Nagasaki

The marvelous story of the bell of Nagasaki: in the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945,

one column of the Japanese city’s cathedral somehow survived,

and in the desperate days that followed, someone managed to crawl to it to ring its bell.

Its peal served as a signal to begin again, and it continued to be rung in the days and months that followed;

a symbol of the continuity of community, and the existence –

even in the midst of such unthinkable devastation – of hope.