This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Last Sunday, I was mulling over one of my Life Ledger. I do this when I have to sit still longer than five minutes in an environment that promises to be boring. Like church.

My accounts ledger is really just a series of lists, like "Ten Best Songs from High School" and "Top 20 Favorite Novels" and "Fifteen Things That Happened to Me That Still Hurt."

In this particular Sacrament meeting, the list on my mind was "Fifty People I Would Want to See Kicked to Death by Chickens." It's a big list, I know. And it changes a lot, which is why it has to be recalculated so often.

As you might imagine, those on the Death by Chicken list are people I don't like, people who've done me wrong, or who pose serious threats of doing so in the future.

The Chicken Death List contains names of former teachers, missionary companions, Army sergeants, assorted bureaucrats, criminals, ex-neighbors, lots of politicians, Ramona from third grade, and at least three Tribune colleagues.

Here's the irony. I was sorting through this list of people I hate, when I heard the speaker mention something about the poisonous nature of grudges.

The speaker was Mike Weist, a neighbor and father of brothers in my nursery class whom we refer to as the "Weist mafia."

According to Mike, grudges are in fact a form of soul-robbing sin. We're not supposed to hate someone just because they've done us wrong. Yes, even if it was on purpose.

Ideally, we're supposed to find some way of letting go of our grudges, of getting past them in order to spend that energy on more positive things.

Stupid church. Why are all the things I'm really good at considered sins? Unforgiving? Nobody is better at that than me. In fact, Satan hired me as a consultant.

Are you having trouble holding onto a grudge? If you don't take care of them, sometimes they'll go away on their own. I can help.

I learned about grudge-holding from the Old Testament. In that book, God teaches us the importance of holding a grudge for thousands of years, visiting disaster on offenders and down through their unsuspecting generations. You have to admire that kind of discipline.

Being mere mortals, it's tougher for us. There are three elements of proper grudge-holding. First is taking offense over something. It can be anything, including stuff that didn't really happen. The beauty of this is that you don't even have to wait for someone to offend you. It's possible to just imagine it.

Example: "LaVerneece wouldn't let me borrow that blouse because she thinks it won't fit me. She might just as well have called me fat."

Second, you have to nurse a grudge in order for it to grow and fester. The best way to do this is by revisiting the offense in your mind as often as possible. It's a way of keeping the wound fresh.

Example: "It's 11:02 a.m. again. That's the exact time of day 18 years ago that DeMelvin didn't thank me for helping him find his cows."

Third, and perhaps most important, is to carry in you the satisfaction experienced if/when something bad happens to the object of your grudge.

Example: "She didn't wait for me while I was on my mission and now she's getting divorced. Good. That'll show her."

Follow these simple steps and you'll have a beautiful grudge to carry in your heart until it ruins your life and the lives of everyone who has to put up with you.

Speaking of which, I have to go find a place on my list for Mike.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.