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Author: Phil Hirsch
If the music you heard playing while riding an escalator at a Metro station was performed by one of the worlds best violinists playing one of the most beautiful instruments ever made, do you think you would notice?
A Washington Post reporter suggested the idea to Joshua Bell, one of the world’s premier violinists, while interviewing him. Would people in the middle of their morning commute stop in awe or pass right by a talent so rare and music so beautiful that people would pay him $1000 a minute at a concert hall? On the morning of January 12, 2007 they set up at the top of the escalator and he played some of the more difficult and beautiful pieces he knew.
More than a thousand people passed by Joshua Bell playing his $3.5 million dollar Stradivarius at L’Enfant Plaza, few paid much attention (or gave much money, except one who recognized him from the concert the night before.)
It turns out that context matters when appreciating beauty and, I think, life.
If we saw a real Monet hanging at the Starbucks, would it draw our attention the same way it does in the museum? What other beautiful things, miracles of creation, do we pass every day and pay no mind to because they are in the context of the ordinary? If God where present in the person riding next to us on the escalator, would we notice? All around us are incredible, beautiful things but we risk seeing little of them if we don’t see the big picture.
One of the ways we have to help us slow down and examine our lives in context is the practice of worship. When we gather together with others for this purpose, we are seeking to understand life in a broader view than our own. We listen to the ancient story of how people have seen themselves as a part of a movement of God over the centuries. It is a movement that involves truth and goodness and beauty and us.
Living in the context of that bigger picture allows us to better appreciate all that is around us and even the music we ourselves create.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:03 am
I’ve heard about this Joshua Bell performance before, but I love how you connected it to God being present in our every day lives in “the ordinary.” I definitely think we miss the extraordinary and miraculous when we don’t stop to look around the world around us.
Lately, I find Psalm 46:10 running through my head: “Be still and know that I am God.” I think in our era of fast food, instant and constant connections, and unending Twitter and status updates, we need to remember to slow down and pay attention to to the little things. Thank you for the reminder!