Plenary, 12 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Official Report 799KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

To lead our time for reflection we welcome the Rev Donald Reid, who is the director of the Scottish Civic Forum.

I am sure that the one thing on which we all agree is that we wish the people of Scotland to believe in themselves. Perhaps we are familiar with the occasional description of Scotland as a place where people have little self-confidence and lack self-belief. The question is: how can we change that?

Antony de Mello, the Jesuit guru, if you like, tells the story of a nomadic Bedouin tribesman whose task each evening after the day's journeys by the tribe was to tether the camels. One evening, after he had tied up 15 camels, he found that the 16th camel had lost its rope tether during the day, so there was nothing with which to tie it up. After being thrown by that for a moment, he realised that all that he had to do was go through the motions of tying up the camel. The camel saw that and believed it, and, sure enough, the camel appeared content to stay rooted to the spot. The next morning, the tribesman untied 15 camels for the day's journeys. The 16th camel refused to move until the tribesman went through the motions of untying it. After that, the camel felt that it was fine for it to move.

That reminds me of what I believe to be a prime task of the church and of faith communities: not to tether people, although I confess that they have often done that. The prime task is not to tether, but to free people. The prime task is not just to untie people, but to help them to perceive that, in terms of their human worth and their self-will, they are deeply free to be themselves and to say who they are. They would be free if only they would perceive that.

For all of us in public life or in any leadership position, the same choices arise about how to lead, how to exercise leadership in an empowering rather than a disempowering way and how to be part of the solution, not the problem. In what we call the new Scotland, the Parliament, our new institutions and all those who work in them can provide the way to rebuild slowly in ourselves as a nation and as individuals a means of unlocking people, of taking decisions not for them, but with them, and of helping people to believe that they are valued and that their future is in their hands. May whatever has given us the will to set out on this journey give us also the will to realise our vision.