This is the script of this morning’s Pause for Thought on the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show with Scott Mills.
Well, this is going to be embarrassing, but I’ll go for it anyway.
The two telly programmes I have to watch these days are Strictly and The Traitors. If I’m out at the wrong time, I catch them later on iPlayer. So far so good. But, the embarrassing bit is that I can’t help but imagine myself taking part.
Now, dancing and me do not go together easily. A bit like horses flying. I was once in Khartoum in Sudan in a church service in 38 degree heat, the music playing and everybody dancing. I was robed as a bishop, standing behind the altar when my friend Ezekiel, the bishop of Khartoum, said to me: “Bishop, now we dance.” I replied: “Now you dance; I’ll pray for you.” At which point he grabbed my arm, pushed me forward and I shuffled with one hand in my pocket – a sort of dad dance – while he had rhythm.
So, I think Strictly is off the cards. No audience should have to watch that. Then there’s The Traitors. I’d be as hopeless as the rest of them at identifying the actual traitors. But, the fun bit would be being a traitor and not a faithful. And that wouldn’t go down well with my day job: lying, betraying and murdering are not in my job description, are they.
There’s no harm in imagining, though, is there? In fact, sometimes it’s really important to imagine ourselves into someone else’s skin. Not in order to play pretend games, but because imagination is the key to empathy. When Jesus told his friends they were to love their neighbor as themselves, he knew that this would begin with imagining what the ‘neighbour’s’ life was like: what life would sound like through their ears and look like through their eyes and feel like through their skin. Only then can we know how to speak and listen and behave if we want our neighbor to know they are loved.
So, with Strictly out and The Traitors too awkward, maybe I should apply for something else. Like playing for Liverpool on Match of the Day.