringing them. I was playing the bells of Jerusalem! There are few moments in my life that I consider magical, but this one truly was. I played the song perfectly. On the second verse of my little hymn, the branch president joined me in playing the harmony and the music came alive. It poured from my soul to my hands, then erupted through the tower and spilled out across the city.
To me, those bells really were my praise to God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise for that moment, praise for that summer, praise for the gift it is just to be alive. That day, more than a million people heard my song from a million different backgrounds living a million different lives under a god who loves them all.
When the clock struck noon, we all lined up at the bells, and each student took a turn hitting the key until we reached 12, striking our spot in history.
Julie Null was a BYU Jerusalem Center student during the Spring/Summer semester or 2011
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