Getting It Wrong and Right (AKA The Holy Go)

My mom directs the choir at our church and leads the congregational singing. So, she is always very aware of what the music will be each Sunday.

On Friday, we were in the car and she told me that we were going to sing the Gloria Patri this Sunday. I shot her a befuddled look and she started singing it: "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, tis now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen." As soon as she started it, I joined along and sang it to the end. Had she said, "We will sing Glory Be To The Father," I would have known just what she meant. I grew up in the Methodist Church and this was a standard. No need for the hymnal.

Mom then started laughing. She said, "When your brother was just a little guy, he insisted that the words in that hymn were not Holy Ghost, but Holy Go. We went round and round about it." I laughed, too. My brother was, and remains to this day, stubborn and hard-headed. So, I said so.

Then she said, "Well, he isn't the only one. When you were in pre-K, I had to take you to your teacher and have her tell you the correct words to Kum Ba Yah. You wouldn't believe me."

I didn't remember that and she couldn't recall the details. Guess it wasn't as funny as The Holy Go.

What I did remember from pre-K was the assembly room time when all the kids sat in chairs facing the front, the teacher would clap her hands together, and tell everyone to put their hands ON their lap. I obediently flattened my hands and placed them carefully ON my lap. I remember looking over at my neighbors to see that they folded their hands in their laps. Couldn't they HEAR? She didn't say fold your hands in your lap. She said to put the hands ON the lap. I shook my head thinking EVERY SINGLE OTHER KID in that assembly room didn't follow directions very well. This happened every day for TWO YEARS. I went to 4 and 5 year old kindergarten. Well, not summers, obviously. Or weekends. But, you get the idea.

I laugh now at this memory. Why? Because I know what that teacher meant was to fold the hands in the lap, BUT I remember thinking that everyone else was wrong. And I am a little bit proud of 4 year old me for sticking to what I BELIEVED to be the true and right thing to do, and not giving in to peer pressure by doing something that I thought was WRONG. Just because everyone else was doing it. And that takes me back to my brother and The Holy Go. For some reason, that made sense to him while The Holy Ghost did not. And he wasn't going to sing it WRONG just to make someone else happy.

Turns out we have more in common than I thought. Maybe what we call stubborn and hard-headed is not. Maybe it is just determination to do what you think is right. It only looks like stubborn and a hard head when others disagree with you.


Can you think of a time when you were sure you were right and you turned out to be wrong? Have you ever been called stubborn or hard-headed? Do you think it is a sign of determination and independent thinking or just an unwillingness to be open to the ideas of others? Have you ever stuck to your guns even when the idea wasn't popular with the majority?