Yesterday, the bells of Eglise St. Martin called worshippers to Mass. Dong, dong, dong, they sounded. From inside the church, where we were sitting, it felt like they were banging on my ribcage, pulsing with my blood. They rang briefly at the consecration and again at the end of the service, after a thrilling organ postlude (another auditory treat).

But I kept coming back to the bells, their clanging a poignant reminder of faith and time. I was remembering a book I read for class last year, Village Bells: Sound and Meaning by Alain Corbin, translated from French, so doubly appropriate to mention here.

“The bell was regarded as a support for collective memory, and with good reason,” Corbain writes. “The people long preserved the memory of its sonority.” Bells represented cohesion, community, the triumph of civilization over disorder.

For me, they are one more reason to love the European way of life, a life where (at least in the city of Colmar), bells mark the morning and the evening … and the magic of this place.