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Stripped for Action
The senior mistress was taking assembly. She was not one of your stereotypical senior mistresses; middle aged, bespectacled, slightly overweight, dressed in a knitted twin-set. This was a rather attractive younger woman and all the eyes of the testosterone challenged teenagers were upon her. She waxed lyrical about the merits of school uniform and then produced her visual aid to demonstrate what she had to wear when she went to grammar school. It was one of those cut-out figures that little girls used to dress up, except that it was life sized.
She slowly removed the mackintosh to show the gym slip beneath. The male members of staff began to fidget uncomfortably in their seats. Then off came the gym slip to reveal the regulation navy blue knickers and white vest. Being a keen observer of humanity, I looked at my colleagues around the school hall. The faces of the men varied in shade from pink to purple. All of them were sweating (except, of course, me). The women were smirking at the embarrassment of the men.
Anybody over the age of seven who finds voluminous navy blue knickers in the slightest way attractive needs aversion therapy or electric shock treatment with a cattle prod. My fellow teachers were not having erotic fantasies but being transported into a past which no longer existed; a past when dirty little boys revelled at the prospect of the girls having to strip off behind the blackboard, in order to do callisthenics. Their faces showed the shame of having once enjoyed it.
Perhaps, at this time of the year, we want to be transported into a past which no longer exists. We want it to be Christmass in 1950, or whenever, when we were children. But it cannot be so. We have grown up, we have passed that stage, there is no going back. Instead we have the adult celebration, when Advent precedes it and we watch and wait expectantly for the coming of the Christ child. For the children of this age there is still the old magic but they do not think as we, who have grown old, do. Jesus came into our lives and stayed there. We no longer have to stare into an empty crib to imagine his coming into the world. He is with us now, and always.
May God bless you all, Fr. Allan
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