#2 Your Bell Tower

Your bell tower: what is it? What is a bell tower in the first place? What does it mean to have a bell tower and how can we make the most of one, making it a peaceful paradise instead of a dungeon of self-destruction? These are the questions we have to answer today. Let’s begin. 

So what is your bell tower? Your bell tower is your comfort zone. Your sacred space where you are safe and secure to relax, to let down your guard and to ultimately be your deepest and truest self. It’s a safe haven, a refuge, and a place where no harm can come to you. The bell tower is what makes life worth living, worth fighting for. It’s where you take your stand and say “I’d rather die than lose this!” Ultimately, the bell tower is your place to call home. 

And when you think of your bell tower, you might think of something like your house, or your car as you go speeding down the highway. Maybe it’s actually a friend's house, or somewhere you go regularly like work or the movies. Whatever the case may be, you have a physical location in mind. That’s a good start, but if you are struggling to find something, try to think more abstractly. It might be having a person around or a certain amount of money in the bank. It may be having a job or being in a certain field. Whatever brings you to a place of comfort and easy breathing is your bell tower. 

For the longest time, my bell tower was my routine. I love repeating events, and I find myself to be the happiest when everything is somewhat predictable. Life  just makes sense to me like that. It helps me work at my very best on a regular basis. But somewhere down the line, I also decided that if everything stayed put, if my life could become more-or-less predictable, then everything would be safe and secure. Only then could I truly relax. Well, unless you’re a martian, you know how unrealistic this expectation can be sometimes. For a while, I tried my very best to keep things predictable, but every time I did, life kept happening. Sometimes things get messy and chaotic. It may be inconvenient, but that’s how it is. 

So I started trying to be more flexible. The problem was that I would go through a cycle of being so flexible that I would snap, only to go back to being as rigid as a board. I left my bell tower with the intent of never coming back, only to return with no intent of ever leaving again.

Sound familiar? 

Go back and watch the movie again. Notice something interesting: apart from the very first time, Quasimodo never really wants to leave the bell tower ever again. He goes begrudgingly because there are things that need to be done, but he isn’t happy about it. I think if he had woven himself between his bell tower and the rest of the world, he may have discovered the benefits of both, learning to juggle them to create a beautiful life like a woven band.

All too often, we keep ourselves locked up. We don’t go to that party because that’s “not our thing.” We hide out at home, binging Netflix and eating garbage because that’s the comfortable choice. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good low-key day more than the next guy. But there comes a time when we have to ask ourselves if we are hiding from something. Did something happen the last time we left the bell tower that makes us never want to go out again? Is there an unpleasant memory that we are desperately trying to forget?

Fear is the difference between a sacred sanctuary and a stone-walled prison. Once fear is conquered, we will find ourselves able to go out when we need to. We may not need to face a situation as dire as having to save a friend from being burned at the stake, but there are often steps that we ought to take in our lives to make it better in the long run. For example, we all have to go to work. Most of us aren’t too afraid of that. But how about being a little friendlier while you’re there? How about making friends with that cashier at the grocery store? The little things that take us beyond the bare minimums of life are risks we could be taking if only we had the courage to do so. 

But I’m not one to throw you off into the deep end and tell you to figure out how to swim. We are going to take a trip to learn the in’s and out’s of getting there, of escaping the control that your bell tower has on you. But I will end by asking this: why don’t we have the courage? Why is getting out there something that requires courage at all? I can’t speak for everyone, but I will say this: I hear a voice off in the distance. It whispers dark, crippling fears into your heart. It sings to you a befriending melody with convincing words: 

The world is cruel.