Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Scott Rennie, the minister of Queen’s Cross parish church in Aberdeen.
Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, we meet in this week when thousands all over Scotland, indeed all over the world, will recite the poetry and celebrate the life of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national bard, who through his skill of pen offered insight into life and the lot of humanity.
Rightly celebrated, Burns is not always a comfortable read for politicians or indeed clergy—or at least he should not be. He speaks the truth to power, often mocks the establishment and, through his more satirical poetry, points out the faults of those who are in authority. As with all good poets, the insights that he shares about human nature transcend time.
Both humility and good manners prevent me from dwelling on what Burns has to say about politicians, but in matters spiritual I may dare to tread. Burns had a difficult relationship with the kirk and with institutional religion in his day, as many insightful people and prophets do. However, while his faith changed and matured in response to his own human experience and philosophical thought, all his life he retained a deep gratitude for his presbyterian upbringing, although he loathed the worst excesses of its Calvinism, especially Calvinism’s rather pessimistic view of human nature.
In 1788, he wrote to Mrs Dunlop:
“I am in perpetual warfare with that doctrine of our Reverend Priesthood, that ‘we are born into this world ... slaves of iniquity and heirs of perdition; wholly inclined to that which is evil and wholly disinclined to that which is good’”.
Burns continued:
“I believe in my conscience that the case is just quite contrary. We came into this world with a heart and disposition to do good for it.”
Fundamentally, people are good, Burns proclaims—prone to selfishness and excess at times, yes, but of good nature nonetheless.
In a parliamentary agenda or a world outside that often seems shaped by difficulties, problems to solve and challenges to meet, when focusing on those problems, which are our responsibility to ameliorate or transform even, it is too easy to let them jaundice our view of humanity and blind us to the fundamental goodness of people all around us and the society in which we live.
In the realms spiritual and temporal, we must never allow ourselves to be so dogmatically sure that we lose sight of the common human worth and goodness that we share with others, especially those different to us. Indeed, when we recognise the dignity and goodness of each other as people, it will give us the very hope we need as we seek to overcome our challenges in our communities together.