Strange New Compulsion

The weirdest thing has happened to me recently. I've been feeling compelled repeatedly to say "bless your heart" or "bless her heart", etc., in totally sincere ways (that is, not in the passive agressive way that uses it as a way of supposedly excusing the saying of rude things about someone). I'm saying it because I mean it.

It's not that I'm opposed to this. It's just that it's never felt natural to me before. It's always felt a little affected or forced or in some way uncharacteristic of me and therefore not the thing for me to say.

Except now it doesn't. It's like something shifted internally and I'm somehow a slightly different person. The first couple times I had the inclination to say it, I didn't, because I was so surprised by the impulse and didn't trust it. Then I started trying it out and was shocked at how okay it felt. I'm pretty sure it's a good thing, because it feels like it leans toward sympathy, which I've never been very good at. I have no idea what prompted it or if it will last.

I don't think it's that the South suddenly conquered me. I caught myself thinking about "fixing" to do something over seven years ago. If that happened (which I never thought would and I shuddered when it did), this would have happened a lot sooner, if it were a developing-new-habits-of-speech thing. But it's not.

Is it possible to just wake up one day and be a nicer person? Without even trying? Did my snarkiness subscription expire? Did my fetish-like preference for people being strong and taking care of themselves, thus not requiring my sympathy, suddenly grow weary of itself?

I'm pretty sure this is what we call Grace. I'm a fan.

Faulk Tales -- Inaugural Edition: Italian Wedding Soup

So I'm inaugurating a new feature on my blog today.

[What, you say, why does she need a new feature when she never even writes ordinary posts anymore? Well, let's just see if it helps, okay?]

I'm calling it "Faulk Tales". Perhaps it should be called Fauxlk Tales, but I think that looks wrong. Let me know if you agree or disagree.

Faulk Tales is designed to tap into my mostly hidden talent for creating folklore out of nothing. That is, I'm good at making up back story for odd conventions or names or whatever that has no basis in actual knowledge of anything. At least, I think I am. I'll invent. You decide.

* * *

So last night I had Italian Wedding Soup. Unfortunately, it was not because I went to an Italian wedding. I have, in fact, never been to an Italian wedding, sadly. That's what growing up in the Midwest will get you, I guess. My soup was from a lowly Campbell's can.

But here's what Italian Wedding Soup could mean, as explained to the happy couple...

The broth is your love -- the context of your relationship, the thing that must surround, envelope and hold everything else.

The noodle balls are your daily work -- There are a lot of them and they're not always easy to keep in order. But they sustain you. You should share them equally.

The meatballs are your fortune -- Don't eat them all at once!

And the spinach is sex -- It adds color, health and flavor!

If I Were a Right-Wing Conspiracy Theorist...

So this morning, when the cat woke me up, odd thoughts were going through my head. I was thinking about the epithet "red" that used to refer to communists. My local news paper is frequently accused of being too liberal. Since it's name is the Star, it often gets called "the Red Star" which I find hilarious.

But mostly, you don't hear that word used any more. I suppose some of it can be attributed to the demise of the Soviet Union. I think that's why we hear more about socialists these days, rather that communists. Hard to say.

But I also wonder if it has something to do with the switching of colors on electoral maps. As you know, a common way to refer to places populated with liberals now is to call them "blue states." I do not live in one. I live in a "red state." Which is hilarious, given the history of that color and what it used to mean.

But it used to be the other way around. As recently as the 80s, I believe (someone look that up and report back), blue states were those that went Republican and red states were those that went Democrat.

If I were a right-wing conspiracy theorist, I would wonder if the news organization that started the switch (someone research and report back who that was) did it in order to make it more difficult to call blue states "red". It just doesn't really work to use both colors. Which is part of the reason, I'm guessing, why you never hear the word used that way anymore. I bet there are portions of the population (the young part, that is) that don't even know it ever had that connotation.

Timed Times Test

For some unknown reason, a memory has been rattling around in my head lately. Over the weekend, I was at a retreat, participating in a workshop, and at the beginning of one activity, the leader said, "You're going to be timed."

And the first thing that popped into my head was the horrible memory of my first timed times table test in third grade.

I was a smart kid. Math was not my forte, but I did okay. I even TA'ed a math class my senior year of high school. But I wouldn't say I'm fast at multiplication. And I hate being rushed.

So the memory that has been bugging me ever since the weekend is this: We had to do these multiplication table tests in third grade. There were 100 problems, in three columns on a legal size sheet of paper. I think it was that we had to get as many done as we could in a certain amount of time. 3 minutes? 5 minutes? I don't remember.

What I do remember is that the first time I took one of these tests, I was so freaked out that my multiplying ability was basically paralyzed and my arms started sweating so much that by the time the teacher called out to stop, my paper was soaked. It was insane.

I'm trying to imagine what the pedagogical purpose of such a test might be. I suppose it's a good thing to know your times tables automatically. But does such an exercise really help with that?

There is part of me that would like to try to take one now. I'm not sure I'd be much better at it today than I was then. After that first one, I did fine. But the memory of the fear and pain of the first one never went away. I. Do. Not. Like. Being. Rushed. Especially with math.

Mamma Said There'd Be Days Like This, or Somebody Did Anyway

So the heading up there probably says this is a Friday post, but it's still Thursday for me. And that Moment has come.

The moment that they warn you about in seminary in order to scare you out of your procrastinating habits. (I'm pretty sure that's completely ineffective. If it works on you, you weren't really a procrastinator in the first place, and if you are, it won't work on you.)

The set-up is that you shouldn't be able to turn in term papers late because you can't turn in a sermon late. And then they proceed to ask you what you'll do if you waited to finish things till the last minute and then a pastoral emergency arises absorbs that last minute.

Usually, that scare speech is about sermons. I always figured that if the pastoral emergency actually was over in time for me to be in church, I'd wing my sermon. As a Sunday morning sermon writer, I don't actually find that all that alarming. Heck, I made up the second half of my high school graduation speech because I didn't have it written before the ceremony. (I also smuggled in a pen, in case there was time to work on it while other people were talking. That proved to be useless.)

My problem this evening is that it's not a sermon I've procrastinated on. I'm not even sure I'm giving myself the credit I deserve in calling it procrastination. The thing that isn't quite put together yet is our all church retreat. Such things require organization. It's mostly in my head at this point, but the booklet isn't finished. It won't be relaxing without organization; I know that.

But it's now time to go back and see just what is essential, what can realistically happen at the true last minute (that being tomorrow), and what can be skipped completely.

Emergencies are all about priorities. And I'm thinking the triage is the only other thing happening tonight. Blogging probably shouldn't have made the cut, but my brain needed a way of shifting gears anyway!

Alone vs. Lonely

We had the second week back to our contemplative prayer service tonight. It's a really nice service, with very few people who come. Sigh. Oh well.

Each week, I lead an intercessory prayer that starts with ourselves and gradually moves out to the world. The second stop is "our loved ones and all families." And ever since I started doing this, because of single people who had shared their frequent sense of being invisible in churches, the next stop is something about "those who are lonely".

Which gets complicated. I do want people who aren't part of traditional families, that is, people with families of one, to feel comfortable in our church. But trying to pray for them is a little awkward.

I try to include lots of categories of loneliness. In fact, I usually say "for runaways and those who have been dis-owned or distance by their families, for those who are the last one left and those living out their lives in nursing homes, for those lost in the loneliness of dimensia. For all those living lives of solitude, whether by choice or circumstance..."

So right there, you've got a lot of people in dire situations, and then some whose lives are completely normal, they're just single (or divorced or widowed). And what about people who are married and lonely? You know they're out there.

I've even sometimes throw something in about people who are lonely, even when surrounded by other people. Sometimes I list the circumstances, death, divorce, moving...

Obviously, I can't cover every situation. But sometimes I worry if I'm making it worse by bringing it up. I've occasionally wanted to ask some of the people who come how that part hits them. But I never have. Maybe I should. On the other hand, the ones who come may have been thinking of it as applying to people other than themselves this whole time and may be offended if I suggest it might apply to them. Aaah. So delicate.

I mean, when I pray for families, some of what I mention does illustrate that family life isn't a bowl of cherries either. But somehow, those problems are more socially acceptable, I'm afraid. We're just not that good at talking about loneliness.

Any suggestions? Would you rather have it mentioned or left out? How specific should it be? There is always silence after each section, so you could take it in any direction you wanted, regardless of what I say. And it does help me think of some folks I might not otherwise.

Two on Tuesday

1. I'm beginning to understand the 140-character limit on Twitter. I've noticed that when people's facebook statuses are too long, I don't read them. Scary.

2. On Sunday, I accidentally put the toilet paper on the holder the wrong way. I tried to just be okay with it that way, but in less than 24 hours, I changed it around. Oh well.

I'll Be the Heavy. 'Cause He's Your Brother.

One of the strange things about ministry is when it has to involve meddling. Which it does sometimes. One of the situations that comes to mind is when an elderly person is aging and decisions need to be made. Perhaps there are no family members to address things like when it's time to stop driving or whether you really can stay home alone anymore. Perhaps it's something like one kid doing all the care-giving and another hardly being in touch who someone needs to call.

Sometimes it's about getting in touch with out-of-town kids who need to have the seriousness of a situation impressed upon them because non-relatives really aren't allowed to make decisions like moving into a nursing home.

There are very few people who are comfortable inserting themselves into other family's lives in these ways. And I doubt most ministers are either. But sometimes we have to, and we do, and it's the role that carries us in there, not anything about us personally. Sometimes someone has to step in and be the heavy, and having a collar (even if it's figurative) makes that easier.

I say all this because I'm sensing I may need to be gearing up to do it again soon. Delicacy and weight at the same time is a complicated combination to convey over the phone. It gets easier with practice, thank God! Part of it is that one of the things a minister can do for a family is give them someone else to be mad at so they don't have to stay mad at each other. A crappy role to play, but sometimes a true gift. And since it's not really about you, it's easier to let go of than having a member of your family mad at you.

Life in the Round

In the hammock,
on the porch,
which is on the east side of the house,
it has grown too dark to read.

I must turn on the camping lantern,
left there for precisely this purpose.

But out the south window
(straight ahead
if you've turned your back to the street)
is a terrifically tall tree whose top can still see the sun,
which convinces me that tomorrow will also have a dawn.

The Meaning of Compliments

So I wore a new dress today. Sort of. I also did my hair differently, but this story isn't about my hair, except that it might have magnified the effect of the new dress.

It wasn't a new, new dress. My mother made it. We picked out the pattern and fabric over a year ago. She gave it to me at Christmas, I think. And it's hung in my closet since then.

I knew it was a bit of a departure from my usual style when we picked out the pattern. But I thought I'd try something new. Once it was here, however, I was unconvinced.

The dress fit very nicely, and I love the way the skirt is. But the top is just a little odd, for me. Plus, it had these really long, skinny ties at the top. I'm not really a bow at the neck kind of person.

But today I was in the mood for something different. (That's been a theme lately, I guess. The new hair debuted on Thursday, simply from blow-drying differently.) So I decided to wear the dress, albeit with a black blazer over it, to cover the weirdness of the top, and the stringy ties tucked inside.

But, of course, this is the Heart of Dixie and it's not Labor Day yet, so the blazer was a delusion. It didn't even make it to Sunday School.

And here's the thing: I got a ton of compliments on my dress today. It really is a pretty cute dress. I'm sure I would totally love it on someone else. But the top still seems weird to me. (I tied knots in the strings and cut them shorter when I got home today. Sorry, Mom!)

But people seemed to like it a lot. Or else they just noticed that it's not much like the things I normally wear.

I am convinced that we're not always saying what we mean when we give someone a compliment. Usually compliments about clothing or hair follow a set pattern, which is "I like your ______." I'm not sure all of them did this morning, but that is the most common compliment.

What I think we really mean, a lot of the time, is "You are wearing something unusual, thereby taking a risk, and I admire the courage that demonstrates."

Which is also a perfectly lovely thing to say to people. And makes those "I like your shirt" comments make a lot more sense when they're said to people wearing horridly loud, ugly shirts.

The stock compliment is sometimes even preceeded or followed by an observation that the object in question is different. (When said about hair, this frequently though unintentionally leads the recipient to wonder if the complimenter usually doesn't like their hair.)

I'm not trying to slight the compliments I got today. I was grateful for them. Especially since no one except my husband mentioned my new hair the other day. I'm just saying that, frequently, we aren't saying what we really mean when we compliment people.

It doesn't really matter though, because the result is the same. I'm probably going to wear the dress a lot more often now.

We Need More Categories

A couple weeks ago I was talking with a friend about how "vacation time" is just not complicated enough. There needs to be vacation time and family time and travel time. Because those three things are not all the same, and yet, you have to take vacation to do any of them, and therefore, somehow, people expect you to return refreshed despite the chances being very slim that you actually were only sleeping in and reading novels the whole time.

Today was Saturday, and I spent most of the day at work. But I was doing "Saturday work". And in fact, I was doing two different kinds of Saturday work.

We had an actual Saturday thing going on where we walked around the neighborhood with doorknob flyers to invite everyone to our dedication service next week. So that was "real work" though of the Saturday quality, which means I got to wear jeans and a t-shirt.

But the rest of the day, I spent tidying my office. (HALLELUJAH!!! PRAISE JESUS!!! It was really a mess. There was mail in my inbox from 2009.) This is something that has needed to happen for ages, but it's not something I can effectively get done during the week. Because there are too many interruptions and too many other things that are seemingly more important.

But since it's Saturday, I'm not supposed to be doing those other, more important things. So I had the time to tidy my office.

Now, the thing is__the messier one's office gets, the more vital tidying it becomes. I suppose you could say my office reached a critical point where it became worth it to use "time off" to clean it. But shouldn't it also qualify as work?

So work needs more categories, just like vacation does. Because life is complex. I'm not complaining. I just like to be precise.

Sometimes It Doesn't Go Both Ways (Weekly Devotional Message)

Matthew 7:12 – “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

Proverbs 24:29 – Do not say, “I will do to others as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done.” (NRSV)

Most of us learned “The Golden Rule” early on in life. We are supposed to treat people the way we would like to be treated. This is a natural corollary of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Despite the technicality that some people may have different preferences than we do, this is a solid guideline for behavior. It offers a clear measure of whether our actions are right or wrong.

And yet, too often, we are tempted to twist it around into justification for bad behavior. “He did it to me first!” “She started it!” These are the cries of children, yet we act them out, even if we don’t say them out loud. We tell ourselves that if someone did such-and-such to us, that must be the way they want to be treated, so we can respond in kind.

The author of this saying from Proverbs knows about our tendency to rationalize this way. And he points it out for the lie it is. The Golden Rule doesn’t go in both directions. It is a standard for our behavior toward others, not a justification for our reactions to others. The truth is that we all fail at it much of the time. But the example of Jesus is one of forgiveness and grace. We are asked to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile, even if the other person will never in a million years do so.

Just like children, we are so often obsessed with fairness. But our preoccupation with what’s fair comes from our preference to judge other people’s behavior and not stay focused on our own. That is not what Jesus asks of us. When it comes to judgment, the gospel says MYOB – Mind Your Own Business!

Collect for the Week: Gracious and Loving God, who sent your Son to show us how to live your will, grant that our hearts might be filled with grace, mercy and love, that we might offer a gospel witness in the face of injustice and discord. Through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Amen

Pros and Cons

Hmm, does anyone know where that phrase comes from? The words aren't short for anything, right? They're just a Latin way of saying "fors and againsts"? Weird.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that last week my walking buddy and I finally got back to walking. This was a good thing. This week, we finally got back up to 3 miles. (From 2 and then 2.5.)

But then my walking buddy went to the beach. ("BUM!" Oh well.)

So today I walked by myself. And since I was by myself, I decided to walk through my neighborhood instead of on the indoor track where we usually walk.

There are many lovely things about walking outside through the streets instead of inside on a track. There are people's houses to look at, and their dogs to be barked at by. There are birds singing, and breezes blowing.

In my case, it's particularly helpful because we're going to be visiting the houses in this neighborhood on Saturday with flyers about our upcoming Service of Dedication, and this gave me a chance to notice anything we'd need to know in advance. (Not sure I did though. May have to try to notice things again tomorrow.)

Those are the pros.

And then there's the humidity.

Triumph!

It's September now!!!

The statement is obvious, I suppose, so I should clarify that the exclamation points are because September is my birth month.

And in honor of my birth month, I am going to try to blog every day again. I will warn you, however, that it's highly likely that "my birth month," as it's defined in my head, probably peters out very shortly after my actual birthday.

Then, of course, I will be leaving town for a week, so that will complicate things, won't it?

Anyway, one of the things I thought I would share, as I approach a number that feels more significant than some (like the last 2, for instance), is an observation I made while on a road trip last month.

I was driving along, possibly cleaning my teeth, when I suddenly realized that my gums are a whole new color than they used to be. That is to say, they are finally the pale pinkish, healthy color they're supposed to be. This is astounding to me.

Remember back in January, when I blogged about a list of potential resolutions someone suggested that weren't very hard but could actually make your life a lot better?

Flossing was at the top of that list. And I wanted to do it. But I usually just assume that I will fail at that sort of thing.

But in June when I was at the dentist, my hygienist actually said my gums looked good. That surprised me, but I was so distracted by my first cavity that I didn't really check it out.

So there I am, driving up the highway in Illinois, and I suddenly noticed she was right. My gums look great! I must be flossing more than I realized.

I think the trick was trying hard for long enough to get my mouth used to the feeling of being flossed, so that not being flossed feels wrong, like something that needs to be fixed. (This is quite possibly the secret to any long-term keeping clean project. I wouldn't know.)

Anyway, as I approach this particular birthday, it feels like a minor triumph to know that I've finally overcome (at least temporarily) my life-long unhealthy gums problem.

Did any of you really need to know that? I suppose not. But Happy Birth Month to Me!

Define My New Metaphor

According to more professional bloggers, nothing gets things going on a blog like a contest. I'm pretty sure they mean contests with actual prizes, which this one is probably not going to have. Oh well.

It's been a really, long week full of many things. But for some reason, as I was powering down by reading facebook, it occurred to me that somewhere in professional ministry, there has to be a sort of situation that should be euphemistically referred to as "changing diapers".

It could mean a lot of things. But, minister friends and bold, honest lay folks, what do you think it should mean? In the context of ministry, that is?

I will declare a winner, some day after some people have made suggestions. The prize is probably non-existent, but who knows? If you inspire me enough, perhaps I will come up with one!

bleh

I did not have a good morning. Oh, I suppose it had its moments. But my sermon was lousy and the visitors are not coming back and the copy machine was cranky and the stapler ran out and the microphone was distracting me.

I was going to blog about that some. About visitors, specifically, and the weirdness of them and their effect on me. But I'm too grouchy.

Instead here are some interesting links. Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about medical abortions. It's rather bold and revolutionary.

The NYT also has an interesting article about "The Un-Divorced". I clicked on it, just to see if it was about boringly married people. But it's not. It's about people who are separated from their spouses but not divorced, for years and years. Pretty interesting. My first reaction is "Why don't those people who call gay marriage a threat to marriage get mad about this?" But my second reaction is "Yet another reason why we all ought to just mind our own business. Life is complicated."

The Challenges and Abuses of Story Preaching

So last Sunday, I further exploited that young boy who wanted a Bible and made him the foil in my sermon. It was apparently a big hit.

One person who complimented the sermon mentioned something about how stories really hold people's attention and bring the sermon to life.

And part of me became immediately defensive.

You see, I have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to preaching. I do not consider myself a story preacher. And I know people love stories, so I get defensive about it.

I've been thinking about this the last couple days, and I've come to a couple of new conclusions.

First of all, I think part of me is disdainful of story preaching because it has been so abused. Yes, Fred Craddock is great at it. But that's because Fred tells stories that make his point. But then he puts them in books and lets other people have access to them. And you end up with people just telling stories, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the scripture lesson or not. I hate that.

I have sensed that my generation of preachers has the same knee-jerk reaction to sermons that start with jokes. There are simply too many preachers out there who (still) feel obligated to start with a joke, no matter how unrelated, irrelevant or even offensive the joke may be. It seems like starting off on the wrong foot to me.

So part of the reason I don't tell stories very often in my sermons is because I have high standards for when it actually makes sense and is helpful to include one.

I'm pretty sure, however, that I have also thought of myself as not very good at incorporating stories into my preaching. I have felt, historically (can you use that word about your own life?) that I don't remember pertinent stories very well or even notice them when they're happening. (I have a feeling blogging is probably helpful in exercising that particular muscle.)

I also haven't really thought of myself as a great story teller.

Because I don't want to use stories that aren't mine and don't really connect, and because I feel like I don't hold onto the experiences that might connect, it's always felt like it would take a huge amount of work for me to become a story-telling preacher. It would involve a huge amount of cataloging that I simply don't have time for.

So mostly, my sermons don't tend to have stories in them. (I'm also aware that when they do, they tend to be 2 pages longer. But people don't tend to mind, because stories move faster.)

But here's what I've realized since Sunday. I am a decent story-teller. People were eating up tantrum boy, and it wasn't just him. I found the right ways to stretch the story out, maintaining suspense and sprinkling in my reflections and the gospel lesson in a nice balance. I can do drama. I can certainly do funny.

And I clearly didn't have any trouble recognizing the moment as it was happening as a preachable moment, nor did I have trouble remembering how it happened. In retrospect, the idea that I don't remember stories well is kind of bogus. I can sometimes recall conversations word-for-word, because my memory is very aural. So why would I think that about myself?

So here's my new theory about why I don't use stories more often: I don't get out enough for the right stories to happen to me.

Now, part of it is still memory. The perfect thing was that tantrum boy came into my life the week the lectionary directed us to Jesus' bizarre promise that those who ask shall receive. It was a perfect match. If I'd had to hold onto "I want a Bible!" for weeks until there was a passage it related to, I don't know if I would have. Then again, I might have abandoned the lectionary in order to use it right away.

But more than that, my life has become so circumscribed by my ministry that there aren't really stories happening that are particularly usable for sermons. It doesn't do, after all, to tell the congregation stories about each other. I don't have kids to do crazy things, which is probably many preachers' crutch. And my husband is the opposite of excited about showing up in sermons.

I have a feeling this realization means something about where I'm at in ministry right now and how I may need to shift some things back into a better balance. I need to get out more, for the sake of my preaching. And it may not be just me. It's probably most true of us preachers, but I think it could be true of the church in general.

This Is What Comes Before "Post-Racial"

As I hope you are aware, there has been quite a bit of brou-ha-ha lately about race and racism and race-baiting and, um, race-lying in the news lately. And really, there's been quite a lot of it for the last year and a half.

I think I may have figured something out about all that recently. When Barack Obama was elected president, people were (ridiculously) talking about how it would usher in a "post-racial" era of U.S. history. Of course, that didn't happen.

What has happened instead, and what has proved to be distinctly upsetting to a huge swath of people, is that Barack Obama's position as our first black president has forced white Americans to become acutely aware of our Whiteness.

For many white Americans, this is the first time that has really happened. Part of the definition of Whiteness in this country is not having to be aware of it. A huge part of privilege is getting to pretend that you are "normal". "I'm just a person," people will insist.

Picking the centuries-old scab off racism in this country is going to require people becoming aware of Whiteness. But it's not a particularly pleasant process, as evidenced by all the sturm und drang Fox news and their allies have been stirring up since November 2008.

It will be interesting, though, to see what a few years of this does to race-consciousness in America. We can only pray that heightened awareness of Whiteness will not lead to increases in white supremacy activities for most people (though it already has for many). If I had to guess, I would say that it could be the humorists and satirists that will save us again.

Maternal Pride

I believe I've talked a little bit before about ministry being somewhat like parenting. Like as close to parenting as I'm ever going to get, God willing.

Another instance just now...

I was thinking about the achievements (though I hesitate to use that word) of the members of my congregation lately, particularly the community prayer garden that they built. This past week, some finishing touches were completed that really tied it up with a bow. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Bows don't belong in gardens.) And I was, internally, beaming with pride just thinking about it.

I am so proud of them. I mean, they had a lot of help, from other people and the Holy Spirit. But they worked so hard. In the garden, one particular person worked and is still working so hard to make it amazing. And I'm afraid I'm being the kind of mother who assumes he knows that I love him. I'm truly not sure I've told him enough how incredible what he has done is. I should do that.

Confession: Better Late Than Never

I just read this opinion piece in the NYT about how to stop bullying. It was prompted by a new law in Massachusetts that tries to get schools to adopt stronger policies against bullying.

The article talks about different kinds of bullies, and I was convicted. This, for instance -- "plenty of friendly, responsible children dabble in mean behavior" -- could apply to many of us. But what about this? "A clique of preadolescent girls who form a club with the specific function of being mean to other girls."

So here's my confession. It's not that I've never told anyone this before, but I still feel guilty about it. More, I still feel confused about why it even happened.

In fifth grade, I was a founding member of the I Hate Laurie G. Club. I don't remember anything at all about why a couple friends and I started this club. Laurie was a distant-ish neighbor of mine, not a close friend, but not someone I remember having strong feelings about one way or another except in this specific incidence.

Honestly, if I can remember my feelings at all, I'm pretty sure I didn't hate Laurie G. It was just exciting to be part of a club with such a provocative, aggressive name. It's entirely possible Laurie was a randomly chosen target.

I have no memory of who the other club members were, though I could hazard some guesses. But since I get to be "anonymous" here (yeah, right), I'll let those guesses remain undisclosed.

So, I know nothing about our motivation. I know nothing about who else was involved. My primary memory is of exactly where in the middle school building we were standing when we got chewed out by our teacher. The IHLG Club didn't last more than a couple of hours. I don't know whether Laurie was the one who told on us, or whether someone else came to her aid. What's amazing to me is that she didn't retaliate.

I was generally, I like to think, a pretty nice kid. I was taught to defend the weak and vulnerable. I was taught right from wrong. I was taught to respect others, even if they weren't my friends. I was not a bully. But I bullied, at least this one time. I have no idea where this random, narrowly targeted cruelty came from. No idea. But I'm really sorry for it.

Part of me wants to ask Laurie if she remembers this episode, and tell her I'm sorry. I know I could find her on facebook, because I've seen her respond on other people's updates. But it seems like it might be rude to bring it up. Then again, perhaps my hesitation is cowardice. What do you think? Should I contact her?