No, really. I DO hate to tell you this. Don’t worry – it’s not for your own good; it’s for mine. Well, maybe it will do you good, too – I never know what effects my scribblings may have.

Have you ever done the science experiment tasting a bit of paper that’s been treated with phenylthiocarbamide (PTC), a chemical that only some people can taste? For those who can’t taste it, the paper just tastes like paper did when we ate those magazines as toddlers. For those of us who can taste the chemical, though, the paper’s taste is bitter and entirely unpleasant, screwing up our face and making us want to spit the paper out and go rinse with something to take the taste away.

At the writers’ conference in April, one of the speakers, Tony Kriz, gave us a list of 10 questions he asks himself before publishing any piece of writing. (Tony is a challenger of the too-content, too-settled, and too-tradition-bound; find him at www.TonyKriz.com , or check out his books Aloof: Figuring Out Life With a God Who Hides, Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places, Welcome to the Table: Post-Christian Culture Saves a Seat for Ancient Liturgy.) Two of the questions prompted a soul reaction just as that PTC-treated paper caused a sensory reaction: I wanted to spit them out and go gargle with something more pleasant!

Over the next few weeks, I did, in fact, try to find something to distract me from them, or find mental justifications why they didn’t apply to me – or maybe only just a little bit. The attempt was an unmitigated failure. Those questions had burrowed into my soul to stay, so it was obvious that they weren’t being posed by Tony, although his was the mouth through which they were delivered. Questions that spark this kind of reaction can only come from the LORD. I resigned myself that they were either going to just sit there and gnaw at me, or I was going to have to look them in the face. O.U.C.H.

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to confess in generalities? We’re all comfortable confessing “I’m not perfect”, or admitting that “I make mistakes”, because no one on earth can deny the truth of those statements in their own instance.   There may even be particular sins or short-comings we don’t mind confessing. For example, I don’t mind copping to being too impatient or owning up that I really shouldn’t have eaten that third piece of pie, because I’m in such good company on those offenses.  Getting down to the personal, however, is another story altogether!

The two questions that are eating away at me are “Am I making myself the hero of my own story?” and “Have I thrown anyone under the bus?”

The answer to both is … um … not a negative? – and not just in my writing, either. I’d rather leave the admission of guilt at that – amorphously vague – but since some of the offenses have been splattered all over the pages of the Solution, it’s only fitting that some of the mea culpas also be shared in this venue.

Humble pie is on the menu – but at least the extra servings won’t make the scale creep up….