Conan O’Brien’s Advice at the Harvard Commencement

Conan O’Brien returns to Harvard University to speak to the Class of 2000.

Here’s his final piece of advice:

I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of the Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet every failure was freeing, and today I’m as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good.

So that’s what I wish for all of you—the bad as well as the good. Fall down. Make a mess. Break something occasionally. Know that your mistakes are your own unique way of getting to where you need to be. And remember that the story is never over.

Link

Read the entire speech on Al Lowe’s Humor Site.

Geoff Pound

The Courage to Search for the Secret to Life

Three spirits roamed the earth who alone had the secret of life. They knew humans would soon inhabit the earth. They could not decide how to pass on the secret of life.

They finally agreed that the lesson should only be given to people with strength and courage. So they agreed to put the secret in a place which could only be reached by persons with these qualities.

One spirit suggested that it be placed on top of the highest mountain.

Another spirit said that the secret should be placed at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

But the third spirit, the wisest, disagreed. She said that the secret should be placed deep inside each human being. She knew that only the most courageous would be willing to look for it there.

Native American Story retold by Stephen Shoemaker.

Geoff Pound

Piers Morgan on Doing Your Homework and the Seven Ps

Toward the end of his interview with David Frost, Piers Morgan, the self confessed ‘young pup at this interviewing’, asks the master for some tips.

While Frost gathers his words for this whipper-snapper, Morgan slips in some advice from his brother:

FROST: Where do we start? You'll know this and you'll agree with it, because you're putting it into practice. But the first thing obviously is homework, which, I mean, sounds absurdly obvious. But some people don't do much preparation.

MORGAN: My brother is a British Army colonel. They have an unofficial regimental motto called the seven Ps, which I think apply equally to interviewing, which is prior planning and preparation prevent piss poor performance.

Source: Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 26 April 2011.

Image: Piers Morgan.

Nelson Mandela: “There is No Time to be Bitter!”

David Frost, in remembering for Piers Morgan some of his favourite interviews, shares this exchange with Nelson Mandela:

“I asked Nelson Mandela, how was it that you got through 28 years, you were wrongly incarcerated, and you're not bitter? Some people said he found religion. But you're not bitter.”

“And he, instead of basking in the tribute, he said, ‘David, I would like to be bitter, but there is no time to be bitter. There is work to be done…Because that was just before the election of '93 which of course he won.”

Source: Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 26 April 2011.

Image: Nelson Mandela.

Desmond Tutu: ‘I’m a Prisoner of Hope’

David Frost, in recalling for Piers Morgan some of his most favourite interviews, recounts these memorable lines uttered by Desmond Tutu:

Frost said to the Archbishop:

“I always think of you as an optimist. And he said, I'm not an optimist, I'm a prisoner of hope.”

Source: Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 26 April 2011.

Image: Desmond Tutu.

Charles, Prince of Wales: ‘I’m Stuck!’

In the week prior to William and Kate’s marriage, David Frost recalls for Piers Morgan one of his interviews with Prince Charles:

“I said to him, you know, when I was growing up, first of all, I wanted to be a railway engine driver because when English boys are small they all want to be that, and then a footballer or whatever.”

“But in your case, that would have been pointless. Because your future was preordained, predestined, irrelevant what you wanted to be. You didn't have any choice in it at all. What sort of effect did that have?”

“And he said well, yes, he said, when I was 5 or 6, I wanted to be a railway engine driver, he said. But then one morning, it was one morning I woke up when I was 6 years old and I thought, I'm stuck.”

Source: Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 26 April 2011.

Image: David Frost and Prince Charles.

Chinglish by Renee Liang

Chinglish
Yesterday

a shop lady smiled at me
and said,
Your English is very good

her eyes crinkled
in a let's-be-nice-to-aliens way.

I wanted to say

of course it bloody is,
I was born here...

Renee Liang, New Zealand Poet.

Source
Doctor Poet, Ingenio: The University of Auckland Alumni Magazine, Spring 2010, 22-23 (Click on this link to download article about Renee Liang).

Geoff Pound

Image: Photo of Renee Liang, courtesy of Ingenio from the article cited above).

E M Forster on Keeping Proportion While Living and Dying

E M Forster in ‘Howards Way’ makes this intriguing comment about the death of one of the characters, Ruth Wilcox.

‘Some leave our life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart—almost, but not entirely.”

“It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die—neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.”

Source (via Barrie Hibbert)
E M Forster, Howards End, Chapter 12.

Geoff Pound

Image: “But as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.” The Seafarer's Memorial, Nelson, New Zealand

The Blessings of Discomfort, Anger, Tears and Foolishness

This Franciscan prayer is down-to-earth, honest and counter-cultural:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Source unknown but it comes via Michael Hyatt’s fine blog.

Geoff Pound

Anton Gaudi: ‘My Client is Not in a Hurry’

Pope Benedict XVI this last weekend dedicated the Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona in the presence of Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

Benedict praised Anton Gaudi, the original architect of this grand building, for bridging the division between human consciousness and spiritual reality, between life here and now and life eternal.

The church leader said: “Gaudi did this, not with words but with stones, lines, planes and points.”

The Sagrada Familia or ‘holy family’ church is still unfinished after more than 100 years but the completion of the interior space was the reason for this service of blessing.

Gaudi only lived to see one tower and most of one façade finished by the time he died in 1926.

He planned the church to have 18 towers—12 for each apostle, four for the evangelists, one for the Virgin Mary and the tallest tower for Jesus.

Only 8 towers have been completed and the hope is to finish the entire building by 2026, the anniversary of the death of Anton Gaudi.

Asked why it was taking so long to finish the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi replied, “My client—meaning God—is not in a hurry.”

Source
Pope Urges Spain to Shun Secularism, CNN, 7 November 2010.

Geoff Pound

Image: “He planned the church to have 18 towers—12 for each apostle, four for the evangelists, one for the Virgin Mary and the tallest tower for Jesus.”

Bannister, Landy and Santee, Training for Self-Mastery

Neil Bascomb has written a wonderful book called The Perfect Mile.

In it he tells the story of Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee, three athletes who committed themselves to breaking the four-minute mile.

Bascomb writes:

All three runners endured thousands of hours of training to shape their bodies and minds. They ran more miles in a year than many of us walk in a lifetime. They spent a large part of their youth struggling for breath. They trained week after week to the point of collapse, all to shave off a second, maybe two, during a mile race—the time it takes to snap one's fingers and register the sound. There were sleepless nights and training sessions in rain, sleet, snow, and scorching heat. There were times when they wanted to go out for a beer or a date yet knew they couldn't. They understood that life was somehow different for them, that idle happiness eluded them. If they weren't training or racing or gathering the will required for these efforts, they were trying not to think about training or racing at all.

The term some have used to describe what these men were doing is self-mastery. Others prefer the word discipline. Some athletes would be happy with conditioning.

Each of them describes the attempt to push oneself beyond the ordinary and achieve something unique and extraordinarily satisfying.

Sources
Neal Bascomb, The Perfect Mile (Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 129-130.

Geoff Pound

Image: Roger Bannister crossing the tape at the end of his record breaking mile run at Iffley Road, Oxford. He was the first person to run the mile in under four minutes, with a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Original Publication: Aldus Disc - People & Personalities - 1353 - 12 (Photo by Norman Potter/Central Press/Getty Images)

“They trained week after week to the point of collapse, all to shave off a second, maybe two, during a mile race—the time it takes to snap one's fingers and register the sound.”

What Mandela Taught Us On Robben Island

Gordon MacDonald recounts:

A few years ago I had the privilege of having a personal introduction to Nelson Mandela.

It is one of the most memorable moments of my life. Not because I am a hero-worshiper, but because of the experience I had in his presence.

When he entered the room and joined one other person and myself, I felt as if I was being enveloped in a cloud of grace. The man simply projected a spiritual force that left me dumbfounded.

What Did Mandela Teach?
Years before meeting Mandela, I had interviewed a man who had been imprisoned with him on Robben Island for five years. “We had rooms [cells] next to each other,” he told me.

“What did he teach you?” I asked.

“He taught us to forgive,” came the answer. “I was a bitter young man, and Mandela picked it up immediately when we first met.

He said to me, “Son, you are of no use to our movement until you learn to forgive the white man. You can hate his cause, but you cannot hate him.”

When I was privileged to meet Nelson Mandela, I felt that gracious power that accounted for his splendid resilience. To come from twenty-seven years of imprisonment (the majority of his adulthood) and walk into the light and challenge the South African people—white and black—to forgive was the single most important thing that saved a nation from catastrophic bloodshed.

Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 129-130.

Geoff Pound

Image: “He taught us to forgive.”

Character in Motion

In his book Seizing Your Divine Moment, Erwin McManus writes of a day when he was speaking at a Christian retreat in Florida.

His family had accompanied him on the trip. "My assignment," McManus relates, "was to call several thousand singles to a life of sacrifice as we basked in soothing tranquility."

During some free time, McManus and his ten-year-old son, Aaron, took a walk along the ocean. Suddenly he noted a disabled man on crutches, struggling to make his way to the water's edge to join other bathers. But because the sand was too unstable, the man fell and was unable to get up again. McManus admits that his instinct was to turn and walk in the opposite direction.

I know this instinct. It is the part of each of us that prefers not to get involved, not to face something that could be beyond our grasp. The temptation is to freeze, ignore it, hope that someone else will step up to the situation. Something in one's character goes into neutral, and self-interest threatens to trump self-sacrifice.
Not so with McManus's boy.
“My son stopped me;” McManus says.
"I have to go help that man," the boy said.
McManus: "I could only look at him and say, "Then go help him."'

When the fallen man proved too heavy for a small boy to help, others quickly gathered around and offered the necessary strength. At first the child was distressed that he could not do it himself, but McManus said, "I explained to Aaron that his strength carried the man. It was because of him that others came to his aid."

This is character in motion, best illustrated in the instincts of a ten-year-old.

Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 60-61.

Geoff Pound

Image: “Suddenly he noted a disabled man on crutches, struggling to make his way to the water's edge to join other bathers.”

Down-to-Earth Truths in the Egyptian Desert

In his book Soul-Making, Allen Jones describes a visit to the Coptic Monastery of St. Macarius in the Egyptian desert.

His host, Father Jeremiah, a bearded monk of indeterminate age, filled him full of stories of the desert fathers. Like this one.

One day, it is said, Saint Macarius, among the wisest of monks, was asked by a young man, “Abba, tell us about being a monk.”

Marcarius responded, “Ah! I'm not a monk myself, but I have seen them!”

Gordon MacDonald, who recounts this story, picks up on the monk’s humility and stresses the truth that life is less about titles, roles, positions, realizations and intentions and more about becoming and letting our lives match our words.

Source
Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life (Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 59-60).

Geoff Pound

Image: Monk from the Coptic Monastery of St. Macarius in the Egyptian desert (Photo courtesy of J P Quinlan and licensed under Creative Commons).

Mid-Life Can Be a Time for Sober Thinking

John Dean of Watergate fame wrote:

My view [of my life] has been backward, not forward ... and I have been dwelling on the trivial, on the insignificant too much.

Time is running out and I must come to terms with my life. The days for fantasizing great achievements are gone. Ambitions and goals must be realistic if I want to avoid great disappointment at the end.

Sources
John Dean, Blind Ambition (Simon & Schuster, 1976).
Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 56.

Geoff Pound

Image: John Dean

This Extraordinary Quality of Growth

Going from "kid brother" to senior statesman was an extraordinary journey for Ted Kennedy, matching the similar journeys taken by his brothers John and Robert.

All three of the Kennedy brothers who entered our national public life — meaning the three who survived World War II — demonstrated this extraordinary quality of growth, particularly after they arrived in Washington.

Too many successful politicians stop growing once they reach there, certain that they already know it all and have completed their growth within the biblical standard of "wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and Man."

But not the Kennedys, and certainly not Edward Moore Kennedy.

Ted Sorensen, Sorensen on Kennedy: The ‘Kid Brother’ Who Grew Up, Time, 26 August 2009.

Geoff Pound

Image: Ted Kennedy.

‘Finding Out What Works and What Doesn’t, What Fits the Style’

There’s an interesting insight about learning how to make your speeches work by testing them out on people and evaluating.

It comes from a New York Article that pays tribute to the speech writer of J. F. Kennedy, Theodore C. Sorensen:

“It was only after we had crisscrossed the country and began to build support at the grass roots, largely unrecognized in Washington, where Kennedy was dismissed as being too young, too Catholic, too little known, too inexperienced,” Mr. Sorensen said in the interview.

In those travels, Mr. Sorensen found his own voice as well as Kennedy’s. “Everything evolved during those three-plus years that we were traveling the country together,” he said. “He became a much better speaker. I became much more equipped to write speeches for him. Day after day after day after day, he’s up there on the platform speaking, and I’m sitting in the audience listening, and I find out what works and what doesn’t, what fits his style.”

Source
Theodore C Sorensen, 82, Kennedy Counselor Dies, New York Times, 31 October 2010.

Geoff Pound

Image: JFK and Theodore C Sorensen: “I find out what works and what doesn’t, what fits his style.”

Celebrating the Last Spike

Stephen Ambrose's book Nothing Like It in the World tells the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad in America.

"The railroad took brains, muscle, and sweat in quantities and scope never before put into a single project," Ambrose wrote in his eminently readable history lesson.

Early in the story, Ambrose describes the moment when construction was to begin and certain California people decided that there ought to be a great ceremony. A host of dignitaries were invited to gather at the place where the first rail was to be laid.

One of those invited was Collis Huntington, perhaps the railroad's most important West Coast backer in California. But he declined, saying:

"If you want to jubiliate [celebrate] over driving the first spike, go ahead and do it. I don't. Those mountains over there look too ugly. We may fail, and if we do, I want to have as few people know it as we can ...Anybody can drive the first spike, but there are months of labor and unrest between the first and the last spike." (Emphasis mine)

Huntington was not romanced by first spikes, by premature celebration. It was the last spike in the process that grabbed his attention. Everything in between the first and last spike was his big picture, and until the picture was all filled in, he wasn't celebrating.

When construction of the railroad was finally completed in May of 1869, a last spike, a golden one at that, was pounded into place, and two locomotives (one from the east; the other from the west) moved forward until they touched.

A telegram was sent to President Ulysses S. Grant: "Sir: we have the honor to report that the last rail is laid, the last spike is driven, the Pacific Railroad is finished."

"The last rail is laid, the last spike is driven" (emphasis mine). Now maybe Collis Huntington had something to celebrate.

Gordon MacDonald, A Resilient Life, Nelson Books: Nashville, 2004, 43.

Geoff Pound

Image: “When construction of the railroad was finally completed in May of 1869…”

Short, Sweet and Sufficient

Nordstrom. Inc. is an upscale department store chain in the USA that sells shoes, clothing, accessories, handbags and the like.

For years, Nordstrom’s Employee Handbook was a single 5×8” gray card containing these 75 words:

Welcome to Nordstrom
We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

During this time, Nordstrom had the highest sales per square foot performance in the retail industry – by almost double.

Founder of the business, Swedish immigrant, John Nordstrom, seemed to instill an uncomplicated approach that was short, sweet and sufficient.

Source
Nordstrom, Wikipedia via Signal v Noise.

Geoff Pound
Contact Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or on email at geoffpound(at)gmail.com

Image: Nordstrom's Flagship Store in Seattle, Washington

Act Medium

The children worked long and hard on their little cardboard shack.

It was to be a special spot---a clubhouse, where they could meet together, play, and have fun.

Since a clubhouse has to have rules, they came up with three:

Nobody act big.
Nobody act small.
Everybody act medium.

Just "act medium." Believable. Honest, human, thoughtful, and down to earth. Regardless of your elevated position or high pile of honors or row of degrees or endless list of achievements, just stay real.

Source
Charles P Swindoll, Insight for Living, 29 October 2010.

Geoff Pound

Max Lucado on Remembering Who Holds You

When my nephew Lawson was three years old, he asked me to play some basketball. A towheaded spark plug of a boy, he delights in anything round and bouncy. When he spotted the basketball and goal in my driveway, he couldn't resist.

The ball, however, was as big as his midsection. The basket was three times his height. His best heaves fell way short. So I set out to help him. I lowered the goal from ten feet to eight feet. I led him closer to the target. I showed him how to "granny toss" the ball. Nothing helped. The ball never threatened the net. So I gave him a lift. With one hand on his back and my other beneath his little bottom, I lifted him higher and higher until he was eye level with the rim.

"Make a basket, Lawson!" I urged. And he did. He rolled the ball over the iron hoop, and down it dropped. Swoosh!

And how did little Lawson respond?

Still cradled in my hands, he punched both fists into the air and declared, "All by myself! All by myself!"

A bit of an overstatement, don't you think, little fellow? After all, who held you? Who steadied you? Who showed you the way? Aren't you forgetting somebody?

Max Lucado, Outlive Your Life Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010, 111.

Related
Beauty in the Midst of Busyness, SFS, 25 October 2010.
They are all our Children, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Save One Life. Save the World, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Max Lucado Experiences Transformation in Devastated Guatemala, SFS, 12 October 2010.
Oh to Hear a Human Voice, SFS, 10 October 2010.
Max Lucado Realizes What One Meal Can Do, SFS, 9 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Encountered Mother Teresa, SFS, 8 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Forgot the Bread, SFS, 8 October 2010.
Finding Father Benjamin: A Fable by Max Lucado, SFS, 5 October 2010.
Becoming More Ourselves, SFS, 16 January 2007.
Learning to Listen, SFS, 10 September 2006.

Geoff Pound

Image: "Make a basket, Lawson!" I urged.

Thomas Merton: ‘Living Fully the Thing I Want to Live For’

About fifty years ago, Thomas Merton wrote:

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person. The better answer he has, the more of a person he is.

M Basil Pennington, Thomas Merton: Brother Monk (Harper & Row, 1987).

Further
Glen Hinson on His Life-Changing Encounter with Thomas Merton, SFS, 23 August 2009.
Thomas Merton’s Laughable Idea on the Streets of Louisville, SFS, 23 November 2008.
Thomas Merton on the Real Journey in Life, SFS, 5 October 2008.
Thomas Merton Identified, SFS, 30 September 2008.
Thomas Merton on What We Seek, SFS, 27 September 2008.
Becoming More Ourselves, SFS, 16 January 2007.
How I Got to be a Success, SFS, 6 September 2006.
Holy Earthiness, SFS, 1 September 2006.
Who Am I? SFE, 5 March 2006.

Geoff Pound

Image: Thomas Merton: "ask me not ...how I comb my hair..."

Max Lucado Meets Dadhi an ‘Accident of Latitude’

I spent the better part of a morning pondering a question on the Ethiopian farm of Dadhi.

Dadhi is a sturdy but struggling husband and father. His dirt-floored mud hut would fit easily in my garage. His wife's handwoven baskets decorate his walls. Straw mats are rolled and stored against the sides, awaiting nightfall when all seven family members will sleep on them. Dadhi's five children smile quickly and hug tightly. They don't know how poor they are.

Dadhi does. He earns less than a dollar a day at a nearby farm. He'd work his own land, except a plague took the life of his ox. His only one. With no ox, he can't plow. With no plowed field, he can't sow a crop. If he can't sow a crop, he can't harvest one.

All he needs is an ox.

Dadhi is energetic and industrious. He has mastered a trade and been faithful to his wife. He's committed no crimes. Neighbors respect him. He seems every bit as intelligent as I am, likely more so. He and I share the same aspirations and dreams. I scribbled out a chart, listing our many mutual attributes. We have much in common. Then why the disparity? Why does it take Dadhi a year to earn what I can spend on a sport coat?

Part of the complex answer is this: he was born in the wrong place. He is, as Bono said, "an accident of latitude." A latitude void of unemployment insurance, disability payments, college grants, Social Security, and government supplements. A latitude largely vacant of libraries, vaccinations, clean water, and paved roads. I benefited from each of those. Dadhi has none of them.

In the game of life, many of us who cross home plate do so because we were born on third base. Others aren't even on a team.

You don't have to travel sixteen hours in a plane to find a Dadhi or two. They live in the convalescent home you pass on the way to work, gather at the unemployment office on the corner. They are the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the blind.

Some people are poor because they are lazy. They need to get off their duffs. Others, however, are poor because parasites weaken their bodies, because they spend six hours a day collecting water, because rebel armies ravaged their terms, or because AIDS took their parents.

Max Lucado, Outlive Your Life Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010, 103-105.

Geoff Pound

Image: An accident of latitude.

Max Lucado on Taking Time to See a Person

Stanley Shipp served as a father to my young faith.

He was thirty years my senior and blessed with a hawkish nose, thin lips, a rim of white hair, and a heart as big as the Midwest. His business cards, which he gave to those who requested and those who didn't, read simply, "Stanley Shipp-Your Servant."

I spent my first post college year under his tutelage. One of our trips took us to a small church in rural Pennsylvania for a conference.

He and I happened to be the only two people at the building when a drifter, wearing alcohol like a cheap perfume, knocked on the door.

He recited his victim spiel. Overqualified for work. Unqualified for pension. Lost bus ticket. Bad back. His kids in Kansas didn't care. If bad breaks were rock and roll, this guy was Elvis. I crossed my arms, smirked, and gave Stanley a get-a-load-of-this-guy glance.

Stanley didn't return it. He devoted every optic nerve to the drifter. Stanley saw no one else but him. Now long, I remember wondering, since anyone looked this fellow square in the face?

The meandering saga finally stopped, and Stanley led the man into the church kitchen and prepared him a plate of food and a sack of groceries.

As we watched him leave, Stanley blinked back a tear and responded to my unsaid thoughts. "Max, I know he's probably lying. But what if just one part of his story was true?"

We both saw the man. I saw right through him. Stanley saw deep into him.

There is something fundamentally good about taking time to see a person.

Max Lucado, Outlive Your Life Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010, 65-66.

Related
Beauty in the Midst of Busyness, SFS, 25 October 2010.
They are all our Children, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Save One Life. Save the World, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Max Lucado Experiences Transformation in Devastated Guatemala, SFS, 12 October 2010.
Oh to Hear a Human Voice, SFS, 10 October 2010.
Max Lucado Realizes What One Meal Can Do, SFS, 9 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Encountered Mother Teresa, SFS, 8 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Forgot the Bread, SFS, 8 October 2010.
Finding Father Benjamin: A Fable by Max Lucado, SFS, 5 October 2010.
Becoming More Ourselves, SFS, 16 January 2007.
Learning to Listen, SFS, 10 September 2006.

Geoff Pound

Image: A most unusual business card: "Stanley Shipp-Your Servant."

Beauty in the Midst of Busyness

At 7:51 a.m., January 12, 2007, a young musician took his position against a wall in a Washington, D.C., metro station. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. He opened a violin case, removed his instrument, threw a few dollars and pocket change into the case as seed money, and began to play.

He played for the next forty-three minutes. He performed six classical pieces. During that time 1,097 people passed by. They tossed in money to the total of $32.17. Of the 1,097 people, seven—only seven—paused longer than sixty seconds. And of the seven, one—only one—recognized the violinist Joshua Bell.

Three days prior to this metro appearance staged by the Washington Post, Bell filled Boston's Symphony Hall, where just fairly good tickets went for $100 a seat.

Two weeks after the experiment, he played for a standing-room-only audience in Bethesda, Maryland. Joshua Bell's talents can command $1,000 a minute. That day in the subway station, he barely earned enough to buy a cheap pair of shoes.

You can't fault the instrument. He played a Stradivarius built in the golden period of Stradivari's career. It's worth $3.5 million. You can't fault the music. Bell successfully played a piece from Johann Sebastian Bach that Bell called "one of the greatest achievements of any man in history."

But scarcely anyone noticed. No one expected majesty in such a context. Shoe-shine stand to one side, kiosk to the other. People buying magazines, newspapers, chocolate bars, and lotto tickets. And who had time? This was a workday. "This was the Washington workforce. Government workers mainly, on their way to budget meetings and management sessions. Who had time to notice beauty in the midst of busyness? Most did not.

Most of us will someday realize that we didn't either.

Sources
Max Lucado, Outlive Your Life Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010, 167-168.
Gene Weingarten, Pearls Before Breakfast, Washington Post, 8 April 2007.

Related
They are all our Children, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Save One Life. Save the World, SFS, 18 October 2010.
Max Lucado Experiences Transformation in Devastated Guatemala, SFS, 12 October 2010.
Oh to Hear a Human Voice, SFS, 10 October 2010.
Max Lucado Realizes What One Meal Can Do, SFS, 9 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Encountered Mother Teresa, SFS, 8 October 2010.
When Max Lucado Forgot the Bread, SFS, 8 October 2010.
Finding Father Benjamin: A Fable by Max Lucado, SFS, 5 October 2010.
Becoming More Ourselves, SFS, 16 January 2007.
Learning to Listen, SFS, 10 September 2006.

Geoff Pound

Geoff Pound’s new book on gratitude is described at this link: Talk About Thanksgiving.

Image: Joshua Bell plays in the subway.