Plenary, 02 Mar 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Official Report 407KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. Our first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection, which is led today by the Rev Fraser Aitken, minister of Ayr St Columba Church.

Whatever they are supposed to be, people in public positions are not supposed to be human. That observation has become increasingly more compelling the older I get. No one is perfect, but is not that the charm of one's wife, husband, partner or friend?

For me, perfection can be annoying. The vast expanse of my neighbour's superbly mown lawn makes one long for a single heroic dandelion. The hostess whose soufflés never fall, the spouse whose chequebook is always balanced and the conversationalist who is always right; those people do not encourage me to pursue perfection in my own chaos-filled life. Rather, they cause me secretly to wish public disaster to fall upon them.

Perhaps the ambiguity of perfection is that it is more fun wishing for it than having it. Mae West once said:

"I was pure as the driven snow, until I drifted."

Who would have it any other way? Any fool can live in paradise. It ought to be easy: no right or wrong, no sin, no error, no mixed motives, and no compromising opportunities. But this is not paradise and we are called to make our way here, making the most out of less than the best.

I was castigated recently by a parishioner who expects her local minister to be perfect in every way—no faults, no failings. She gave vent to her anger because I had failed to visit a neighbour who had been ill. I had simply forgotten. "I am going to give you a piece of my mind," she fumed. I am not sure that she could afford to be so generous, but I listened nevertheless and then as calmly and as graciously as I could, I replied in my defence, "But I make mistakes. I'm trying to go to heaven—I haven't come from there!"

Jesus reminds us that the perfection that we are encouraged to imitate will not reward our efforts with a perfect world. However, the virtue for the faithful, even if they achieve no other virtue, is that they seek and serve virtue because in so doing they fulfil, perfect and make complete the work and the will of God. That work is never done, which is why you and I, in our different spheres of activity, must ever be about doing it as we try to make Scotland a heaven upon earth, where each lives for the other, warts and all.