Plenary, 18 Jun 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Official Report 406KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is Michael Burns, parish priest of St Ninian's Catholic Church in Edinburgh.

I feel that I have prepared all my life to say what I am about to say and it can be summarised in two words: people matter.

It was 1986, Waverley Street in Bathgate, and I arrived at the home of two elderly sisters, Margaret and Janet. Yes, I have changed their names. The door was open. I knocked on it and shouted, "Hello, hello, it's Michael Burns. I'm the new parish priest."

A reply came immediately, "Come away in, son."

I walked along the lobby and entered a simply furnished living-room. I saw Janet and Margaret sitting facing each other on either side of a coal fire.

"Hello ladies," I said. "I'm the new parish priest. Who are we going to talk about?"

"We'll talk about me," said Janet. She was noticeably blind.

"Okay," I said. I picked up the only other chair in the room and placed it beside Janet. I could see that Margaret was not too pleased that Janet was getting all the attention.

"So what are you going to tell me?" I asked.

She said, "I'm 43. No, I'm 45. No."

That was the beginning of a stream of partial consciousness that continued for a while until her sister, Margaret, could no longer stand her frustration and said, "She's 92."

That was the beginning of several hilarious yet homely chats with two Bathgate worthies, who unfortunately have since left us to continue the conversation with their maker.

As I continue to meet elderly people in houses, apartments and nursing homes near here in 2003, that first visit to Margaret and Janet stays with me. It informs each encounter and each meeting. Margaret and Janet invite me today to practise what I preach. The door was open. There was no obstacle between them and every other human being. They were undefended.

"Come away in, son." They invited a stranger to walk right into their hearth and home. They did not hide their vulnerability. Two people with few resources demonstrated a high level of trust.

Janet was blind. She sat on her side of the fire, with an open front door, without the capacity to see anything or anyone—as open as a book. I design my own blindness. From behind my closed door, I filter out the disturbing words of the other person and as they speak I reload for my next assault. Wid God the giftie gie me that I could assert and at the same time remain open to all different kinds of people.

God of all peoples, help us bring a sense of community, a capacity to be interdependent with one another and a level of deep trust into the most passionate debates held in this chamber, the European forum and the theatre of an emerging United Nations.