A friend asked me to read an illustration of God’s faithfulness yesterday morning. Perhaps, you’ve read or heard it. Here’s the start of one version.

A mother took her small child to a concert by Paderewski to expose him to the talent of the great pianist. She hoped as she did to encourage her son in his piano lessons, which he had just begun.

They arrived early at the concert and were seated near the front. Standing alone on the stage was a marvelous Steinway grand piano. As they waited for the concert to begin, the mother entered into a conversation with the people beside her.

Her boy had wandered up to the stage and began to play “Chopsticks” (or “Twinkle, Twinkle” in other versions). Members of the audience called out to get the boy off the stage and asked who was responsible for him, but then Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski hurried out to the piano. He leaned over the boy and whispered, “Keep playing, son. Don’t stop.” The master reached around him and improvised a piece worthy of the concert audience.

The story illustrates God’s faithful encouragement to his people. The version I read was in a Charles Swindoll book, which elaborated on God’s words to us. Keep going. Don’t give up. That’s the part where I teared up.

The story isn’t true, unfortunately. It’s a good illustration and has a bit of the variations you see in common among urban legends. Truth or Fiction says it may have been inspired by a poster for a Polish Relief event, showing Paderewski encouraging a young Polish boy at the piano.

But since we’re talking about urban legend types, you may have seen the one about the guitarist who gave a lengthy solo at the end of one of his band’s regular numbers. Someone began to boo him. The musician challenged this non-fan, saying, “If you think you can do better, come up here and prove it.” And the man walks up to the stage, showing himself to be Eric Clapton.

If you didn’t see that version, maybe you saw the one about the comedian whose lame material provoked heckling from a crowd member. “If you think you can do better…” the man with the mic says, and Robin Williams approaches the stage.

These stories are obviously untrue, because no one with credibility like this would bother to heckle. They may walk out, but they wouldn’t bother heckling inferior talent. If they were irritated enough to heckle someone, they would probably do it only among friends. Like W. B. Yeats wrote:

You say, as I have often given tongue
In praise of what another’s said or sung,
’Twere politic to do the like by these;
But have you known a dog to praise his fleas?

Now, this musical story did happen. It is not an urban legend.

In 2007, The Washington Post asked violinist Joshua Bell to perform in a t-shirt and baseball cap for people entering the D.C. subway. “It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour,” writes reporter Gene Weingarten. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job.”

Will anyone notice the stirring performance they witness in L’Enfant Plaza?