Here’s to more innovative splicing!
I was prompted by a discussion on the change-ringers mailing list to think about the word ‘splice’. It has a range of meanings, often quite technical, but all derived from what appears to be its origin in the craft of rope making. Bellringing must be fairly unique in still using the word splice to mean ‘joining two pieces of rope together’ while also employing it a different sense to mean ‘mixing two distinct methods in one composition’.
When we join two pieces of rope together, the aim is to make the splice as seamless as possible, so that it appears as though there is only a single rope. This is relatively straightforward if the two pieces of rope are of the same material, but becomes harder the more different the two pieces being spliced are. In the end, the two pieces are relying on one another’s strength to such an extent that they work as one.
The same is broadly true of splicing methods. It becomes harder the more different the two methods are to combine them, both in terms of generating a suitable composition and actually ringing it. But by bringing together two unlikely partners and splicing them successfully, we might produce some rewarding results. Still, we need to be aware of the particular properties of the constituent parts, and how they will work when they try to rely on one another’s strength.
Splicing might be a helpful metaphor in other relationships too, including how ringers work with the church. Each community has its own properties and ways of working, but at certain times we need to be able to work as one, relying on one another’s strength.
When Jesus talked about this, he used a different image, from viticulture instead of rope-making. ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, he says in John 15, and by ‘abiding in’ one another, working together as one, we can bear fruit.
The beauty in splicing is that the two parts retain their own integrity. There is nothing lost or compromised by being woven together with the other. And although the splice is intended to be permanent, it could in theory be unpicked and the two parts separated again. But by being spliced, something new and often more versatile is created out of the two parts. Here’s to more innovative splicing!
Max Drinkwater