Morning Bell

The Morning bell project pre-dates Beloved Life, running for 12 years as a daily image created and posted by Ian on social media or accessed by email. It began as a daily text message in 2008, and evolved into an photographic image with minimal text in August 2012. 

We saw it as an opening into a more contemplative life, and a way to step into the rhythm of the monastics, drawing on wisdom and prayer practice from the contemplative tradition of Jesus, a way to enter stillness on even the busiest of days, seeking that still point of our belovedness from which everything tough may be faced, and from which everything good can emerge. Here’s the flyer image for one of the last series – the Prayer to the Trinity set with text from Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity and photos from Ian’s Empty Pool project.

There are various ways to access the Morning Bell archive:

Tumblr / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / email

Here’s the very first text message Morning Bell from 2008:

Morning bell: a call to prayer. There may be nothing more important than prayer today… 

And here’s the first ever image Morning Bell from August 2012.

In October 2013 Morning Bell moved into its latest format – a square shape particularly good for access on social media. Our aim was for the text to complement the image, but never to take it over.

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