Bloomers!

Rector's Letter - December 2000

 How would you like your bloomers to be seen in public?  Perhaps I should explain!  I got a phone call this week from the BBC.  In my last job I used to present a few TV programmes for them.  Would I mind if they used a few "out-takes" from my last series in something they're putting together… Auntie's Christmas Bloomers?

 They sent me a release form.  Evidently I have to give permission for my fluffed lines, naff delivery and general incompetence to be viewed by the great British public. "You record an opening link for a service from Derby and things go wrong" the official letter specified with humourless efficiency.

 "Things go wrong?" I mused, my life is full of "things going wrong".  I had to think hard what actually went wrong on that particular day.  At times my mistakes have taken on disastrous proportions, but as I recall, my day recording in the City of Derby provided mistakes more in the category: "to be forgotten after a brief period of time"…  Evidently not! 

 One of the themes of the season of Advent is God's coming Judgement, when all things will be revealed and we will have to answer for our sins and our mistakes.  I suspect God's file on me is even thicker than Auntie's.  Since my childhood I've had a mental picture that my judgement would involve a giant TV screen.  All the previously unseen out-takes would be shown.  Everything I've ever done exposed for the world to see.  Believe me, it's been a very effective motivator!

 When society loses any sense of an impending day of judgement, we privatise morality.  We don't usually expect to have to answer for what goes on behind closed doors.  Jesus told us that even our thoughts would come under God's scrutiny.  Morality is about who we are in every part of life, not just what we do in public.  If we separate private and public morals, what we produce is hypocrisy not morality.

 I don't know if my clips will make it to the final edit of Auntie's Bloomers, but the BBC has given me some interesting reflections along Advent themes.  Whatever you do in life, never forget, the camera is still rolling!

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