Plenary, 19 Feb 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Official Report 901KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good morning. To lead our time for reflection this week I welcome the Rev Marion Dodd, who is the parish minister of Kelso Old and Sprouston.

I thank you, Sir David, for the opportunity to be here, and I congratulate you on your elevation to a higher seat in this chamber come May.

To all members I say that you and I have something in common, quite apart from the fear and trepidation of standing up here for the first time. We share a common task; we spend a lot of time standing up in front of people pontificating, although my ‘p' verb is perhaps different, but not very different, from pontificating. In the nature of that task, members and I are subject to scrutiny and—let it be said—occasional criticism for the things that we come out with.

I would think, however, that the similarity ends there, because I am very good at getting things wrong when I stand up to speak—although I suspect that there might be one or two people here who identify with me. The longer I am in my job, the more I realise that getting things wrong is not in itself a crime; mistakes are part of the human lot. What matters—especially to people who are in the public eye—is how we handle those mistakes and how we cope with the fact that we are human and can get things wrong. Winston Churchill once said:

"Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

Often, I find myself standing up in front of a congregation, a school or other group of people and coming out with something that I realise makes no sense at all. However I have long since learned that it is best to carry on as though nothing has happened. It is surprising—is it not?—how few people notice.

When it comes to the bigger blunders, which people notice, we have to take stock. Whether it is just a matter of my dealing with the aye-beeners and members dealing with hecklers who just do not like what we do, or if we really have got it wrong, we must recognise our responsibility to others and we must listen to our consciences. I find it interesting to see how people in the Bible coped with such problems, so I will give three examples. One is from right at the beginning: Adam and Eve went against the rules and ate the fruit that was forbidden—they got it wrong. So how did they react? First Adam, then Eve tried their hardest to apportion blame to someone else—a very human way in which to react.

We can skip a few hundred years to a fellow called Jacob, who was the son of Isaac. Jacob did the dirty on his brother Esau; he persuaded him to sell his birthright—which was, in those days, vital to a first child—for a mere bowl of soup. When Jacob was found out, he ran away, which was also a very human way to react. Neither Adam nor Jacob could face up to the responsibility of getting it wrong.

Much further on in the Bible we have a different example, of a man who had done nothing wrong, but who took other people's blame on himself, the man whose name people love to take in vain—Jesus Christ. Far from accusing others of their mistakes, and very far from running away from his own responsibilities, he made it possible for people to deal with their consciences and to turn a wrong into a right. He was a great politician, even though he was crucified for it. He is the yardstick that I use when I try to deal with the things that I get wrong.

May God bless your work, especially in these difficult times.