Time Passing, beloved...

Midnight on 31 December 2012. People have been ringing bells here to mark significant milestones for centuries. Out with the old, and in with the new. With 8 heavy bells, 7 enthusiastic beginners (out of 10 who hadn't touched a bell a year ago), and 3 experienced ringers, it's a bit clangy and it wasn't quite possible to ring out the old year muffled, but all eight rang in the new year for the first time in ages — congratulations to Lucy and friends!

The Oxford Companion to Music calls Change ringing, an almost uniquely English phenomenon, the "application of mathematics to the making of a merry noise.” It implies that in the mind of God time is ordered, and history is the working out through fallible people of a deeper purpose. Realising this sets us free from fear that change would induce in us if all we had to go on was our own bewilderment and anxiety, extrapolated by mere logic. Beyond optimism or pessimism, Christians are called to live fully in the world, watchful of the signs of the times, as we wait in joyful hope for the fulfillment of God's grand design, through and in all all things — including us.