Learning piano with the Quick Piano course

Wednesday, 13. August 2008 by Todd Ellison

Mike in Orlando wrote: “I found your website through Google and have a few questions. I turned 50 this year and one of my ‘mid-life-crises’ is to learn how to play the piano. As you can imagine; I do not want to become a classical pianist; however I would enjoy learning to play several songs. I’m willing to commit a reasonable amount of time to this; however I need for my time spent to be efficient.  Is your learning system designed more for children or would it benefit me as well?”

Dear Mike—thanks for your inquiry.  When I was 40, our daughter was 4 and she taught ME how to play piano using this method.  So, it works for adults as well as for children.  I think it’s actually more difficult for us as older people to learn a new skill than it is for a young child—we have so many roadblocks, and by now we know how difficult life is!  This system gives BOTH adults and children success because it is incremental and doesn’t load on more than you’re able to take at each point. You’ll be able to play songs very quickly.  When Renee was tired and I had to play piano when our daughter Melanie was going to bed (something we did for her each night), I was able to look at the music and play the melody with my right hand and fill in with chords with the left hand, in no time at all.  You’ll be able to do it, too!  It is the FASTEST and EASIEST system we know of in the marketplace.

The reason for commitment in marriage

Tuesday, 05. August 2008 by Renee Ellison

One must enter marriage with the single eye of loving the other one, not getting loved.  Dashed expectations ruin marriages.  This single disorientation about what marriage actually is has caused the skyrocketing divorce rate around the world.  Marriage is the last chance to grow up...to face one’s OWN ability to get outside one’s self and love lavishly and unselfishly, expecting nothing in return.

If one hunts for joy in marriage, it will always be elusive, like trying to catch a butterfly.  But if one’s focus is on serving and loving the OTHER one, then you will find that you are surprised by it.  The butterfly will repeatedly come and sit on your arm.

This is why commitment in marriage is so important.  Merely living with one another results in a daily rejection at a profound level.  Commitment is what enables one to have the safety to uncover one’s own selfishness and grow beyond it.  Otherwise, without a lifetime commitment, one is always plotting how to get OUT of the relationship, for every cantankerous day between the two.

Art in homemaking

Tuesday, 05. August 2008 by Renee Ellison

Have you seen the movie Babette’s Feast?  I think it conveys a strong message about serving our families with excellence and artistic sensitivity.  One of my favorite parts, early in the movie, is watching the old man’s reaction to the one bowl of soup Babette kindly placed in front of him.  That kindness was spread THROUGHOUT the soup by her CARE with the spices.  Food can be a carrier of meaning...as ANY endeavor can be if one elevates it by one’s care.

The other thing that I found most memorable about the movie was to see ordinary people caught up in art, finding to their surprise a part of their own humanity that they didn’t know existed.  In this case it was the art of dining...several courses...savored...eaten slowly (we would omit the alcohol) caused another part of them to wake up...communicating lovingly with one another on another level...not just knowing one another in a one-dimensional functional setting of work.

These sorts of momentary aches, brought on by art, teach us that there is another existence somewhere, of which this is only the prelude.  The German philosopher Goethe said, “There is so much in us that longs YET to be developed, even when we are old, that it indicates that we were created ultimately for a life beyond this.”

How to relate well with a difficult husband

Sunday, 27. July 2008 by Renee Ellison

Submission is about OUTCOMES, not INPUT.  A wife needs to communicate openly, frequently and honestly with her husband.  What he DOES about it is his own dilemma, to eventually be judged by the Lord.  She is not to insist or control...but she IS to give input.  She is not to argue...but simply state the scriptural principle that she thinks is being violated, and then quickly return to loving him with NO EXPECTATIONS.  She is to let her husband know that his behavior is having such and such of an emotional impact upon others in the house, which he may be clueless about.  She can say “That statement hurt,” and then quickly return to treating him with respect as if the incident never happened (no brooding, and no letting a root of bitterness develop).  She could also say, “We feel abandoned by your _____ [golfing, web surfing, studying, preoccupation with work—whatever it may be]; could we talk about that?  You might not be aware of how this is affecting us.  Perhaps we could arrange a time when you could connect with us and then you could go back to [whatever he feels he must spend considerable time doing].  We don’t need MUCH, but we do need SOME.”

The man may have every right to his focused activity, but he needs to know that if his wife and children could count on his relating to them every so often—for example, that he would spend ten minutes connecting with them relationally, hugging them, manifesting interest in THEIR interests, etc., it would represent the heavenly Father (the caring shepherd) to them and as a result, would make the family bond more with him.  If he chooses NOT to, he needs to know that he puts them at risk of looking to find their emotional needs met somewhere else.

If he does NOT change, then the wife needs to do some CHEERFUL self-management and not sulk and not FEEL OPPRESSED.  No one MAKES us unhappy...we ALLOW it.  We can be fearless in our own homes and be cheerful in the Lord’s tender companionship all the day.  “Perfect love casts out fear.”

A godly wife can live with even an “impossible” husband, by making positive spiritual choices.  She can carry inner thoughts like “I’m divinely picked to represent the Father’s steady love to him.” Or, “There are reasons he acts like this, perhaps stemming from his early background and training.  I will lovingly and steadily pray for his healing.  I will model the Lord’s nature to him.” No doubt, this is a big job for the wife, but it is one that will bring about her OWN sanctification, changing her complaining about HIM, to working hard on HERSELF.  Or she can think an uplifting thought like: “This is an exciting challenge that the saints of old have also encountered with other ‘impossible’ people and have found VICTORY.  They learned to deepen their relationship with the Lord via the struggle. I shall choose to do likewise!”

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) wrote (On Prayer), “Holy love bears with the most disagreeable for Jesus’ sake...the most trying and unlovable.” And, “It is possible to see the will of Him in everything and to receive it not with sighing but with singing.”

Admirable Mennonite behavior

Wednesday, 23. July 2008 by Renee Ellison

When people ask WHAT we are, we often answer that we are Messianics THEOLOGICALLY and “want-ta-be Mennonites” in home life!

Through the years we have had a number of touches with the Mennonite community in different parts of the U.S.  Here is what we’ve learned from them...

Visiting Mennonite churches from time to time and eating with their families has done us nothing but good.  We’ve been influenced in countless ways, through the years, by just observing them.  We differ from them in significant ways, theologically (our statement of beliefs is online), but we think there is much to emulate in the personal day-to-day behavior of traditional Mennonite families.

Battling candida

Sunday, 20. July 2008 by Renee Ellison

Candida is no fun.  Many adults and children have been in a chronic state with candida for quite some time, but because of their youth, their pH has fought to stay alkaline and sustained them.  But when a person’s pH starts to shift from alkaline (where it should be) to acid (where it shouldn’t be), a person will shift from a chronic state to an acute state and then recovery will become quite complex.  Some of the symptoms of candida are extreme fatigue and brain fog after you’ve eaten (especially if you’ve eaten some of the kinds of foods that especially feed candida, as we’ll note below).

I have found medical doctors to be of little or no help in diagnosing and treating this condition.  For one thing, it seems that the great majority of them don’t know about this condition, or don’t believe in it, and/or, two, they have no way to alleviate it.  They will not talk to you about diet.  Instead, they will send you home with a prescription, and later, when it gets quite bad, they will start cutting things out of you.  So if you or your child has this condition, attack you must – relentlessly and consistently, all by yourself.  (You can find ample advice on the Web about natural approaches to fighting candida.) You’ll have to face it head on, on a number of different levels.

1.  The psychological. Right now, you’re not just you.  You are you, AND you are host to another entire microscopic kingdom.  Colonies of destructive microorganisms are multiplying inside of you that demand to be fed and WILL be fed—even if YOU are not fed.  The candida rudely jump to your table first.  They even tell you what kinds of food they demand (i.e., most simple sugars), which creates very toxic, strong addictions inside you.  This is why your resolves keep breaking down.  There is a fierce addict inside of you.  This is what they want—and this is what you shan’t give them!  You’re in a war, and you’ve got to starve off the enemy – cut off his supply lines.  They want SIMPLE carbohydrates – which all turn into sugars.  These include:

Bottom line: you’ve got to say with your mind and spirit, “I’m the boss, I’m in the driver’s seat, and I’m not going to fuel your party!”

2.  The physical.  You want to feed your body real nutrition.  For more help on getting off of the SAD Standard American Diet, order our QuickBook on No-Nonsense Nutrition for Peak Performance.  Take barley green powder 3x a day – mark it off on a little chart – otherwise you’ll take it once and think you took it 3.  You’ve got to feed on COMPLEX carbohydrates.  “Pig-out” on bags of frozen broccoli, bags of frozen green peas, string beans, and cauliflower (you can make them into soup), baby spinach, brown rice, celery, avocados, chard, kale, parsley, spirulina tablets, nori, lentils and mung beans that you’ve soaked overnight to add to your diet daily, and grass-fed, clean organic meat (if you’re a meat eater).  Regular meats and all dairy products (unless they’re organic) are full of ANTIBIOTICS – which exasperates the problem.  It is undoing all the work you’re trying to accomplish…because it continually kills the good guys and feeds the bad guys.  Wrong scenario.  Antibiotic usage is one of the major reasons you got into this fix.  The only difference is that now they are floating in white liquid instead of clear capsules.  Oral contraceptives do the same mischief.

3.  Your culminating attack. Bring in the big artillery.  By diet alone, you cannot kill it off fast enough.  Diet will keep you from multiplying more of the stuff, give you the enzymatic fuel to keep up the fight on some level, and sustain you afterwards, but it can’t finish the job off.  Your own few good guys, on the ground, in the bush, can’t keep up.  They need several big bombs dropped from the air, to obliterate the stuff.

Enter acidophilus!  Tadah!!!  Acidophilus, which is available at any health food store, will make it loud and clear that the game is over.  We’re under new management.  We’re shoveling out the junkyard and bringing in new dirt.  Loaded with 1,000’s of beneficial bacteria which we need them by the truckload.  Eating cultured veggies and Kimchee will do the same thing.

Begin with one 3x a day on an empty stomach.  Take the first one right when you wake up in the morning.  Roll over and take one, so that you don’t have to wait to have real food when you DO get up!  Then in a few days up it to two 3x a day – sustain for a week – then up it as far as you can tolerate it.  Some have taken 15 a day, and in six weeks noticed outstanding improvement, if not total remission.  Also take enzymes.  (I can’t tell you what to do, dosage wise, and I take no responsibility for it; I’m just telling you what has worked for others in this condition.)

If I had known about this 15 years ago, I would have felt that heaven had arrived!!!  Wow!  A way out!  I’ll do whatever it takes, and I’ll start today.  I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.  It’ll be way cheaper than your hubby having to hire a nanny and a maid later when you can no longer function.  The primary thing diet wise, remember, is to get off all sugar...start eating tons of real veggies, and drink salads...i.e. grind them up, add water and just get them down your suffering digestive track.

If you’ll massively hit it now, you won’t have to sustain these costs very long.  If you don’t, sometime in the near future, it’ll break out like a brush fire, and you’re apt to go downhill fast – then it’ll cost you a fortune.  Digestive disorders are epidemic in the U.S., and Crohns Disease and colon cancer are a royal nightmare…scores of people are hitting the skids with these diseases.  This is hard-ball.  Onward and upward!

Note: This is not medical advice, and cannot be construed as such.  This is merely sharing my personal experience.

Humor GOTTA LOVE KIDS!

Sunday, 20. July 2008 by Melanie Ellison

“A merry heart doeth good like medicine” (Proverbs 17:22).  Here are some funnies (written by children) to get you started!  For more clean Christian humor read our Humor Packet.

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED? It’s better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.—Anita, age 9 (bless you, child )

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHOM TO MARRY? You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.—Alan, age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you’re stuck with.—Kristen, age 10

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN’T GET MARRIED?  There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn’t there?—Kelvin, age 8

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED? Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.—Camille, age 10

And a #1 Favorite is........
HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?  Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.—Ricky, age 10

The with-you principle: one of the best teaching strategies for homeschoolers

Wednesday, 09. July 2008 by Renee Ellison

A child with an undisciplined mind learns internal discipline by gobs and gobs of experiences of EXTERNAL discipline.  That is to say, lots of attentive time with Mom/Dad or tutor.  (Discipline here is not used in the punitive sense but rather as the ability to apply consistent, well-ordered thought to a project or line of study).

A child’s immaturity to discipline himself, i.e. do that which he would rather NOT do either mentally (with studies) or physically (with chores) might be renamed “lack of internalizing ENOUGH external experience WITH someone”...i.e. being very unsure, fearful, overwhelmed (from THEIR perspective).  These children cover it up by laughter, antics, wandering thoughts, resistance, “I don’t care.”

The traditional response from parents to laziness or undiscipline in a child is anger and/or upping the TIME spent on task or upping unpleasant consequences.  But all the child really needs is more attention, for a while, beyond what the parent was predicting they would need. They need more close time in a RELATIONSHIP with SOMEONE with whom they feel secure.  They desperately need lots of time with an uncritical person who will splinter the task into bite-sized pieces of success for them.  Sitting with the child doing EVERY problem with him for awhile, telling them WHAT to think for awhile, exposing them to how it is done over and over and OVER again...with encouragement, and patience is what will eventually diffuse his emotional resistance and feeling of overload to life.  This kind of time, even for an older child who hasn’t matured as quickly as others, is what will eventually build his own stamina with his own internal discipline.

That is why it is OK for parents to do science projects WITH their children.  The child has never been down that road before and doesn’t know where he is headed or how to get there.  The poorly done projects of children who had no parental help nail the point.  Children learn by doing, and even just by observing.  They pass through the experience as a larger person, BECAUSE of the hand-holding. 

When Susanna Wesley’s husband asked, “Why do you tell that child that [math principle] sixteen times?” She answered, “Because, sir, if I do not go onto the seventeenth time, when he finally gets it, I shall lose all my beginning energy.” The great surprise to parents is how MUCH focus the majority of children actually need.  But the great reward down the road is that they “GET IT” thoroughly and become far more disciplined than a child who is pushed to be on his own too soon...before his own maturity kicks in.

That is why the Suzuki method of teaching music to 3-year-olds is so successful.  Mom or Dad is with him in executing EVERY measure, in the beginning.  Finally the child takes off like a rocket, needing no help at all!!!  It is the CHILD who pushes the parent away when they are ready, not vice versa.  Our modern culture leaves a child at day care (the baby dump) at an outrageously early age when the chid is still clinging to the apron strings for a REASON. 

A child left to himself with a worksheet over in a corner will never become the tenaciously aggressively disciplined, confident adult that he could have been.  Approching life (in its minutiae) WITH Mom and Dad or a one-on-one tutor, incident by incident, builds a VERY mature and “can-do” adult.  Maturity happens when you aren’t going after the ( i.e. looking for) maturity but instead focusing upon providing a voluminous experience-base WITHIN a supportive relationship. 

By the way, the marvel with the ACE homeschool curriculum is that you can sit with an older child (one who is past phonics) to just get him launched and for many it is only three days, or merely a week before “maturity” sets in!!! 

Just more thoughts for your hopper!
Much love,
Renee

How to motivate lazy children

Wednesday, 02. July 2008 by Renee Ellison

We received the following from a mom, who wrote: ”Hello, first let me just say thank you for all God is doing through you to minister to others.  I have many questions, but for today I was wondering if you could help me with motivating my two boys, 9 & 11, with getting ready in the mornings before homeschooling.  I try to make sure they get enough sleep and they are to get up at 7:00 during the school year and have their morning chores done by 8:15 (easy stuff - empty dishwasher or take out trash and feed the dog).  I even have incentives if they’re done on time, but they still come downstairs goofing around with the dog or each other, hair nappy, crusty eyes, ugh!  We’ve practiced our morning routine for years!  I even have a check off chart.  HELPPP!  My boys get x-tra chores if they’re not done on time (pull weeds,or etc.) but they don’t care!  Thank you.  Weary Sheri”

Surely, this mother’s situation is not unique to her home.  In hopes of encouraging other moms whose children need motivation to get through the day, this is what I shared with her:

Dear Sheri:

Your boys are fortunate to have parents who care about them!  Here are some thoughts to consider:

First of all, if your boys are getting to bed early (i.e. not partying til midnight) they perhaps need more sleep.  Adolescents especially need more sleep...their hormones are changing, their cells are growing to produce height and weight and they need TIME to do this reorganizing and growing.  The public school routine makes allowance for none of this. Our daughter often needs 10 hours of sleep.  She is easier to live with when we let her get what her body needs!  But once UP, that’s a different matter.

Soooooo....we don’t run life by the get-up time but rather by the task.  Once up, she has a chart with 15 minutes slots for virtually all of her schooling, practicing and domestic duties.  We couldn’t care less the exact time of the day these things get done, just THAT they get done...and steadily until they ARE done.  No computer, no free time, nothin til everything is checked off the list. Often this can be completely done by noon even with a later get up time.  Now all that is just about gettin UP and the structure...lolligagging is another topic indeed.

In regard to not tending to business and playing with the dog and not washing face, etc., they need to be put on a SHORT LEASH.  That means surveillance 24/7 by the mom for a while.  Become omnipresent...like God...everywhere all the time.  You do this by stopping whatever you’re doing and just cruising through their area.  This is how I controlled high school basketball players twice my size when I taught English classes.  I was constantly cruising between their desks.  No one could be lazy or try any mischief because I would have seen the BEGINNING stages.  So once they are up…

...you go stand in the hallway.  And cross your arms and tap your foot.  And glare at the bathroom.  Put hand on your child’s shoulder and pivot him in the right direction...no words needed.  You can do it all with your eyes.  Children learn internal discipline over a long period of time by EXTERNAL vigilence.  This seems like oceans of work for the mom in the beginning, but it means sooner TOTAL freedom.  You spend a lot of time NOW, to spend almost no time later over these same areas.

Keep them on a SHORT LEASH.  This means you aren’t waiting frustrated in the kitchen, you are drill sergeant in the hallway until they get to the kitchen.  Take a book to read, and just stand there.  If they don’t get a move on, come along behind them with a switch, then return to your book, with eyes peering over the top.  Let them know you mean business.  Hand on shoulder and on top of head...subduing their lazy flesh.  After each accomplishment—no matter how basic—alternate exaggerated smiles and happiness: “Ohhhh, Lazarus looks so much more presentable now; I think I want him for my best friend.” Etc.  Alternate fun and encouragement with “don’t mess with mom” and you’ll get the job done in a matter of days.  Then you give them a little longer leash and see how they do.  If they cave in, go back to the shorter leash, you get the point.

In and through it all, never lose sight of the SHORT LEASH!

How to pass the marriage test

Monday, 30. June 2008 by Renee Ellison

I read a superb treatise on marriage by a very wise old man on the Sabbath.  He said we all go into marriage thinking we will get our needs met by the other—only to discover that the other person went into marriage hoping to get their needs met by us!  We went into marriage to be takers, only to discover that God’s total design was to be made like Christ via the marriage.  He designed and uses the marriage as the slow fire that burns away our dross.  In other words, God put us into the supreme object lesson of how to be consummate givers, expecting nothing in return. 

The verse doesn’t read “husbands tolerate your wives” or “wives tolerate your husbands” (Ephesians 5:25).  That would be easy.  It says, instead, to love them, to be devoted to them, praying for them, demonstrating Christ’s nature to them, exposing them to His likeness day in and day out, no matter how ornery they chose to be.  Could it be that this is, in fact, why God added that additional obstacle of making a man and woman’s very wiring different—that women are more relational, and men are more career oriented—to force the issue?  Will we even strive to “leap the mystery” because we desire Christ’s nature to be formed in us so desperately...hungering and thirsting for His righteousness...to be made like Him, whatever the route He designed to get us there? 

Let us study our mates, apply to God for how to love them, to grow in flexibility, magnanimity, willing to die to self over and over, to be slighted, forgiving being treated badly because of what it makes of us, to even be willing to be stripped of preferences and inclinations.  (Our spouse is God’s problem!!!) God after all designed marriage.  We have found Him to be wise in His other designs...why not in this?  If we determine to pick up the cross daily we shall be rewarded with the crown forever and ever without end.  Not a bad exchange.  A finite denial for an infinite glory.  Let us apply ourselves to pass the test, incident by incident.