Pantsgate

Ho hum - the lessons we learn!

Yesterday was Tuesday for me, as it may have been for many of you. Tuesday is generally Assembly Day. As we are in the season the The Epiphany and given that I hadn't prepared any material (I wasn't down on the rota), and given that no-one else had anything either, I decided that a little Q&A of the Curate might be good - to outwork 'revealing'. 

I have done this before, and it has worked a dream - on to a winner thinks I!

First question: what was my favourite Christmas present? My cookery book said I [cue giggles and screams]

Second Question: What is my favourite game? Well, replied I, I like to play squash or Risk. Did you mean that sort of game? No, said the little mite. What is your favourite computer game. Of course, Cloake - you Luddite, what else would she have meant. I reported that although I am not fond of footy, despite claiming support for Manchester United [cue 'boo', lots and loud - so I rabble-roused the rest - much screaming and yelling - a normal assembly], I said that I like my Football Manager game on my iTouch quite a lot. I asked the same question of her. 

The assembly took this form for a while - part of the 'getting to know Farvah Dayvyd a little better', till the little chap asked the killer question: did I get any underwear for Christmas [cue meltdown of 300-odd kids]. Once order was restored, I commented that we all wear it after all, and that yes, I got socks (not sure if I did having said that, is that bad?) Amusingly (for me and the kids only, it seems), the issue of my undercrackers persisted. The inevitable follow-on questions then arrived like an estate-Mercedes at a rapper's party - with numbing inevitability!

And so it went like that for a few more minutes until I called time and got religious and made my point about the importance of taking an interest in others, asking questions, waiting for the answer - little Epiphanies and all that. Then I said a prayer and bolted. 

It seems that at least one of the kids is being led to the gallows for their crime of asking the vicar about his pants. Heads on sticks will surely greet me as I drive down the lane later. It is a useful lesson about well-meant actions and their consequences, and this clergy-person does sail close to the wind. I do 'noisy' assemblies, I hope fun ones - but my assemblies are generally eagerly anticipated and always theologically underwritten. Does it hurt to be a fool in a collar every once in a while?

If more collars were fools with kids from time to time, methinks our churches would be overrun - just an opinion!