Amazon recently released “Inspired Problem Solving,” a book by Rosaland Fain Tyler, who dedicates it to two of her former, now-deceased Sunday School teachers at Young’s Temple A.M.E.Z. Church in Morristown. Tenn.
The 206-page spiritual self-help book was released in January. It is about the impact that identifying with God has on the three stages of problem solving (the conceptual, execution, and post-problem stages). The dedication page in her new book also lists the names of her devoted parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Irene Fain, who were members of Young’s Temple A.M.E.Z. and active in the Blue Ridge Conference. It is also dedicated to Miss Daisy and Miss Cleo Johnson, who faithfully taught Sunday School classes at the church for many years. It is also dedicated to Ms. Ruth Thompson, who has held many influential roles at the church and in the conference, and is still a role model to many.
“My parents, Sunday School teachers, Ms. Thompson, and others in the church always encouraged me to pursue my dreams,” said Tyler, who earned a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
“Many people in my church nourished and sustained me as a child by holding writing contests and special programs that sharpened my communication skills and boosted my confidence. Their sincere pats on the back have taken me far away from home. I have lived and worked as a journalist/educator in Alaska, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Lexington, Nashville, and Houston, due to the encouragement and guidance that they tirelessly gave me at Young’s Temple A.M.E.Z. My grandmother, the Rev. Etta Clark, and my uncle, the Rev. Collie Clark, were among those who pastored the church while I was growing up. The late Ms. Anna Bell Grant, the mother of the presiding elder, Dr. Herbert Grant, was a second mother to me. She always encouraged and supported my dreams and talents.”
Specifically, the new book examines the impact that inspiration or Aha moments have on problem-solving. Since you constantly enter and exit the three stages of problem solving (the conceptual, exection and post-problem stages), you probably ignore most Aha moments, hunches, or epiphanies that come out of the blue. But researchers actually saw portions of the brain illuminate on brain scans in several landmark studies while people were experiencing an Aha moment. This means light in specific areas of the brain surfaced and increased as long as participants struggled to solve a simple word puzzle or other problems. Your brain manufactures light (fresh insight) on an as-needed basis, in other words.
“My book also shows inspiration or Aha moments come from God, but many people ignore an Aha moment or a hunch,” Fain-Tyler said. “Renaissance artists like Michealanelo, Raphael, and DaVinci produced an unprecedented number of masterpieces because they believed God shares his genius with man.”
Michelangelo famously said, “God creates the rest of us, just copy.”
The problem is that an Aha moment may have a short shelf life. Some promising inventors, for example, only failed because they did not file a patent, or they grew impatient. Soon, they stopped struggling to solve the problem.”
“However, my book also shows new inventors piggybacked on their old idea and triumphed due to sheer persistence alone,” she said. “Inspired Problem Solving is only a strategy. It argues you must deliberately send clear, concise commands from your mind to hundreds of muscles and bones after an Aha moment strikes–similar to how God talked out loud while he created the sun, moon, grass, oceans, and other new realities. The point is thoughts travel through billions of synapses and nerves to hundreds of muscles and bones, which always wrap up an outcome. Plus, God called all of his ideas good. We should do likewise after an Aha moment or inspiration surfaces. We must believe in an idea, use positive self-talk, and also take action, like God did, in other words.”
“These days, I come back home to my hometown for funerals. So, it’s never too late to act on a great idea,” she said. “Inspiration is always urging you to change reality, similar to how God created the world in six days and changed reality in the process. Since we are made in God’s image, according to Genesis, we are natural-born problem solvers. Sometimes we forget God still shares his genius with man.”
“I hope Bible study classes and book clubs at A.M.E.Z. churches will use my book to awaken people to the fact that they need to promptly act on an Aha moment, hunch, or epiphany,” said Tyler, who lives in Virginia Beach and has worked as the associate editor of a weekly newspaper in Norfolk for 20 years. Her second book, “Water Under the Bridge,” is about conflict resolution and will be released by Amazon in June.
