Inspiration from 1898

This morning life feels gloomy, and I am working hard to push past it.  When I realized that I had been trying to push past something all week, I took some time to let myself cry.  Still feeling flat, I said it all to God and read Psalm 91.  This is a great promise.  Somehow THAT made me feel like I wanted to listen to the song by Edward Elgar called Nimrod.  (This paragraph sounds a lot like "If You Give a Moose a Muffin").   And that is how I got to this blog.

Though a nimrod is now someone being ridiculous, it also used to be the name of an Old Testament patriarch.  Is that how we get the meaning for the word?  I don't know.  Edward Elgar composed this song to tell the story of a friend who encouraged him at a point when he was low and about to quit writing music. 

"...Augustus J. Jaeger was employed as music editor by the London publisher Novello & Co. For a long time he was a close friend of Elgar, giving him useful advice, but also severe criticism, something Elgar greatly appreciated. Remarkably, Elgar later related on several occasions how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks. The name of the variation refers to  Nimrod, an Old Testament patriarch described as "a mighty hunter before the Lord" - the name Jäger being German for hunter.

In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny that this variation is not really a portrait, but “the story of something that happened”. Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. “And that is what you must do”, Jaeger said and he sang the second movement in Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathetique. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of "Nimrod" were made to suggest that theme. “Can’t you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation”...."

Click here to listen to this song.


I'm not about to quit teaching, but there have been many pressures in this year and it's been truly overwhelming.  I don't usually feel overwhelmed...even with pressure, I make sure that I can hack it.  But I am tired.  The seasonal rhythm of the teaching life is hitting an all time low.  And yet, we teach until June 10.  And then we're going to D.C.  The world is a busy place, and I am in it. 

What I have discovered is that listening to Nimrod from Enigma Variations helps.  I like it because it's beautiful.  And, even though today I found it because I want out of the gloom of this endlessly (?) cloudy week, it has also in the past inspired me when I've sat in on other classes at my school. 

It's nice to see what your students do throughout the day, and I know teachers who are working hard and doing really good things.  When I sat in the English class, somehow Nimrod was the inspiring song that came to mind.  I'm talking about this because I wrote about each classroom, and I did NOT use classic teacher language.

We can all say it....'Students are attending', 'Students are not attending', 'The teacher demonstrated her understanding of the material using primary sources and engaged students in meaningful discussion'.  Blah blah blah.  There is much more that is alive and real in a classroom beyond that language.  We're not just trying to demonstrate understanding of the material.  We are trying to GET to students.  Live a real life with them and make something meaningful come out of it.  Sure, the text.  Of course, the curriculum.  An administrator said something to me yesterday about teaching though, and she literally used the term 'with the blood churning through their veins.'  So teaching is always very alive, even when I'm battling gloom and doom.  What a relief.

When I sat in on classes, I thought about a song that lived with them in the classroom instead.  And in English, I came up with Nimrod.   (That's how inspiring she is!)

This morning it is going along with a psalm that is keeping me grounded and reminding me that I am still inspired.  Somehow I'm still inspired.  I think it's ok to admit sometimes that you're not inspired.  You can be flat and figure it out and walk through it without having to keep it together.  I really believe that.  But today is not that day for me.  I will not be fake, and I will not be the most animated person on the planet.  But I will try new things and see what happens.  I will breathe and give myself a break, and even do those armchair stretches during my prep hour that come from a book called 'Stress Management'.  It was written in the 1980s so the pictures in the book are hilarious.  There are even face stretches.  So I've got that.

And I will definitely be listening to Nimrod.  God inspired this 113 years ago through Edward Elgar.  It's also helping today.