ALL-AROUND NICE GUYS

BY GARRETT FIELDING

THE BULLYING started with name-calling and basketball stealing on the courts at lunchtime. Then my group of fellow eighth-grade friends began picking on almost anyone from the lower grades who crossed their path.

I was disappointed my friends were making the basketball courts such a miserable place to be. And although I wasn't participating in their bullying, I felt embarrassed to hang out with these guys. It seemed like they were copying a group of eighth graders from the year before who had also wanted to prove their "power" simply because of their age. Even though I didn't want to lose my friends, separating myself from them for a while seemed like the right thing to do.

I decided to pray for God's guidance and for the courage face this situation each day at school. For me, prayer has always been a reliable and consistent way solve any problem. In the Christian Science Sunday School class I attend, we often talk about how God made us all naturally loving and full of integrity, as His reflections. I thought about the God-given qualities that my friends naturally expressed, such as love, compassion, kindness, respect, and mercy. I also knew it wasn't my job to fix my friends' behavior—I just needed to correct how I was thinking about them. I didn't want to label them as bullies, because normally they were really friendly guys.