stopping to smell the wildflowers

There's beauty all around us, but how often— in the midst of our oh so busy lives— do we take the time to notice it?

In 2007, the Washington Post decided to conduct an experiment. They’d enlist the help of Joshua Bell, the best classical musician in America. Bell, along with his $3.5 million Stradivari violin, would serenade rush hour commuters at a Washington DC metro station. But those oh so busy commuters wouldn’t know it was THE Joshua Bell playing for them; he would simply be an anonymous young man in baseball cap & jeans standing over against the wall, with his open case at his feet. Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists in the world, would be busking at a DC metro station during morning rush hour.

It was all recorded on a hidden video camera. For 43 minutes, Bell played six classical pieces. During that time, 1,o97 people passed by. Seven of them stopped to listen, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven people, most hurrying by without stopping, put $32.17 in Bell’s violin case.

Well over 1000 people rushed by without even glancing in Joshua Bell’s direction. There’s a video on the Post’s website, you can check it out. It’s painful to watch. Men, women, white, black, coming, going… they were all too busy, in too much of a hurry to take note of the beauty there in their midst.

(Interestingly, every member of one group, without fail, took notice of Bell. Every child walking by gave Bell their undivided attention, and every child, without fail, was quickly hustled away by the adult who was accompanying them.)

When we fail to notice the beauty around us, we become strangers to the world we live in— and we become strangers to ourselves. It requires effort and great attentiveness to notice the beauty all around us. But it’s worth the effort. Each moment of beauty that speaks to the deepest places in our hearts is a new beginning, a unique opportunity for our lives to be renewed and expanded. Those moments of beauty breathe new life into us.

Without those moments of beauty we’re simply strangers, rushing by. Always rushing. And never truly getting anywhere.