The Audacity To Start A Business

        Can You Teach Me Piano?

In 1983 we moved to Washington state where my husband got a new job. I will be honest and say that I moved with great reluctance. I left my home, my family, and some really good friends. The weird thing about moving to a new place is that there are no memories; no familiar corner of the house, no familiar store, and no familiar neighborhood to walk. It takes time to decide what is favorite. I had a husband with a new job which required traveling, four children, and a new church community. What calling did I receive? Yes, you guessed it, church organist. I shared that calling with another terrific musician.

When the business my husband worked for was sold the employees were laid off and we had to start over. He was now working from a home office and we decided to move one more time to an island in the Puget Sound. Our income was greatly reduced so I found myself thinking about the question of piano lessons. If I refreshed some pedagogy knowledge could I really start a teaching studio? I now had five children, a smaller house, and my husband agreed we needed to upgrade my childhood piano to a baby grand in our small living room.  I felt like I lived inside the joke of the man who was complained about his difficult life. 

A man goes to his Rabbi and complains about his house. “Dear Rabbi”, he says, “my house is way too small. It’s 500 square feet and it hosts my seven children, mother in law, and a nail salon”. The Rabbi listens attentively and says: “I have a solution to your problem. First thing tomorrow morning go to the market and buy a goat. Be sure to keep it inside the house, not outside in the yard. In less than a week things should improve dramatically for you. If they don’t, come back and we will see what else can be done”. The man freaks out inside, but tries to keep his cool. Can’t dispute the Rabbi…. He goes out the next day and gets a goat. A week from hell goes by, and after the goat has eaten all the furniture, books, and drapes, the man goes back to the Rabbi all anxious and sleep-deprived. When he walks in, he falls on his knees and begs “Dear Rabbi, you are a man of wisdom, but I’m not sure that the goat is a great idea, it’s eating everything the house and literally smells like…”. “No worries!” the Rabbi interrupts him, “I was just about to tell you to take the goat out…. come back again in a week, and tell me if things got better “. The man thanks the Rabbi, and goes home relieved and smiling. When he gets home, he gives his wife a big wet kiss and sends the goat out. The following week when he comes back to the Rabbi he’s as happy as a clam: “I don’t know what magic you worked on the house, but it feels at least twice larger!”

I didn't put the baby grand piano outside or the kids outside but, I did start Busy B's Piano Studio and to my astonishment I enrolled enough students help with living expenses and make the payments on the piano.

That's the flash of light I received. "You only need two more students a month to meet the payment on the new piano."

Busy B's is now 35 years old with twenty five students enrolled presently and I still love teaching. My children are grown and I am teaching some grandchildren on that baby grand piano in my living room. 

I am so grateful for the flashes of light that led me to this moment in time and I see the evidence of my learning and leaning on faith in Jesus Christ. I know the flashes of light come from His light.

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Who Knows Your Child Best?

   "Experiences of accumulating knowledge through flashes of intelligence are similes of my own spiritual life—and probably of yours. My testimony—the “reason of the hope that is in me"—is a composite panorama of countless bursts of light through an otherwise impenetrable earthly veil. I speak here of such flashes in hopes that they may bring to your mind similar glimpses that have informed your testimony, so that in those questioning moments you might “remember, remember” them. While these anecdotes do not amount to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, they do combine to remind me of a tangible reality of “that which is” that is not always before my eyes.

                                                                                           Stephen Lund, BYU Speeches September 2022

     I am almost halfway through the month of writing everyday. My intent was to recall the flashes of light I've received throughout my life, especially those that  reverberated into future years. I have written about light given to me as a child, a young adult, and now as a wife and mother. I hope I have written clearly enough that you can see the learning from the incident beyond the details of story.

   When my second child was five I took him to the first day of Kindergarten. He held on to me tenaciously, pleading eyes, begging me to stay. I stayed even when the teacher reassured me that he would be fine. The second, third, fourth and fifth day I had to pick him up when he cried continuously throughout the morning. I received a light filled message, "Not yet, not this boy."

  I was squeezed between what society expected and what I knew to be true.

This tight spot was very uncomfortable and required me to do some research, study and prayer.

My husband and I agreed that Heavenly Father knew our children and he was entrusting us to do what we knew to be right. I kept him home and he started first grade with more confidence a year later. I didn't know then that the tight spot between the expectations of the world and my own convictions would be tested again and again. Because I am more a pleaser by nature and shy away from confrontation, I have often felt an inner vertigo from these experiences. It hasn't become easier, just more familiar.

"The list of blessings flying from that still, small spark of inspiration goes on and on. None of these things are coincidences. They are consequences of a string of unpredictable heavenly interventions that have burst through the veil as flashes of light through what has at times felt like a drab, never-ending gray wall."

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Imposter Syndrome

 Originally called impostor phenomenon, impostor syndrome, as it's now usually called, is commonly understood as a false and sometimes crippling belief that one's successes are the product of luck or fraud rather than skill.

In the Fall of 1979 I came up with a plan to move out of our two bedroom apartment and into a rented house. I needed to earn $100 more a month to make that happen. The ABC Club was formed. It was a neighbor pre-school and I enrolled five kids at $20 a month for two mornings a week.  Our new house had an extra bedroom, a larger kitchen and a backyard. The extra bedroom became the pre-school room.

Everything was working but I was feeling like I was posing as a qualified  teacher without credentials. 

                     

   

This stumbling block of needing outside validation to be confident in my skills was tripping me up. I had two years of early childhood education classes in college but yet I didn't have a teaching certificate. 

Over the next decade I would struggle with imposter syndrome and these feelings would often be in direct opposition to  the flashes of light I received from my Heavenly Father.

The light doesn't come because the world has qualified you, the light comes because it illuminates the path for you to grow and develop the skills necessary to move forward. Sometimes the flash of light leads you to learning by study, which can be received from institutions, and other times the learning comes by faith.

ABC Club was a foundation on which I still build as a teacher of children, my own and many others whose parents have entrusted me with their education.

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The Blessings Of Giving Birth

“Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.” 
― Ina May Gaskin, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

I had three children before I learned this truth. In a flash of light I learned that there was a better way to give birth besides lying in a hospital bed, bright lights streaming on the process, a doctor coming in at the last possible moment to catch the baby and be the hero.

 Before I could understand the nuances of how to give birth I had to grow up and take responsibility for my body.

I had to do my own research and think about what I wanted to happen at my births. Did I want a doctor or a midwife? Did I want a hospital birth, a birthing center, or a home birth? Did I want medical intervention or did I want to do it naturally? My flash of understanding was not a list of what I should do. It was an understanding that I had choice. But, choice required that I take responsibility and assert my right to make those choices.

This moment of understanding would serve me well when I faced other health challenges in the future. My fourth and fifth births were with a midwife, in a birthing facility. They were empowering and satisfying. 

In later years I would attend the birth of five of my grandchildren and learn again the magnificent miracle of the entrance into mortality.

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Into The Fire

      "Learning by faith and from experience are two of the central features of the Father's plan of happiness. The Savior preserved moral agency through the Atonement and made it possible for us to act and to learn by faith."

David A.Bednar

Both Mark and I received assurances that our union was approved by God. The assurances were powerful and real. Now we moved ahead but other questions were not so easily answered. Should we finish college? Should we get jobs? Should we start a family? I wished for easy answers and received none. 

     There are three aspects to Learning by Faith. Receiving assurances by God to proceed, moving forward in faith, and looking back and seeing evidence that God was with us. I was afraid to act. My fears were based in a primal need for financial security. My parents lived through two world wars, one as children and one in their middle years.. They knew hunger, destruction and death personally. When my father got to America he saved half his paycheck every week. He never incurred debt. I was taught by example to acquire more than needed in savings.

I received another assurance, which I have continued to receive in the last 50 years, that we would have sufficient for our needs.

It was a flash of light and I cannot deny that it was real. But, I did not trust that light. Many of my worries and anxiety in life were based on learning to trust this knowledge. I wanted more than sufficient for my needs. I wanted excess and that was not part of the promise. 

As I look back at the evidence accumulated over seven decades I know that God was true and faithful. I was the one who needed to show my faith by acting in faith.

Faith as the assurance of things hoped for looks to the future. This assurance is founded upon a correct understanding about and trust in God and enables us to “press forward” (2 Nephi 31:20) into uncertain and often challenging situations in the service of the Savior.

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Shall We Get Married?

                                                                           Thought

  I think we are just friends,

Friends share their deepest ideas.

  I begin to see through his lens.

Who do I dream about? He is.

 Shall we marry

Just because our hopes are one?

  Is there another heart I carry,

Anyone else to whom I run?

So, I was dating my friend Mark's roommate. But, his roommate was dating me on the rebound after a break-up with his fiancée. I confided in Mark about my doubts concerning that relationship. He was kind and understanding and we talked about everything together. Our talks about God, faith, and repentance were most helpful to me. I was learning to trust him with my deepest thoughts.

We happened to walk through the Fine Arts Center on campus one lovely late afternoon and stopped to see a sculpture exhibit by Trevor Southey. I was considering his work entitled "My Brother's Keeper",  looking at the two figure's entwined in mutual support.

I had a flash of insight.

I couldn't look at Mark as we walked back to my apartment in silence. I knew, and I knew he knew that 

we were eventually going to get married. It took weeks to talk about that revelation.

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The Philosophy Class On Self-Deception

Intent

  It isn’t always clear,

My motivation hides itself.

  I pursue my intent with fear,

Perhaps stash it on a shelf.

 

  It’s a self-deception

When I act one way

  Knowing I made a exception 

To keep the truth at bay.

Brigham Young University was both a shock and revelation. Whereas in high school I was in the top of my senior class, at the university I was just one of thousands going to classes and lost inside my own world. What should I study? Who should I be? Should I pursue my English major? Was I dedicated to literature and writing?

My friend, Mark, was auditing a higher level philosophy class by Dr. C. Terry Warner and it was rocking his boat. The class was about self-deception.

 

We talked about the class many times during the week and his concerns were rubbing off on me. Our discussions were started with stories about doing to others what we sense we shouldn't do and not doing what we sense we should.

*I finally broke off an engagement to a good man who I didn't really love but wanted to love because I liked having someone to date and I liked being admired.

* I changed my major from English to Early Childhood Education because I realized that being an articulate, intelligent person was someone I wanted others to think I was rather than finding a vocation that matched my gifts.

"Self-betrayal is a sort of moral compromise, a violation of our own personal sense of how we ought to be and what we ought to do."

My discussions with Mark were more than just tiny flashes of light. They were lightening bolts. I was changing inside and the change was a struggle. I look back now and see that my years at the university were actually giving me an education that helped me reach higher. It truly was a higher education and not just a training to get a job. I didn't get educated in classes alone, but in relationships with roommates, service at church, and being in an atmosphere of choosing God first. I wish my grandchildren might have an opportunity like mine. I feel inclined to think that higher education today is a training ground for socialist philosophy not learning to bring our hearts to hear what God intends us to be.

Dr Warner said, “The stream of self-help books and tapes is never ending. There’s a lot of people telling us what kind of beings we should be and what kind of life we should have together, what our morals should be, and what our habits should be. We can receive advice on how to assert ourselves or how to get along. But nobody is out there telling us how to bring our hearts in line so that doing these things is authentic."

You can find Dr. C Terry Warner's book "Bonds That Make Us Free, Healing our Relationships, Coming To Ourselves" at Amazon or other book sellers.

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