Ringing the bells

Our Easter Morning Tradition

De Grote Kerk (the Big Church) by night.

Some years ago, my wife Hélène said something wonderfully simple to me: “Everybody can start a tradition — so why don’t we start one of our own?” And that is exactly what we did. Bell ringing at the Grote Kerk became our own family tradition on Easter morning.

At about 9:30 in the morning we would gather at the entrance of the church together with our children and grandchildren and a few other enthusiasts, and begin the climb up the tower. Eventually we reached the bell chamber, took our places at the ropes and prepared to ring the great bells over Dordrecht.Fifteen minutes does not sound very long — until you spend those fifteen minutes repeatedly pulling on a heavy bell rope! It is surprisingly hard physical work. There was plenty of concentration, plenty of laughter and usually some aching arms afterwards, but there was also something wonderfully satisfying about knowing that the sound we were creating was travelling across the old city.

Champagne After the Bells

And when the hard work was finished, there was another advantage to living almost around the corner from the Grote Kerk. We could walk straight home and reward ourselves with a well-deserved champagne breakfast with the family. The combination was rather perfect: climbing an ancient medieval tower, ringing bells that had sounded over Dordrecht for generations, and then returning home to sit around the table together. What began almost casually became one of those small family rituals that everybody came to recognise and look forward to.

A Tradition Becomes a Memory

Like so many family traditions, ours eventually reached its natural conclusion. The grandchildren grew older and developed lives and traditions of their own, and nowadays Hélène and I would both find the long climb up the tower considerably more difficult than we did in those years. So we no longer gather at the Grote Kerk on Easter morning to climb the tower and ring the bells. But that does not make the tradition any less valuable. Perhaps the opposite is true. For a number of years, Easter morning meant meeting at the church, climbing those endless steps together, pulling the heavy ropes, hearing the bells ring out over Dordrecht and afterwards enjoying our champagne breakfast at home. We did it together, we enjoyed it enormously, and now it has become part of our family memories.

Why Traditions Matter

Traditions do not have to last forever to become meaningful. Every tradition begins somewhere, with somebody deciding that an experience is worth repeating. Over time, repetition creates familiarity, familiarity creates memories, and those memories become part of a family’s history. A particular sound, place, meal or annual ritual can remain with us long after the tradition itself has ended.That is what happened with our Easter bell ringing. It combined the history of Dordrecht, the atmosphere of Easter morning and the simple pleasure of doing something unusual together as a family. The bells themselves have been ringing over the city for centuries, but for a number of wonderful years they also became part of our own family history.

Perhaps that is the nicest thing about traditions: we inherit some of them from the past, we create others ourselves —
and when the time comes to let them go, the memories remain.

May the bells ring in your live !