I started playing piano at 9. My teachers were fun, and I played cute songs, like "You Light Up My Life". When I was 15, I started with a new teacher who put a virtual stick to my back. I had to play scales, and scales, and scales. I had to learn where to correctly put my fingers, not just hit the keys any which way. I couldn't play fun stuff, but Beethoven, Chopin, and a few I couldn't pronounce, from the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods. My parents were chastised for not making me practice an hour a day, and told to do it or I'll be dropped as a student. Suddenly I had two virtual sticks on my back.

Then I fell in love with the piano. I stopped thinking about scales, fingering, and hours and transcended into the art. My technical ability enabled me to take it to the next level. The same thing happened when I took Intermediate Accounting. All the boring stuff like debit, credits, and statement layouts became more. I've told Chloe that algebra looks yucky until calculus, then you understand that algebra leads to calculus, and that's when it gets good.

Without the basics beaten into your brain, the next level will always be elusive. Yet 1+1 will always equal 2. The key of C will always be the key of C. No arguing, rewriting, campaigning, and spinning will change that.

The law with sacrifices and stonings weren't replaced with "love and openness". Jesus didn't nullify holiness, duty, obedience; the law didn't go away. Once we decide we're going to embrace Jesus, and determine to get the basics down in our lives, we can see beyond the here and now and forward to where it really gets good!

Kim R