Beauty

This was originally posted on 9/19/08 but I felt it was time to pull it out again...

It has been said that truth, goodness and beauty are the 3 fundamental values. Anything worth anything can be judged by these 3 standards. Everything is either true or false, good or evil, beautiful or ugly. But do we see the beauty in our world?

Have you ever heard "Stop and smell the roses"? Not only does this statement encourage us to slow down but also to observe the world around us.

Not long ago Gene Weingarten staged an experiment during morning rush hour in Washington DC. A normal looking, youngish white man in jeans, long sleeve t-shirt and a baseball cap went into the subway station, removed a violin from its case and began to play. He left the case open and put a few dollars in it to encourage people to give but the main focus was to see how many people would stop and listen to the beautiful music. You see, the young man playing was Joshua Bell who is one of the finest classical musicians in the world and he was playing on a Stradivarius violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

During the next 43 minutes he performed 6 classical pieces and 1,097 people passed by...did they recognize the beauty in their midst? No. He was almost entirely ignored...out of all the people who passed (1,097) only six or seven people even noticed.

Some might say that it was because of the type of music as many are not classical music lovers; but this goes deeper than that. We have become so wrapped up in our own lives that we cannot (or do not) take the time to observe what is all around us. God is beauty and true beauty, wherever it resides, is a glimpse of God Himself. Take some time to see Him in your world.