Introduction: Promises Kept: Honoring Commitments to Yourself
“Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible” is attributed to Hannah Arendt. We have written many times on The Invisible Mentor about the importance of keeping the promises that we make. How successful have you been with keeping promises and honoring the commitments to yourself.
Despite some setback this year, I am slowly getting back on track. I am happy to say that over the past few weeks, I have conducted some invisible mentor interviews already, and I have been meeting colleagues for lunch quite intentionally. I also promised to go out more, and now I’m reporting back to you.
On Friday, I attended Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde (Noah’s Flood), a children’s opera he wrote in 1957. This was the first opera that I have ever attended and I enjoyed it very much. During the opera, there were a few instances when I thought that the story was not quite accurate, and I questioned myself whether or not I had remembered the Bible story accurately.
For instance, in the opera “Mrs Noah” resisted going on the ark, and when the raven flew out of the ark to check on the water levels it didn’t return, and when the dove left, it returned with an olive branch. Those three things didn’t seem familiar to me.
Instead of questioning what I was seeing, I brushed it aside. On Sunday, while talking to some friends, they had the same questions as myself, and I realized how important it is to share our thoughts with others, and if we have doubts about something, don’t brush it aside but explore further. We all decided that we would read the Bible to remind ourselves of the real story. Being a bit overzealous, I read the story of Noah and the Ark in the King James, the New Revised Standard Version and the New International versions of the Bible.
What I remembered about Mrs Noah, the raven and the dove was indeed accurate – Noah’s wife didn’t have a name and there is no reference that she was reluctant to go on the ark. The raven is said to go to and forth, so is it a reasonable assumption that it is the ark that is being referenced. As for the dove, the first time it went out, it returned because there was still too much water outside. It was the second time that it returned with an olive branch.
However, after reading the story again, I was confused about how long Noah and his family were in the ark, and I suspect I have to read the story a few more times. It rained for forty days and forty nights, but it is my impression that the land was flooded for 150 days after that. Then there is another reference about forty days and forty nights, which confounded me. Why couldn’t the story in the Bible be straightforward?
Another thing that struck me is that students think that they can take shortcuts by watching a film, or seeing a play instead of reading the book, and they run the risk of not getting an accurate picture. It is a fact that creative directors update stories and change plots so that they are more entertaining. Noye’s Fludde for the most part was set for today’s audience because God communicated with Noah via a cell phone during the performance. Do you read the books, or are you type of person who prefers to watch a film or see a play?
The other activity I recently participated in was visiting the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) to see the exhibition on dinosaurs. I didn’t enjoy it very much because there were too many people, and I tend not to like crowds and people bumping into me. But something that struck me was how the ROM blended two ideas to help explain the extinction of dinosaurs – they coupled Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest with Alfred Wegener’s work on continental drifts. Wegener was a polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist. What two ideas can you blend to form something new? Take a look at the profiles we have done on this blog, and combine two seemingly unrelated ones to see what you discover.
And finally, what commitments have you made, and how can honoring those commitments translate into a learning experience? Please share your story about keeping promises and honoring commitments in the comment box below.
Note: I am reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit (Movie Tie-In)
(affiliate link) and will review it later this week. Keep reading!
Noye's Fludde / Golden Vanity
Noyes Fludde; Ceremony CarolsBritten: Noye's Fludde; The Golden VanityBritten: Noyes Fludde – Serenade For Tenor, Horn and StringsNoye's Fludde / Golden VanityBenjamin Britten: Noye's Fludde Op. 59 / Serenade Op. 31 For Tenor, Horn & Strings
