Her Tragic Accident Led to Healing and a Brand New Purpose | Janet Gesme, Translator/Musician

Janet Gesme (00:00)
The wreck happened when a a gentleman was at a stop sign and he just didn't look my direction. He pulled out and we collided.

truck drove me to the concert hall, dropped my friend and I off and my viola. I went into rehearsal 20 minutes late, unpacked my instrument, and sat down and played. the cello

Who are sitting right next to me were looking at me and they're like, You're not okay. You're you're not okay. And I'm like, I'm fine, everything's fine, nothing. But I could feel it. I could feel that. for me, I was like, This is the last time I'm gonna be able to push through this. Like, this is it, this is the end.

that ended my ability to play the viola for many, many years,

So letting go of that was was a super, super hard part of my life. It was brutal But that took me down to zero, where God could retrain me and say, no, that's not what makes you

worthwhile. What makes you worthwhile is that I love you

Allen C. Paul (01:11)
Janet, Gesme me. Welcome to the God and Gigs Show. How are you?

Janet Gesme (01:14)
I am great. Thank you so much for having me, Alan.

Allen C. Paul (01:17)
So when people meet you for the first time, what are those couple of things you want people to know about you that they don't necessarily read on the bio?

Janet Gesme (01:25)
Ooh,

When I meet someone for the first time, what do I want them to know about me? hard to say what I want them to know about me is usually relational to who they are.

So first I wanna know who they are and then what what part of me would be a blessing to them, then that's what I want them to know. I do translate books from German to English, and for me that's a great

little first contact point with someone because I think would my the books I translate would they be a blessing to this person? And it's the greatest thing in the world just to ask a person, do you like reading? And if they say yes, what do you like reading?

And then you get to to know about them from that question. And sometimes when they answer that question, I'm like, the books I'm translating are not for them. And but sometimes I'm like, yeah, these these books would so bless them. And I get to share it. But so what I want them to know about me

First of all, just the word identity alone. That's that's a big deal. and I've had enough crashes in my in my life, literal and and figurative, to want that identity to be rooted in Christ alone, because everything else will go away.

you know, we're we're all gonna we're all gonna pass away at some point. Those of us who are lucky enough will will grow old and we'll lose our abilities that we've had. But that that identity has to be rooted there in Christ. And that's like the most amazing thing ever.

Allen C. Paul (03:03)
That's such a beautiful way to look at your identity as connected to how do you bless others, Thinking of others first before we think of ourselves or as we think of ourselves and loving others as we love ourselves. Now, I would love to talk about a little bit of your beginnings as a musician because that is another part of your identity that formed a lot of what you share now or why you share what you share.

it, in terms of your beginnings as a musician, what was the first pull and was it to be a professional musician? Was it to be you know, someone that would tour or someone that would play an orchestra? Like what was that first pull to the order of the music the music life?

Janet Gesme (03:41)
my first contact with music was, you know, singing songs in church and listening to my mom play the piano, then playing piano.

Because she was a teacher, so she tried her best to teach me piano. I'm just not smart enough for that. I could do one note in one hand, one note in another hand, you add another note, and my brain would explode. So then I started playing viola at the age of nine. Now, viola, that's a whole nother story. When you play viola, you might as well just like tattoo the word nerd on your forehead and just like that's go from there, because that that's that's what you are.

viola is is like the redheaded stepchild of the of the instrument family of the string instrument family. You've got the violin, which is awesome. You've got the cello, which is I I play cello too, and I love cello. And then there's the viola, this this big monster that's under your chin like a violin, but so much heavier and so much harder to play. So most of my musical life has been tied up with being a violist, and we're

All the jokes are about the violists.

I did start playing professionally when I was 15. I majored in Viola Performance.

In college, which of course led to tendinitis and arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome. The other tunnel, which I don't know what it's called in your wrist, led to a lot, a lot of injuries because Viola has currently the highest per capita injury rate

that

Allen C. Paul (05:15)
Wow.

Janet Gesme (05:16)
there is for us for instruments. It used to be base flute, but now they make base flutes out of lightweight carbon.

fiber, I don't know what they make it out of, something lightweight. So led to a lot of injuries and it led to a lot of pushing pushing through pain to play.

Allen C. Paul (05:38)
Wow. I had no idea in terms of that specific cause as a pianist I deal of course with like you mentioned the tendonitis and the struggles of making sure I always warm up and if I don't warm up and you feel that pain for out, you know, that radiating pain where you're like, Okay, I pushed too hard or I didn't do this right. that does bring up the

I Gesme you could say the sacrifice that you decide to make as a musician to push through pain or to make sacrifices that maybe you do it for the music or maybe you do it for identity or maybe you do it because your professors or your, you know, your concert master, whoever it is, you're like, I have to keep up. So was that desire to push yourself? Was that internal? Was it external pressure? Was it I want to do this? So I'm gonna Yeah, what was the motivation for why you felt, you know, the pain was worth it?

Janet Gesme (06:25)
Mm-hmm.

I think it started internal and turned external. When I was in middle school I would practice six hours a day until the tips of my finger would they would turn all black and calused and then they'd rip through and and bleed in the middle and I thought it was cool. I was a middle schooler. I was like, wow, this is so cool. So it started self-motivated. I just loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. And then I, you know, started getting the scholarships, getting getting the gigs.

in college, obviously that was my major, so that was a big deal to keep up and practice. So that somewhere along the line that that it turned external. And what a good friend of mine pointed out many years later is that somewhere along the line it also turned into a false idol of this viola.

is what gives you purpose and meaning. This your you playing the viola is what makes you worth something. Your worth comes from it.

And that was a realization that I didn't come to on my own. I had a I had a car accident in 2015 that ended my ability to play the viola for many, many years, or at least six years. And a friend of mine who is a counselor talked to me during that time, was talking me through this, and she's like, your viola was an idol for you.

You know, and and she called it and she was right and I was like, oof that's true.

So letting go of that was was a super, super hard part of my life. It was brutal to let go of something that I loved so much and something that I thought made me a worthwhile human being. But that took me down to zero, where God could retrain me and say, no, that's not what makes you

Allen C. Paul (08:28)
Wow.

Janet Gesme (08:28)
worthwhile. What makes you worthwhile is that I love you and I love you.

Whether you play or not, whether you produce or not, doesn't matter. You know, his love is always there, so it's good.

Allen C. Paul (08:40)
Well

The fact that you just related to that moment in your life and I always try to make sure that we don't just center on the pain and the trauma, but it's also where you say it in the f you know, now that in the future is present, I Gesme, and it was the past. At the time though, that must have been so traumatic. I mean, and I read some of the details. This was not just like a random crash where your wrist kind of like was damaged or something like that. This was something where, can you describe it for us a little bit? 'Cause I I believe I read that you you didn't

know it was as bad as it was and then suddenly what you thought was maybe you were something could you push through again turned out that you couldn't push through.

Janet Gesme (09:19)
Mm.

I did push through it on that particular weekend. I was driving with a friend in the car on the way to Newport, Oregon. I played in the Newport Symphony Orchestra for many, many years. And I was driving there for a dress rehearsal and for two performances. The wreck happened when a a gentleman was at a stop sign and he just didn't look my direction. I was on the highway and he didn't look to the left before he pulled out. He pulled out and we collided. And just like

Like I had pushed through all through college and all through a lot of times of being a professional musician. The tow truck drove me to the concert hall, dropped my friend and I off and my viola. I went into rehearsal 20 minutes late, unpacked my instrument, and sat down and played. And I was like hot and cold and sweaty and shaking, and a lot of stuff happening, and the cello

Who are sitting right next to me were looking at me and they're like, You're not okay. You're you're not okay. And I'm like, I'm fine, everything's fine, nothing. But I could feel it. I could feel that. for me, I was like, This is the last time I'm gonna be able to push through this. Like, this is it, this is the end. I'm done for. But I did push through that. I played the rehearsal and I played both of the performances. And the conductor,

he said to me multiple times too, he's like, you don't have to do this, it's okay. You don't have to, you know. And I was like, I'm fine, nothing's wrong.

I don't know if I thought I would have lost something or if it was just such a habit pushing through pain,

Allen C. Paul (11:00)
Okay.

Janet Gesme (11:01)
making it happen no matter what, like that you you play the rehearsal, you play the performance. That was such a habit. You always do it. It didn't matter. You did it. You made it happen.

that was the same weekend that that I first saw a book by Martin Schleska that was actually the turning point point of God's plan to take the viola out of my hand, put books in my hand and give me a new a new purpose in life which was to translate books from German to English. But I had no idea for many, many months because I was just

unwinding my body was was was circling the drain getting worse and worse but I was reading these books which were the books were a huge huge blessing to me Martin Schleska's book The Sound of Un Life's Unspeakable Beauty was really getting me through that rough time and I

had no idea that I was gonna end up translating it. But I did know that I wasn't a musician anymore. I did know that I couldn't play the viola.

Allen C. Paul (12:10)
Mm.

Janet Gesme (12:11)
I couldn't sit to play cello for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. And so I knew that I wasn't one thing, but I didn't know what what the next plan was or I didn't know what God was gonna do in my life next.

Allen C. Paul (12:27)
I'm just very curious in terms of getting that book at that moment. Did you already have an interested German or this particular this particular author, this what you'll I Gesme you'll explain as well. This is a violin or viola or violin maker as well, right? That that this author he works in both of these areas and does this person just say, this is a random book that she'll like, or why was even that book given to you?

Janet Gesme (12:54)
I had been a part of a German Bible study in my hometown of Bend, Oregon for 10 years before getting that book. My host is a woman from Germany. Ula is from Germany. And so she just thought that I would like the book. She thought this is a book that you it would really mean a lot to you.

Speaking German, that had been a part of my life since I was 18 years old. And it was always on the sidelines, but I loved it. I loved the language. And the German Bible study that I had been a part of really taught me the Bible in German and put that deep, deep in my heart.

So what I didn't realize at that time was that all of these elements, God had been preparing all of these elements by giving me music, giving me the language, and giving me the Bible in German, because all of those three things came together to help translate Martin Schleska's book.

Now that's not enough, of course, because there's a lot of things going on in his book. There's stuff about architecture, there's stuff about physics, and I don't know anything about architecture, and I don't know anything about physics. And also the actual making of an instrument. I'm not a luthier. I don't I don't know all these terms and what's going on. So I had to go to people and say, please help me, because I don't know, I don't know how you say this in English. You can translate one word to another word, and that's fine. Word to word

Is fine, but that's not necessarily what they say. Those experts, when they're talking about their field, they may speak about it with different words and different phrases. So you have to go and find someone who that's their field and say, How do you talk about this? What words and phrases do you use?

Allen C. Paul (14:52)
I am curious in terms of this process of translating, did you feel like that was similar to music? Because as a a as a musician, you take the score and one person does it this way, one person that does it that way. As a translator, was that a similar skill? Did you find yourself, or did you have to learn a whole new skill of translating in order to do this?

Janet Gesme (15:13)
I learned a whole new sk skill of being absolutely terrified and trying to figure out something that was way beyond me. So, like I've I've translated a little bit of Rilke now, a little bit of Boober. I'm working on some Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin Schleska is a little bit like one of these person people that he writes in a very poetic, a a a deep way that the language is is.

has a music and a rhythm to it and a beauty to it that needs to come through in a different language where people think and act differently. So translating these these poetic things, when you translate just a story, like it's just a flat out story, way easier. You can get a story across and it and it's easier to translate, which I by the way also love, love, love translating. Those stories are so great. But translating something that is

I wrestle and wrestle and wrestle with this stuff. I put down a literal translation and then I start looking at it in terms of how is this making people feel? What emotions is this

Allen C. Paul (16:30)
Okay.

Janet Gesme (16:30)
evoking? What emotions did it evoke in German? Is it evoking those emotions in English? Is it going straight into your heart or is it getting lost in your head because your head is like, I don't know what this person is.

Person's talking about, like, I'm done, I'm not gonna read it, you know? It has to go in. That doesn't mean you don't have you don't think about it at all, because certainly things can be thought-provoking and can make you stop and slow down and listen, but it has to go in and touch your heart.

And so that kind of translating, I wrestle over that for hours and days and weeks and months. And I do a lot of like falling down on the floor and saying, I can't do this, Lord help me, you know, and sometimes that Lord help me ends up that that that that God just freshens my spirit and helps me to do it. Sometimes that leads me to go to other people and say, Okay, friends, help me, you know, like I need you to.

Tell me what's going on here, how this how this makes you feel, what words would you use? but I like I like real people.

I think there's a lot of really great resources today electronically and with AI and stuff like that that other people

Allen C. Paul (17:51)
Sure.

Janet Gesme (17:51)
can use. And that's great for them to use it, but that's not for me to use. I'm I'm a real real

Allen C. Paul (17:57)
Got it.

Janet Gesme (17:58)
people kind of gal. You know, that's my my

Allen C. Paul (18:00)
Alcoa.

Janet Gesme (18:02)
circle is is real people. So if I have an issue, I'm not asking jet chat GPT, not necessarily because I'm so much better, but because I can't.

asks chat GPT. I don't know anything about that and I don't I don't want to. It's it's not where I'm called to be. but I'm called to be with humans and to go to humans and say, help me. And I love that

Allen C. Paul (18:25)
Have

Janet Gesme (18:26)
a human being has their whole frame of their life and their feelings and their experiences. Like they give me such a a deep and rich answer.

That maybe will solve my problem, but even if it doesn't solve my problem, it will give me something that is that is sweet and important.

Allen C. Paul (18:46)
Well, I love the fact that number one, you focus on the human part, but I'm also

really, really connecting the dots between your passion for viola, which you stuck with, pushed through the pain, made sure you figured it out no matter what. So I Gesme that's my question right now.

do you feel that God moved you into this new calling as a translator?

Janet Gesme (19:07)
Absolutely, absolutely. I feel like it was God's plan that he put all of the pieces in place. I didn't know he was putting those pieces in place, but he put them in place first and then gave me that that task later when he had already prepared the groundwork and I didn't even know he was preparing the groundwork. I feel like

Prophecy and also our own lives, I feel like it's a lot like like fog. You know how if you're walking in thick, thick fog, you can't see the thick fog right where you are. You can see it in front of you and you can see it behind you, but where you are, you can't see it. And so often God's plan for our lives, if we look back.

We're like, I can see it. I can see what he did.

Allen C. Paul (19:56)
Yes.

Janet Gesme (19:57)
But like right where we are, we're so clueless. Or like, I can't see it. I don't know what's going on, you know. In in the now, I'm always clueless. I'm like, I

Allen C. Paul (20:06)
Yeah.

Janet Gesme (20:07)
don't I don't know where this is going. But and and in the very distant future we know. We know God's promises and we know where where we're gonna end up and we know it's good. But man, I gotta tell you, the right now, poof, I never know. I never

Yeah.

Allen C. Paul (20:24)
So I do believe as I was reading

that God miraculously gave you almost like two different new ways of restoring what you had lost. One in the form of the instrument you're playing, but also in terms of you actually playing. So tell a little bit about that. Like d was there a turning point again where you saw your actual playing get to be a a new part or a a restored part of your life?

Janet Gesme (20:49)
Yeah, the instrument. my goodness. Yeah, when I did have that accident, I gave my viola away. I gave my viola to the a lady who plays, she's the first chair violist of the Central Oregon Symphony. And I knew that I was in big trouble, and I knew I had to have the instrument I had at that point. I knew it had to get out of the house because for me it was like having alcohol in the house as an alcoholic.

I would think, just a little bit won't hurt me. And I would play it and it would send me into shock. And it was bad, bad news. So I gave that viola away to my friend at first just for a year because I didn't really know how bad off I was. And when that year went by, I was not better. And so I s called her and I said, It's yours now. Like I don't think I'm ever gonna get better. That is now your instrument.

And then about four years after the accident, when I was when I had already ended up translating Martin Schleska's first book, he started making a viola for me, which at the time was confusing because I couldn't play, I couldn't play. I was like, why why make an instrument for me and I can't play?

But he did, and my husband would tell me, I I was like, I I shouldn't have an instrument, this is ridiculous. And my husband would say, you know, even if it just hangs on our wall, you deserve it. And I was like, okay, well, whatever. So I ended up getting a viola that Martin Cheleska had made for me in 2021.

And starting to play a little little bit at a time. I'm playing it, I've played in a few concerts since then, a few orchestra concerts, a lot of Central Oregon Symphony concerts that that you can find online with my husband conducting. Now we're up here in Canada with my daughter. I'll be playing it in a concert with a group that she's in, and and Michael, my husband will also be conducting that concert.

I think the viola plays a very, very different role in my life now than it used to. I can't practice a lot. My injuries that I've had have

I I'm just weak now, like physically I'm weak. So the marathon practice sessions I used to do, I can't do now. I can practice.

Allen C. Paul (23:20)
Okay.

Janet Gesme (23:21)
I can practice for twenty or thirty minutes and it's great, but I can't push my body further than that. And I think that's a huge blessing that that is held to a certain level because I'm that kind of person who will just keep going and going and going. And what music has done in my life

it has been a huge blessing for a huge section of my life and now God's called me to something else. And if I didn't have the physical limitations that I have right now, I think I would have trouble stopping. You know, that that addictive character. I'd just play and play and play and play.

So my physical limitations are a blessing, even though I don't like them at all. I get really mad. I want to be like the strong person who can do anything. And

Allen C. Paul (24:10)
Yeah.

Janet Gesme (24:11)
I'm not the strong person. I'm the one who walks slowly. I'm the one who has, you know, strength issues and and various injury issues. I'm I'm that one. I'm the weak one. But you know, in our weakness, that's where God is strong.

And in my weakness, he keeps my focus on translating these books.

Allen C. Paul (24:36)
So what would you want creators, Christian creators, Christian musicians, what would you want them to learn from your story if there was like, you know, you had to write your own book?

Janet Gesme (24:45)
Hmm.

Allen C. Paul (24:46)
And what would be the theme that you want to make sure that people learn from your example of

Losing identity as a musician, finding identity as a translator, but most importantly keeping, you know, God at the Center of it all what would you say to those people who are struggling at a point in their life like you did?

Janet Gesme (25:03)
Hmm, I would say that it's it's in the no that when God says no, when God says no to me, when God says no to you, He always has a better plan. And this does not mean that I am like, yay, I just gotta know. I'm so happy. I'm never happy. I'm a big whiner, and I'm like, I want it, my

I mean, there is a lot of fit throwing going on in my life, and I'm 54 years old now, and that fit throwing has not stopped. I do not expect it to stop. When God tells me no to something, I think the biggest change since I turned 50 is that I'm okay with the fact that I'm throwing a fit. I'm like, yeah, I'm ridiculous, but here goes, the fit's coming.

So, but when he says no to you and I, when he says no to anyone, it's not because he wants to take something good from you, it's because he's prepared something better for you. So to

Allen C. Paul (26:12)
Mm-hmm.

Janet Gesme (26:13)
look past the the no into the yes, what is he prepared that's better? Because something's coming.

Something is coming that is better. the most pictorial thing that I can give for this is after the accident, those that first few months when I realized I couldn't play the viola anymore, I had this repeated feeling, this sensation, like I was staring at a locked door. Like there's just this door in front of me. On the other side of that door was my viola.

And I would stare at this door with all my might. I was like, I want what's on the other side. I want that. I want that so bad. And then I would have this sensation of hands taking a hold of my shoulders and turning me around and gesturing to this incredible world, this beautiful, complicated, phenomenal world full of fascinating things, and saying, this voice would say.

Don't waste your time staring at a locked door. There's the whole world is waiting for you. I've got all of these riches waiting for you. What are you doing? You know, go out. See what's out there for you. So I think that's what I would say to people. I'd say, when that no comes, look around you. Because God has blessings for you, and they're amazing.

Allen C. Paul (27:43)
thank you so much for that. It's such a beautiful, clear picture that God used your example. Again, the fact that you are a translator now by profession as well as a musician, to me just speaks volumes of you are someone

that brings what somebody else has lived and puts in front of somebody to help bless them. So before we finish, are there any new chapters, any new adventures or things that you're praying for what are you looking forward to in the next season?

Janet Gesme (28:13)
Well, my husband and I have just had a very big change, which is that he was the conductor of the Central Oregon Symphony and a teacher at at the college in Bend, Oregon for thirty years. He just retired and everyone asked me if I was gonna retire too, and I was like

I I didn't really have a good answer for that, but it turns out I did retire too because I also taught at the college. I taught cello and I taught German and I also stopped teaching because he was stopping. So we've both gone into this early retirement thing. And

we are in this time of life of trying to find our rhythm. Like what's the pace of the work day? Because we're obviously not done working. We're still working. And the a lot of things have changed. He's helping me with the publishing of these books and the editing. He's doing a lot, a lot of work on that kind of stuff. So for 30 years I was his support. I played viola in his groups and and kept

his house and raised his children and now the tables have turned and he's my support and he's helping with these books. We're putting the mate majority of our attention on to publishing these books.

So that's a big change for us. And we are also still wanting to take care of our parents. I have a mother in Missouri. His parents are both still living there in Illinois. So we want to spend a lot of time loving on them and being there for them to do whatever we can. We obviously have we have we have two children and we want to spend time with them and bless them, family and

friends all over the place. So it's a new chapter of being free enough to go and be with family and friends, being free enough to focus on new book publications. And in that freedom we're looking for we're looking for

a a rhythm to the days. We're looking for how God wants us to bless and when he wants us to bless. And I think that for us really we're just gonna be seeing that day by day and week by week. It's not gonna be something that we really know how that's gonna unfold as this time progresses.

Allen C. Paul (30:52)
Right, back to the one step at a time. The fog might be around, but you still know you take one step at a time with God.

At one point it was all music and then it was translation. And now it's this beautiful blend of freedom and finding connection with all these other things that God is putting in your life. But at every single point, Janet, you've clearly followed him. And it's such a blessing to talk to you. It's such a blessing to hear someone who walked through the valley but did not stop in the valley.

So thank you so much for sharing it on the God and Gigs Show. This has honestly been such inspirational and motivational time for me and I know it's been the same for our audience. If they need to find you, I know they've already probably clicked on the link and they know how to find it in the show notes. But just do the old school, how would you like them to connect with you after this interview?

Janet Gesme (31:35)
I have a website that's janetgesmi.com, just my name, J-A-N-E-T-G-E-S-M-E.com. And on that book, they on that website they can find the books that I've translated and a little bit about the authors, a little bit about the process. I also have an Instagram and I have a Facebook page, and I don't know how to use either of them.

So people are free to follow me on Facebook and Instagram, but good luck because I have no idea when I click on things what is actually gonna be posted. so I'd say the website is is more steady as opposed to the Instagram where who knows what will happen.

Allen C. Paul (32:17)
And another adventure, right? But no matter what, they will be able to connect with their inspiration with the amazing work that you're doing with these books and it just continue to follow somebody else who is following God as he leads you through this amazing creative career that you created. So God bless you, Jan. Thank you so much for being a part of the God and Gigs Show. I hope it's not the last time.

Janet Gesme (32:38)
Thank you, Alan. Thank you so much for having me.