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?

BULLET FOR LIFE

image found at www.weaheartit.com

You know what I haven't done in a long time?  A bullet point post.  Those are excellent for times like now when I don't have a singular topic that I really want to blog on, but I have MANY thoughts rolling around in the noggin'.

• I am still working on the novel, for all of you have been DYING OF CURIOSITY regarding this matter.  I can't say that the progress is particularly fast, but I am still working at it.  I find it interesting how much time I spend just thinking about the characters and where the story will go.  Does anyone else who writes do this?
• On my way home tonight, I nearly had a car accident in the round about.  It is a pretty low traffic area.  There are only three lanes of traffic going into and out of the round about.  (In other words the road T's out on one end.)  If you unfamiliar with a roundabout, each car going into the roundabout has a yield sign.  Ergo, if there is another vehicle in the roundabout, you wait until they have passed before entering.  I was behind another car approaching from the bottom part of the T, if you can visualize that, and would ultimately be making a left turn.  While I was in the roundabout, a minivan, who was approaching from the right side of the T,  waited for the car in front me, and then decided to just come on out.  I kept on going, but I really thought they were going to just plunge into my side.  
• Do you think that they didn't understand Yield?  Maybe they thought it meant you take turns.  I am not sure, but it sure took my breath away. 
• Still going to my tapping therapy approximately once a week.  We are now really getting into what I would consider the really traumatic issues.  I have learned a lot.  For instance...
• Every bad thing that has happened to me relates back in some way to Boundaries.  All of my life, my Boundaries have been Terrible.  Some of the worst things that I have allowed to happen to me simply stem from a belief system of not wanting to hurt someone else's feelings... even if it has meant doing horrible damage to myself.  
• I don't know how we can teach ourselves, and our kids better younger, that we have value, but this needs to happen.  Yes, being kind to others is very important, but kindness to others at the expense of yourself isn't actually a kindness.  It's a Boundary Issue.  It's actually telling someone that you don't have any.  And people who have Reverse Boundary Issues (they don't respect other people's boundaries) will be drawn to someone with Boundary Issues like a magnet.  I know this to be true.  It is the pattern that I lived repeatedly.  
• In order to break a pattern, you have to see the pattern.  That is freeing information right there.
• In addition to my not wanting to hurt anyone else's feelings, I have a Rescuer Complex.  This is actually another Boundary Issue.  The Rules of Life indicate that you will reap what you sow.... unless someone alters the natural order of things.  That someone would be a Rescuer.  
• Rescuers disallow people with other Boundary Issues from feeling the pains of their habits.  For instance, if someone is bad with money, the only way they will get better is if they suffer from their poor budgeting.  If they have a Rescuer in their life, that person will never feel the pain of their mismanagement.  However, the Rescuer will.  There is a Law and someone will feel the pain.
• Let's just say that 20+ years of Rescuing and being in close relationships with people who have Reverse Boundary Issues have taken their toll.  
• The Rules of Life still apply and it says that everyone will always reap what they have sown.  I am reaping what I have sown.  I am reaping 20+ years of acceptance that other people's wants were more important than my needs, as well as all of that Rescuing.  For my trouble, I got a ten year migraine and a host of autoimmune issues.
• So, what I know is this: the spirit rejects these things and transforms this bad thinking into illness.
• Conversely, I must believe as the thinking improves, the manifestations in the body will follow.
• Understanding Boundary Issues has given me a whole new perspective on my life.  I can now see that things didn't "just happen" to me.  I can also own my part in the things that did happen.  Grasping that makes all the difference because getting that means not allowing those things to happen again.  
• It feels like I was asleep for all of my life and I just woke up.  I didn't know any of the Rules of Life and that was why it was so hard.  Life will never be "easy" but it can make sense.

And that is pretty much the news in the Land of Robin.  Please leave a comment and tell me what is going on in the Land of You!

Challenged.

Are any of you planning to participate in the upcoming A to Z challenge?

 I have been dragging my heels about adding my name to the list.  I have been following the updates to the main page like a zealot.  And still... I have chosen my theme, have an ongoing list mapped out A-Z and am vigorously trying to fill in a subject for each letter.  It is something that is getting ongoing mental pushes on a daily basis.  I am down to the letters O and X.  They stare at me like two redheaded stepsisters that remain dateless for the Big Dance.  I glare back. "I have NOTHING for you," my brain screams.  And until I do I can't commit to The List.  Gah.  She bangs her head into the wall behind her desk.  Check that.  She only thinks about it.  The migraine already hurts enough.

If this is the first you have heard of the A to Z Challenge, it is a daily writing challenge for the month of April.  The sign up is now so that you have plenty of time to prepare.  The idea is that you write on a Themed Subject so that your readers get used to your topic.  (You don't have to write on a theme if you don't want... you can write on anything and everything if you so choose.)   It is every day but Sunday.  You can prepare all of your writing before April so that your time is spent reading and commenting, so that it isn't overwhelming in April.  The intent of the challenge is for you to meet new bloggers who are writing about things that you are interested in reading, and vice versa. 

So, let's flip to another page in the notebook.  Alex Cavanaugh is going to host a challenge on his blog in March, in the guise of Blog Hop, to list your Top Ten Movies of All-Time.

Are you freaking kidding me????  Can't we pick a genre, a decade, something?  Ergo, I have a running list that gets longer by the day.  Each movie that I think to add to the list triggers another movie.

Does anyone remember THE PLASTIC JOY AWARDS????

If you are scratching your head over that shout of frustration... that was an award intended to be fun (and OMG it was... so so fun) regarding fictional crushes.  However, I have this love of YouTube that is unmatched.  I maintain that they have laced it with visual crack cocaine.  Don't know how, but it's there.  And this award got slightly out of control.  I think you were supposed to choose five fictional crushes.  I think I chose 30.  Whatevs.  And it went for 3 days.  Again, it is the JOY of the award.  And no one says you HAVE to do it a certain way.  I mean the rules aren't set in STONE.  No one flogs you or anything if you go outside the boundaries.  A little.  Or a lot.  Moving on...

I think my quandary lies in the fact that I am not really known for following rules very well.  I am already looking for work-arounds with the Top 10 list.  Seriously... if there is a movie series... you should be able to count the entire series as ONE movie, right????  If not, I am thinking of panning them all.  I can't choose one movie out of a series and skip the rest.  Do you feel me?

So, what do YOU think?

So, am I the only person who would have trouble picking 10 All-Time Favorite Movies?  Does this Blog Hop sound like fun to You?  What about the A to Z Challenge... are you participating?  Does it sound like something you want to investigate further?   Do you prefer the idea of writing within the context of a theme or would you rather just fly by the seat of your pants?  Do you feel like you need to have all of your letters covered BEFORE you enter or are you ready to enter NOW?