written by Cindy McCalmont

Our neighbors have started calling my husband Scott “the hero of the neighborhood.” They shake his hand and pat him on the back. One woman is so grateful that she stands on her porch and waves at him, tears streaming down her face.

Last Sunday, St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church recognized Scott. At the end of the service, the Rector expressed gratitude to the visiting preacher (who Scott said was quite good) and the congregation applauded. Then the Rector had Scott stand up. The applause went from appreciative to downright thunderous.

My engineer husband is uneasy with these accolades. He prefers to be Joseph in the back of the room quietly doing the right thing. But in this case, doing the right thing was fixing something that’s very public: a carillon, a set of electronic bells that up until 5 years ago had played from the tower of the Episcopal church.

Scott and I only moved into the neighborhood 2 years ago; we didn’t even know the bells existed. But in a conversation at a neighborhood picnic, someone made the connection between the unworking bells and Scott being an electrical engineer.

The next thing I knew, a tangle of wires and circuits was on my kitchen counter. A few days later, after ordering a single part that cost $16, Scott had fixed the bells.

Now the ephemeral notes sound each day at noon and five—and more on Sundays. And each time I hear them, I stop whatever I’m doing in my house to listen.

And to pray.

I pray that all that feels so broken in these days might be fixed. I pray that God will raise up thousands of Scotts with their quiet gifts to restore the harmonies of our nation.