I heard church bells as I was sitting outside last Sunday morning. It was a reminder of one of my favorite pictures that I’ve taken in Mexico.

I took it when we stayed in a small hotel in Guanajuato that was directly across the street from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guanajuato. 

Numerous times during the day I would look out our window and see a man outside the cathedral door pulling a long thick rope and ringing the bell that sat at the top of the dome, several stories above.

He was an elderly man with stooped shoulders and a shuffling walk and he clearly struggled to ring the bell. But ring he did.

Beckoning people to come inside. Or perhaps just reminding them that the church was there with open doors. 

I took several pictures – of the cathedral itself, of the open doors, of people sitting on the steps outside, of nuns carrying in tables and food.

But my favorite is the one of the bell ringer, pulling the rope with both hands and all his strength, almost on his knees. 

You can’t live in Mexico without noticing that church plays a big role in what the country is. Nearly every town, small and big, has a church as its centerpiece. 

It is the structure around which everything else is built and everything revolves. The social center, so to speak.

We used to joke in my small hometown in Illinois that Walmart had become the center of our town – the new gathering place. The place to go to see and be seen, with doors also open 24 hours a day. The price of tomatoes or a sale of bed sheets beckoning us in.

I’m not much of a church goer. And I’m a strong believer in the separation of church and state. But there’s something nice about a bell beckoning us to come together.

And in hearing church bells on a quiet Sunday morning.