Plenary, 24 Sep 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Official Report 358KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. As always on a Wednesday, the first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader is Father John Bollan from the religious education department of the University of Glasgow.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his invitation to lead this time for reflection. I am especially grateful, given that this is my second bite at the cherry, as they say.

I first came to the Parliament in September 2004, when the chamber had been in use for only a week. I recall the palpable sense of excitement at the newness of things—at the way a chair felt or a door worked. There was also a whiff of novelty in my own life: that very week, I had opened a new chapter as a teacher at the University of Glasgow. I hope that you will indulge me if I find the timing of this invitation providential. Here we are, four years down the road, with four years long having been considered as a key measurement of time. From the ancient Greeks with their Olympiads to the political life spans of the United States and Scottish Executives, four years has long been considered a good time for reflection.

Let us cast our minds back to September 2004 and to where we have been since then. Just as this building has been run in, so have you and I—indeed, so have we all. There are, of course, ways in which running in can involve a degree of running down. Like the chamber, bits of our public and private lives may have become slightly unstuck. Also, some things may not have worked out quite as we hoped they would, but such, as they say, is life. However, as each of us examines our conscience, can we call on a standard by which to measure our progress, or lack of it? Despite the different social, political and religious complexions of Scotland in 2008, is there common ground on which we can all meet? I think the answer is yes.

In the last pages of the Christian Scripture, in the book of Revelation, Christ himself addresses a sort of time for reflection. In the first place, he speaks to those in the church at Ephesus and praises their courage and perception—so far, so good. However, he adds a word of reproof, saying:

"I have this complaint to make: you have less love now than you used to."

There is the rub. Whether we are talking about the history of our nation or telling personal stories, there is no more essential measure of our progress, or lack of it, than to ask, "Am I more loving?" or, "Is Scotland more suffused with real and responsible charity?" If we can honestly answer those questions with a tentative yes, we can be sure that we are moving in the right direction. If I am ever given another invitation—unlikely though that is—to address the chamber, I look forward to tracing the onward and upward trajectory of Scotland's love for all its people and, indeed, our love for one another.