Ron Ferguson laments modern-day emotional incontinence.

TODAY, dears, I want to talk to you about incontinence. (Sharp intakes of breath throughout the land.) For anyone over the age of 39, which I am – “Impossible!” I hear you cry as you look at my photograph – this is a subject that is too close for comfort, so to speak.

Now, incontinence is no laughing matter – though there is a splendid Monty Python skit on Olympic Games for Incontinents; in one race, when the starting gun is fired, the contestants all sprint towards the bushes.

The incontinence I’m talking about in this worthy column is not physical, but emotional, incontinence. “What is this deranged galoot from the North on about noo?” I hear you cry irascibly. Well, I am about to explain, after I’ve been to the loo.

If you use a computer, you cannot fail to have noticed the ever-encroaching abundance of celebrity gossip. Its language is increasingly hysterical. “This photo” – usually of someone’s bum – “will make your jaw drop”. Not only that, it will literally make your jaw drop. The dropping of one’s jaw is apparently mandatory nowadays, however asinine the picture actually is.

Put down your Life and Work for a moment, gentle reader, and go over to your mirror. Practice dropping your jaw. I tried it, and nearly dislocated my jaw. I hope this little experiment has not required the intervention of paramedics, as well as scaring your dug. Reading Life and Work can be dangerous.

I’ve already drawn attention to the fact that nowadays if someone asks you how you are, you’re supposed to reply ‘awesome’; this means that when something truly awesome – such as a direct experience of God – happens, you have run out of language to talk about it. (Mind you, I suppose you can just make your jaw go up and down and take a selfie.)

We need to provide a context for all of this. For many generations, the so-called ‘stiff upper lip’ was lauded. (Trying to keep a stiff upper lip while dropping your jaw would be quite a physiological challenge. Go back to the mirror…) Men in particular were expected to be stoic and unemotional, even in the face of tragedy. Big Boys Mustn’t Cry. I know of one Scottish writer who, sitting at his father’s deathbed, was determined to give his old dad a hug, for the first time ever. His alarmed old-school faither quickly pre-empted this move by shaking his son’s hand. How do you do. Deary me.

Is emotional constipation better than emotional incontinence? No, not really. I don’t much like either. The first time I saw men hugging each other was in 1967 at Haifa airport. Jewish men returning home were greeted with exuberant embraces and tears and laughter. I thought it was beautiful. (Mind you, hugging is currently creating problems for lots of men. Who do you hug, and who do you not hug? What’s the approved etiquette?)

“Christianity is at heart a grounded incarnational religion, involving body, mind and spirit. Christ has set us free: but after 2000 years the church is still trying to work this one out.”

And what about the exchange of peace at communion services? This supposedly loving encounter manages to create embarrassment and awkwardness, collisions and other forms of Presbyterian carnage. Oh happy day!

Christianity is at heart a grounded incarnational religion, involving body, mind and spirit. Christ has set us free: but after 2000 years the church is still trying to work this one out. Watch the tortuous action. It may even drop your jaw.