Grace Calling

Grace Calling

"Every moment and every event of every person’s life on earth plants something in their soul.”

~Thomas Merton

In early February of this year, I attended a retreat at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho. The retreat, Embracing the Artistic Call, was magical. The playful instruction in artistic mediums, and connection with others seeking a more creative life were just what I needed. And the peace of the Monastery was restorative. The experience left me thinking about grace.

Grace has several meanings, and my stay at the Monastery offered it in many of its forms. There was, of course, a grace said before dinner with the Benedictine Sisters. The grounds were graced with statues. The silent snow enhanced the graces of beauty and tranquility in the historic, nearly 100-year old Monastery. And, in this lovely setting, the Sisters moved with silent grace.

To add to the list, there was one more form of grace present. This powerful type of grace was beautifully described by Melinda Gates in her article about choosing a word of the year. (And by the way, isn’t that a wonderful practice?) “Grace” was Melinda’s 2018 Word of the Year, and for her it means “something that comes from the universe—a transcendent moment when something beautiful breaks through, evidence that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.” I love this description! Grace is something that inspires awe and wonder! Thinking of grace in these terms, it seems to me that she resides at the Monastery, amongst the Sisters and the trees, ready to produce transcendent moments for any who are attentive to her voice.

This idea of grace often whispers to me, and one story that brought grace to mind has lingered. In 2007, the Washington Post and violin virtuoso Joshua Bell teamed up for an experiment to see if, “in an incongruous context, ordinary people would recognize genius”. Gene Weingarten described the events in a Washington Post article .

To conduct the experiment, internationally famous concert violinist Joshua Bell - dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and a ball cap - stood by a wall in the L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington D.C. during the morning rush hour and played six classical violin piece. Like any street musician, he left his case open to collect money. The Post used a hidden camera to record the event and stationed several employees in the area to observe the crowd. Outside the metro station, Post reporters stopped individuals as they emerged and obtained contact information for follow-up interviews.

The results were stunning. During Joshua’s 43 minute unadvertised performance, 1,097 people walked through the station. Twenty-seven of those people threw a bit of money into his open case. Seven stopped to listen for a few minutes. 1,070 walked through without a pause. Joshua Bell, one of the world’s most renowned violinists, playing, according to Weingarten’s article, “some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made”, was basically ignored.

Weingarten’s article provided fascinating details. The violin was handcrafted in 1713 by Stradivari, and worth about $3.5 million. The music started with a “building sense of awe”, it was emotionally powerful. Most of the people were in a hurry and didn’t notice the rich music that filled the station. Those who stopped to listen were on tight schedules and couldn’t stay longer than a minute or two. Only a couple of the 1,097 people who passed through the metro station recognized the brilliance of the musician and his music.

In search of understanding why Joshua and his music were largely ignored, the reporters interviewed commuters and experts. The Post article described individual stories and situations, and explored questions about our busy society, beauty, the importance of context. It’s worth reading.

In the experiment, I saw grace as described by Melinda. Specifically, I was left wondering how a person can maintain the discipline needed to achieve their goals and meet the demands of a full life without being so busy, so scheduled, that they’re oblivious to unexpected moments of grace and beauty.

I agree with John O’Donohue who said that music “can take us for a while into another world.” Music can offer a moment of grace. I believe I’ve returned again and again to the story of the L’Enfant Experiment because I wonder if, given the opportunity, I would have been one of the few who recognized musical grace in that D.C. metro station. Unfortunately, I know it’s more likely that I would I have been one of the many who was too rushed, too wrapped up in my busy schedule, too focused on my next task to hear the music.

Grace is found in beauty, and on the frontier of the unexpected. You can make space for grace in your life by spending time in places of beauty - nature or silence or monasteries - but grace in unexpected places at unexpected times is special. A surprise encounter with Joshua Bell playing Bach on a Strad in the D.C. L’Enfant Plaza metro station could be a powerful moment, if you didn’t hurry past, oblivious. I don’t want to miss those moments.

I know that balance is the key, balance between seeking and being, balance between having discipline and focus, and being present, aware, and open to pausing for unexpected moments of grace. I don’t know exactly how to find that balance, but I keep working on it.

Recommended Resources

Melinda Gates - Why I Choose a Word of the Year

Thomas Merton quote in the Jeremy Seifert and Fred Bahnson Emergence Magazine article, On the Road with Thomas Merton

John O’Donohue - Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Gene Weingarten and The Washington Post - Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nations’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let’s find out.

Photo Credits

The Monastery of St. Gertrude in Snow: photo by Kelly Anderson (cover & at the head of the article)