How to prevent a Zoom-tidy life

Here's my article for the July magazines:

My July article is usually on a theme from the musical production that the children are doing at school, but for obvious reasons this year they won't be doing one. However, if the juniors at Broughton Primary School had been doing one, it would have been Mary Poppins, so that's what I'm going to write about!!

One of the most memorable moments in the film, at least for me as a child, is the scene where Mary Poppins tidies the nursery by clicking whilst singing “A Spoonful of Sugar”. How I wished that I could tidy my room just by clicking, and indeed I still wish I could! Anyone who has been into my study will know that tidiness isn't one of my superpowers!

The lockdown restrictions have meant that so much work and socialising has been done online via video conferencing platforms, and so our homes can be seen by many people who would not otherwise see them. This has lead to a new word being coined: 'Zoom-tidy' – which is where your room is a complete mess apart from the area that can be seen by the camera on video calls, so all those you're speaking to think your house is really tidy even if the opposite is true. It's the modern equivalent of keeping one room in the house that was only used when special visitors (like the Vicar) visited, and getting the best china out to serve them tea.

But we don't just Zoom-tidy our homes, we also Zoom-tidy our lives by projecting the image of ourselves that we want people to see, and only revealing those parts of our lives that fit in with that image. A technique that life coaches or self-help books might use to explore our relationship with others is the Johari Window or house. This contains four areas or rooms where Room 1 is the part of ourselves that we see and others see; Room 2 is the aspects that others see but we are not aware of; Room 3 is our private space, which we know but keep from others; and Room 4 is the unconscious part of us seen by neither ourselves nor others. So Room 1 is the Zoom-tidy part of our lives and Room 3 is the part of our lives that we keep hidden.

The problem with this, and all self-assessment techniques, is our incredible ability to deceive ourselves and also our difficulty in acting in the best interests of others, therefore the answers we give and others give to us will likely be inaccurate. So the only way to prevent a Zoom-tidy presentation of ourselves is to hear from someone who knows all the facts and will also act in our best interest. The only candidate for that is the Almighty God, our heavenly Father, to whom, as we often say in our services, all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden. In his loving presence we can admit our faults and failings and he assures us that he will forgive us and clean us up on the inside (1 John 1:9 and Psalm 51). It may be tough medicine to take but the help of the Holy Spirit is more than enough sugar to help it go down!