Break Down of Meditation 17

As said in Meditation 17, we all have our own bells that toll only twice. The first time they toll is when we are born into this world, and the second is when we’re about to exit it, for the rest of the time, it is silent like the forest in the winter. We all die for different reasons; age, sickness, war, justice, etc. All of these must be translated, all of which can be translated by translators employed by God. All of the translating goes from a complex, hard to understand, and comprehend to a beautiful, elegant, extravagant language that forever continues.
The tolling of our bell initiates us into this world or it throws us out of this world like a bartender. Donne shows that we have our time that is set upon this world and it reports like a porter. Our soul then reports to it’s acquired destination so it may report like a solider on the battlefield. We all have different tollers for different reasons that call us home. The final tolling brings us into eternity within a glorious realm.
The translation goes from a rough language to a language that has infinitive meanings. Donne shows that every man has their own book that they write with this rough language that is later judged by all of the translators that were employed by God and God himself. This language is then translated into a beautiful language and a new book is then forged from the old. This new book not only begins a new chapter, but it is in it’s own entity.
Donne explored the depths of death and judgement upon our final arrival. Death is a much harder chapter for us to explain for once we are there, we never want to leave. He depicts this through metaphors as they are the only way to catch a glimpse into this realm of the process of passing from one world into the other. We have come to know these tellings through many eons of dying and rising into the other realm and near experiences. He takes all of all of these tellings and puts them into vivid images.
We all walk hand in hand with Death as he walks us ever more from one bell tower to another that beholds the Gates of Glory as we scribble in our book. When we walk through the gates, Saint Peter greets us as he smears the blood of Christ in a crucifix-like style across our foreheads. Michael, the archangel stands by his side as we exchange our book that we had been carrying from the first bell tower where Death had given it to us for a new book so that we may continue our lives, eternally. Standing amongst the small and great, we are judged through translators who flip through our books page by page and by that book that we had been carrying, given to Michael, by what it contains, the final knower and translator of all is God who rules out whether we stay or if we are cast out. We cannot separate ourselves from all of the small and all of the great for we are born into mankind and we fall out of mankind. “No man is an island, entire of itself.” We are bound to one another, we all stand unified with our one sacred gift, our soul.