Plenary, 12 Dec 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Official Report 405KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Jack Glenny, from Greenock and Paisley presbytery.

It is now approaching 20 years since the small Scottish town of Lockerbie was the scene of the dreadful disaster that befell Pan Am flight 103. As a customs officer, I was in charge of a team operating a mobile X-ray vehicle at that very harrowing scene. Two little cameos will live in my mind for ever. In one, I saw a big powerful police sergeant who had been working steadily in the hurriedly set up mortuary. Among the bodies, he came upon that of a child, and it was too much for him. As he emerged from the mortuary, his shoulders slumped, his face crumpled and he wept. It is pretty disconcerting to see a big Scottish policeman weep: all those around him felt helpless. Then a small, grey-haired, wiry little woman from the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, who was serving teas, came forward and put her arm round the officer. She spoke gently to him, as she would to a child. Everyone shuffled and lowered their eyes—they knew now what was needed, and she had done it.

My second memory is of a suitcase, battered and torn. It held a bottle of very expensive Scotch whisky which had, despite having fallen 7 miles out of the sky, remained intact. As we all marvelled at that, the bottle fell from a table that was barely 3ft high and shattered at our feet.

Both those scenarios prompted me to think. Firstly, I thought of the strength that was so obvious in the policeman and then of the strength of a glass bottle that could fall 7 miles and remain unbroken and yet whose frailty caused it to shatter after the shortest of drops. I thought of how the officer, despite his powerful frame, could crumple completely when confronted with fear—the fear that was etched on the face of a dead child—and how the comfort and reassurance of a frail elderly woman restored his strength and, indeed, the strength of all who were there.

It is through such simple and spontaneous actions that we can obey the command of Jesus Christ,

"that you love one another as I have loved you."

The message in this for you members of this great Scottish Parliament is that, as elected servants of our country, you can harness the power that our nation possesses and yet be aware of its fragility; you can guide us through the work of the Parliament and yet remain strong enough to seek the comfort that is afforded by those who have vested their power in you.

May he who showed his strength as he suffered on the cross, but whose human weakness caused him to weep at the tomb of Lazarus, be with you as you serve our nation, and may we love one another as he loved us.