Buddhist love bells. Big bells, little bells, bells that go dong and bells that go ding, all through out the day they ring, ring, ring. Every time one rings, an angel gets its wings...wait, wrong story. The bells called us to the next event such as meditation or meals. They were used during the gatherings as a way to focus our attention. The sound of the bells was held in such high regard that any time a bell rang everyone was supposed to pause whatever they were doing, take a breath and recenter. At first this practice was kind of cute. People would be talking, the bell would ring and everyone would stop and smile or even chuckle. By the second day, it felt more like an interruption and by the third day it was a bit of an irritation. I often had that same feeling as when Erin and I were in the midst of a deep conversation only to have our seven year old jump in the middle to say that he was hungry. Ding...dong... Hadn't I come on retreat to escape interruptions? Hadn't I come here to be able to sit, meditate, contemplate and think deeply? Yet, here they were interrupting us.
Interruptions, of course, don't have to be irritations. They can also be opportunities. I'm not sure when, but at some point on the retreat I remembered this. I even made it one of my three sabbatical virtues; welcome interruptions. Over the next few days I started to learn to welcome the interruptions of the bell. I couldn't help the initial moment of irritation, but slowly those moments grew smaller and less powerful. Perhaps they even helped me with other interruptions.
One afternoon I was on my way to make some tea. I passed Travis, one of my fellow retreatants, and we nodded. We did a lot of nodding at the monastery, nodding and bowing. Often folks just walk on by, but this time Jeff said hello and stopped. I stopped as well, he asked a question and we began a conversation. I knew there was another gathering coming soon and if I wanted to get some tea that I'd need to finish the conversation, but we continued. The bell rang and we paused. I knew I'd lost my chance to get tea, but I could still make the gathering if I left at that point. But as we paused in the reverberation of that bell, I remembered my rule, welcome interruptions. Here was another human being, a person created in the image of God whose story I knew only a little and he was now standing before me willing to share some of that story. In that moment I let go of my tea, let go of my need to be at all of the events and let this interruption be an opportunity. Travis and I talked for another half-hour during which I learned where he was from, why he'd moved to California and that he'd recently finished hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. This last one was something I'd love to do part of some day so I had a number of questions. In welcoming this interruption, I had been welcomed. 
I should mention one other piece about the bells. The invitation to pause in their sound is not relegated to bells rung by the monks, but extends to all bells. When the clock chimed we paused. When a cell phone rang, we paused. Even when a distant ambulance rang, we paused. On one level these interruptions were irritations, on another they were genius. Everyone who climbs a mountain for a mystical experience eventually wonders how they will maintain its effects when they return to the valley. While not completely possible (or even really the best thing), the monks gave me a gift to help with this question. It was a gift I didn't even need to pack. They'd be ringing all around the valley and I had the freedom how to hear them - as interruptions or opportunities. "Ask not to know for whom the bell tolls" wrote John Donne hundreds of years ago, "it tolls for thee." 
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