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Good morning.

Like every day of the year, today has its own crop of significant anniversaries. But at least one event didn’t make the news headlines on this day. Not because it wasn’t significant, but because the people who knew about it didn’t want to make it public. It was only because the news was literally carried on the wind that the Soviet Union had to announce the catastrophic failure of the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl. To say that the engineers in charge had behaved irresponsibly would be a truly awful understatement. A discussion about how the cooling system would cope with a loss of external power might have been a sensible thing to do, but to actually try it, well, the results speak for themselves – the cooling system didn’t work, and the reactor exploded and the effects spread for hundreds of miles and lasted for years. But on the day of the meltdown, they said… nothing.

That desire to hide bad news isn’t confined to the old Soviet Union. None of us like to own up to mistakes. I know I find it easier to keep quiet when I’ve got something wrong rather than own up and face criticism – no matter how justified.

Wouldn’t the world be a better, more open, more honest place if we all made it a little easier for people to admit their mistakes? If you and I were a little more willing to forgive the faults of others, a little less censorious.

Even, perhaps, ready to help people put things right rather than stand on the sidelines and criticize.

Lord, give us the strength to bear one another’s burdens,

not least the burden of failure and error.

Give us the depth of charity that makes it easier for others to admit their mistakes,

that forgives in gentleness without sacrificing our own integrity.

Amen