I used to be a church bell ringer. A post by Sweet T reminded me of my early days in the church. One of my earliest duties was that of bell ringer (some 8 or so years ago). My job was to ring the main bell 20 times at 9:30 to signal the start of service. When it was my turn to ring it, service always started between 9:33 and 9:35. Yes I was always tardy.Second problem with me as a bell ringer was that I was under weight. Bell ringing is all about momentum when it comes to old bells. I needed to get a running start in order to jump high enough so that I could pull the rope down and get the first gong. I'd occasionally forget to let go of the rope and I'd go up with it which resulted in the ding-dong-silence-dong sequence. Rope burn was also a minor problem.
Needless to say after 4 months I was moved to ushering, something I could not mess up. I do sometimes miss the good ol' bell ringing days what with the digitalizing of the chimes and all.
image extracted from www.cartoonstock.com/.../ b/bell-ringer_gifts.asp
2 comments:
Lucky You, our bell ringer is always and alchoholic man, and he has to start ringing at 4:45 to signal the start of 5am mass everyday in addition to Saturday night and Sunday morning masses.
One morning around Christmas time when the rum was really flowing for free, he fell from the top of the belfry and bust open his head.
My church duties were Catechist, animator and choir member.
Ouch! I guess the rum helped with the pain afterwards.
I've tried my hand at everything from usher to lectern to choir member to being the audio visual coordinator all the way to preaching a sermon on occasion. I've since learnt my calling is in the support functions not congregation facing.
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