Here’s why the bell at First Church in Jamaica Plain rang 900 times on Sunday

For about an hour-and-a-half on Sunday, the First Church in Jamaica Plain rang its bell about every five seconds to remember the more than 900,000 people who have died of COVID-19 in the United States. 

This weekend wasn’t the first time the church has rung its bells to remember COVID-19 victims — they actually started last summer. Dennis O’Brien, co-chair of the church’s governing board, said it was originally inspired by the Washington National Cathedral tolling its bells for the same reason. An involved member of the congregation, Jeffrey Ferris, brought it up initially, and the church has done it for every major milestone in the number of deaths since. 

“We’re hoping to be able to give a container for people to put the grief over what’s happening in and to remind people that this is still happening,” said Elizabeth Bukey, the church’s minister. “Part of our role is to just highlight that this isn’t normal. This isn’t OK. These were people’s precious lives.”

At past bell tollings, community members have gathered to listen, but this week, in part due to the weather, there was no crowd. O’Brien and Ferris made up two-thirds of the bell ringing team this last weekend. The first time they rang the bells this summer, O’Brien said he actually counted through all of them. This time, to make his life easier, they went based on time.

He said he counted for the first half an hour and then did the math to figure out how long they should ring for. 

“We’re anticipating sometime in the spring having to go up there and do it 1,000 times when we hit a million. We really hope we don’t,” O’Brien said. “It is somber. At the same time, we’re up there doing a job. So we’re just kind of like the people behind the scenes making it happen for everybody else.”

More than 915,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States, and Bukey said she hopes the bell ringing creates a space for people to reflect on the loss and hurt the country has seen over the last two years.

“We’re doing this to remember people who have died and to bring it to our own consciousness and to other people’s consciousness the grief that we’re dealing with, just the magnitude of death and loss that we’ve experienced as a country,” Bukey said. “We’ve become sort of numb to the amount of deaths that we went through as a country, and it’s hard to know how to deal with that.”

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