Plenary, 05 Mar 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Official Report 408KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, which will be led by Jane Bentley of the Scottish Inter Faith Council youth steering committee.

When friends and colleagues of mine asked me what I was up to today, the best explanation I could come up with was: "Well, it's like ‘Thought for the Day'—but scarier." However, time for reflection also suggests time apart; it suggests time to regroup and draw breath before getting on with the business of the day.

At our youth committee meetings, we begin with a minute of silence, which allows each of us to pray or to meditate in the way that is most appropriate to each of our faith traditions. Across all faiths, a value is given to setting apart time in which we can reflect on our lives, our communities and our relationship to the mysteries of existence. Rather than being a retreat from practical engagement, it becomes a way of grounding engagement, of seeing the bigger picture and of sharing our visions for a better world.

The theologian Sigmund Mowinckel called such actions "world-making". In intentionally taking time to reflect on the gap between the world as it is and the world as we think it could be, we ourselves are changed in the process.

So let us take time for reflection.

Let us pause to be thankful for those who first inspired us through sharing their vision of the world and, in doing so, were part of our shaping.

Let us remember with gratitude those who mentored us, guided us or simply gave us a chance and helped us to see the gap between what we were and what we could be.

Let us acknowledge the times in our life when we have fallen short of this potential, not only in what we might achieve but in who we are.

Let us take time to reflect on our hopes and visions for our communities, for Scotland and for our world.

Let us remember situations where we might feel powerless or where resolution seems impossible.

Let us remember situations that we are in danger of forgetting because of the long process of rebuilding and reconciliation needed.

Let us remember situations that provoke our conscience, because they require change on our part.

Let us remember situations where we act and see the effects of work already done—our visions made reality.

And let us remember one another in all our competence, frailty, insight, vision and frustration. Let us value our time for reflection—and world-making.