One day last year a man walked up the steps of a busy Washington, D.C. Metro station and stood against a wall beside a trash can.
To people rushing by on their way to work he was just a guy in jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap. He took a violin from a case, put the case at his feet and threw in some money so people would know their donations were welcome. Then he started to play.
He played for the next 43 minutes, performing six classical pieces as more than a thousand people walked by.
Not one of them recognized Joshua Bell, the Washington Post reported, “one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made.”
Three days before he had performed before a full house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where the so-so seats went for $100. But on that morning, with government employees bustling past, Josh Bell was just a street musician who didn’t attract much attention and raked in about $32.
I wonder what my reaction to Josh would have been that day. Would I have noticed him? Would I have discerned his incredible talent? Would I have appreciated the beauty of the music? Or would I have walked on by so consumed with my own agenda that I missed the opportunity to partake of something rare and wonderful?
Unfortunately, I am sure I know the answer: I would have totally missed him. I would have been one of those people who just walked on by.
This made me wonder -- what else am I missing? As I study Scripture, I see that even Jesus’ disciples often missed the activity of God.
A classic example is when as Jesus began to prepare the 12 disciples for His death, Peter took Him aside and told Him He shouldn’t talk of such things. Jesus immediately rebuked Peter: “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Mark 8:33 NIV). Peter totally missed it!
I must admit that I am too much like Peter -- not mindful of the things of God, but rather mindful of the things of men. How many times do I go about my day so consumed with my own agenda, my own plan, my way, my goals ... and I miss out on God.
How do I get so preoccupied? I spend far too much time consumed with the things of men, far too much time looking at the world with my limited sight and leaning on my own understanding.
I do not want to live this way anymore. I want to have eyes to see God, His plan, His way. I want to see things from His point of view. I do not want to be so focused on my own agenda that I miss God.
The choice is for each of us, every day -- the things of God, or the things of man.
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Another version from Illustration Exchange, February 27, 2013
"If a Virtuoso Plays in a Subway Will Anyone Notice?"
A story persists in the cyber world of chain emails and Facebook “shares” of a famous violinist who played -- virtually unnoticed -- to thousands of passersby in a crowded D.C. subway station. The story, as it circulates, goes like this:
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by, and a middle-aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till without stopping.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother dragged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.
Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell had played to a sold out crowd in Boston where the seats averaged $100.
Sounds like the stuff of great urban legends, right? Well, this is no legend; it is, indeed, truth! On the morning of January 12, 2007, violin virtuoso Joshua Bell took a cab the three blocks from his hotel and set up shop, so to speak, on the landing of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station in Washington, D.C. The rest is both social science and literary history -- journalist Gene Weingarten, who chronicled the experiment for the Washington Post actually won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on the article.
Weingarten reported that the violinist himself, usually accustomed to the highest of praise and applause for his efforts, admitted that this little social experiment, to which he readily agreed, was not all together comfortable for him:
THERE ARE SIX MOMENTS IN THE VIDEO THAT BELL FINDS PARTICULARLY PAINFUL TO RELIVE: “The awkward times,” he calls them. It’s what happens right after each piece ends: Nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn’t noticed him playing don’t notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment. So Bell just saws out a small, nervous chord -- the embarrassed musician’s equivalent of, “Er, okay, moving right along . . .” -- and begins the next piece.
How easy it is to overlook greatness when it appears in an unexpected place. Take the birth of the Son of God in a remote village in Israel, where the makeshift crib is really a barn yard feeding trough. Who looks for something magnificent to happen in such a place? Talk about an awkward moment. The music stops and nothing. No applause, no acknowledgments. Like beauty in the dark, the glory of God goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their face she was despised, and we esteemed him not (Isaiah 53:1-3).
[see also #20925]
