Plenary, 19 Dec 2007

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Official Report 421KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, and our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Kathy Galloway from the Iona Community.

I want to know what makes your heart leap
I want to know what makes your soul sing
I want to know what keeps you believing
I want to know what keeps you breathing?
Christmas interrogates us!

Three years ago at Christmas, the Iona Community accepted an invitation from a church in the South African township of Gugulethu, where thousands are living with HIV/AIDS in the midst of great poverty. They sought someone to accompany them, to share the burden of understanding God's presence there and to wrestle with the question: in the midst of so much suffering and death, what does it mean to affirm life? We knew that, in order to approach that task with integrity, it was also a question for us in our lives, our Community and our nation.

We learned from the courage, faith and cheerfulness of people in Gugulethu. We reaffirmed the importance for our Community of walking with people, being alongside them in presence and compassion: survivors of domestic abuse, people who are ill, bereaved or marginalised and especially young people.

There are times when I have been close to the edge
drunk on memories of fists in my flesh
and haunted by darkness and screams of death threats

To be young in some parts of Scotland today is to have the expectation that your life will be poor, violent and short. The potential of too many young people—made in the image of God—is being lost. The Iona Community's Jacob project accompanies young offenders in the transition from prison to participating in the community. But young people also have great gifts to offer. Our youth associates have visited Palestinian and Israeli young people, raised money for bicycles for young refugees in Lebanon, learned about unsung peace initiatives and forged links of solidarity from a situation that we have come to associate with violence and death. We believe that there is no more important task than the accompaniment of young people—those at risk and those with great gifts to offer.

I wake now with the light warming my face
I wake now with laughter in my heart
I stop and notice with just one breath
that life is for living and I smile at death
so I can tell you what sustains me…

This is our Christmas hope and prayer for South Africa, for the Middle East and for Scotland.