Saturday, August 4, 2007

Noticing Beauty

Several months ago the Washington Post's Gene Weingarten asked Joshua Bell, one of the nation's great violinists, to conduct an experiment. Would Bell be recognized or even noticed playing his music on his Stradivarious in a D.C. Metro stop during rush hour? (Thanks to Lydia for showing me this amazing video).


Beauty out of context. Though just days before tickets to his concert were going for $100.00, only a very few stopped to hear a master play on a master instrument. Would I have been one of them? I think I might have been one of the crowd tuning out. I've been thinking lately about Sabbath rest and wondering if, for us in this age of information overload, the rest should be from...information. From blogs and e-mails and newsgroups and facebook and google and ipods and reality shows. Maybe then we could again hear and see and smell and touch and taste, tune in to the real show, to the sacred in any context.

2 comments:

Carol said...

Wonder if Hannan Montana would have the same reaction? (According to 6-14 year olds - she is beautiful).
I was surrounded by Dallas Cowboys (actual players - not fans) this weekend and my reaction to them was as the citizens of DC to the violinist (didn't recognize them) However, most people around me thought they were beautiful...
So, wonder how much relationship (real or perceived) to people, to talent, etc has to do with recognition? Some people are blind to God's work around them and some see Him at work in every trivial action.

Cathryn said...

and HM shows up again! would you have noted the cowboys if they were throwing and tackling? I guess a comparable scenario would be if they did their stuff in a city park or a mall using a famous football? Of course you might accidentally walk in the middle of a running back's move or get konked in the head with the ball.