It was a perfect spring day. The air was still and so soft it felt like a caress on my skin. The sky was blue, the sun shining and flowers blooming everywhere. Never mind that it was the day after Christmas and most of the country was locked in ice and snow. This is southern California and days like this are more the rule than the exception.
My Midwestern sensibilities, used to frigid temps at this time of year, are still not used to this glory and as Pete and I took our morning walk through the neighborhood I studied the faces of those we met to see if they, too, were glorying in the perfection of the morning. Everyone seemed preoccupied except for a single bike rider who pedaled along the street with a smile on her face. Perhaps it was due to some other cause - I don't know. I like to think she was enjoying the perfect morning, too.
A question that has been rattling around in my brain lately has to do with how we experience beauty. Is it possible to be surrounded by beauty and not even notice it? Shortly after this I received an email, one of those internet stories that goes around. I'm never sure if they are true or not and since this particular one was quite amazing, I checked it out on Snopes.com. Not only is it true, but I discovered that it didn't even tell half the story!
The story takes place in Washington, DC during the morning rush hour at one of the Metro stops. In an attempt to answer the question "What do people do when they encounter beauty in unexpected places?", the Washington Post had staged an experiment. They recruited Joshua Bell to get off the Metro train, position himself in the station and play his violin. They tried to figure out ahead of time what might happen and their predictions included trying to manage the crowds that they thought might congregate. So here's what happens: one of the greatest violinists in the world plays three of the most complex pieces of music ever composed on a $3.5 million Stradivarius, filling the Metro station with music for nearly an hour. Of the hundreds of people who passed during that time one man stopped to listen, one person recognized Joshua Bell and stopped and three different children tried to stop to listen but were hurried along by their parents. One person, stopped by a reporter and questioned later, could not even remember that someone had been playing the violin in the station.
The article that was written describing the experiment is archived at the Washington Post website. The title of the article is "Pearls Before Breakfast" and I highly recommend reading the entire article as the author won a Pulitzer Prize for the work. The interesting part is the evalution of the experiment - what does this really tell us? That we are oblivious of beauty? That the context of the beauty matters? Does it really tell us anything? Very thought-provoking writing.
Last night Pete, Becca and I went to Corona, CA, for a George Winston concert. The minute he touched the keyboard I was blown away by the beauty and complexity of his music. We've listened to his CDs for years but somehow hearing it "in person" is a different experience. Although the pleasure of the music is an experience, perhaps the greatest thing I carried away from the evening is a sense of awe at the things the human brain can do. I cannot imagine the neural connections that have to take place simultaneously for someone to produce that kind of music. Song after song on piano, guitar and even harmonica - all without a score, flowing out of his memory, controlling his muscles to produce that incredible music. I fall down in awe before a God that can create a talent like that. In all honesty, the ordinary things we do each day are no less wonder-full. Sometimes exposure to the greater wonder helps us extrapolate backwards to see the wonder of the lesser also.
Anne, lying in the sunshine on our balcony, just said, "Man, it is just perfect out here!" Time to grab my book and bask in the beauty. The economy may be crumbling and times are uncertain but there are still riches all around us. I give thanks to the Giver.
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