Plenary, 27 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 27, 2000

Official Report 388KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

To lead our time for reflection today, I am delighted to welcome the former MP for Galloway, now Father George Thompson, the parish priest of St Peter's Catholic church, Dalbeattie.

Thank you, Sir David.

When my grandmother burned her girdle scones, she would cut up the farls as usual for the tea table but set them on the plate so that the unburned bits were turned towards her guests and the burned towards herself. She would say, "Aye turn the bonnie side tae London." Today, I hope that the Scottish housewife in similar plight would say, "Aye turn the bonnie side tae Embro!" I will do my best this afternoon.

In St John's gospel, it is written that:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"—

and later that:

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

What a taciturn God: just one Word, while we live in a world awash with words. Yet here am I adding more to the ocean and, after I am gone, I dare say that some of you will be pouring in more.

Poets, politicians and priests are some of the folk whose trade is in words. Poets are craftsmen—wordsmiths. They hone and chisel at their words until they have expressed as nearly as they can the beauty that has gripped them and the precise meaning that they intend to convey.

Politicians and priests often have neither the inspiration nor the time to hone and chisel at their words until they approach perfection. Politicians sometimes find their wordcraft rushed and botched by the need to get into tomorrow's papers. Great poetry will never be written in soundbites, though they might affect the composition of our next Scottish Parliament—or so, at least, our soundbiters hope.

Priests do not usually find their words dissected in tomorrow's papers, and certainly not in an era when our national newspapers feel able to do without religious affairs correspondents. Yet priests are aware that they will have to answer for misuse of words to the Word made flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

If our torrential output blunts the cutting edge of words, where will poets, politicians and priests find the language that we will need, when we have to convince our respective constituencies of the urgency of matters of life and death for our planet and our species, such as the reckless depletion of non-renewable resources, the folly of the arms trade and the destruction of the environment? If we accustom folk to the use of weasel words in everyday matters, where will we find the clear, clean, precise and honest words that we will need then to carry conviction?

Language has made us human beings. Let us treasure it. Let us care for it. Let us seek to leave it more humane than we found it.

Now a prayer:

God, you have given us your Word to be with us forever. Grant us the grace to use our human words for your glory and for the upbuilding of the community of Scotland in freedom, justice and peace. We ask this through him who is your Word to us and our word to you, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Finally a blessing, which I give to you with all my heart and, through you, to everyone who lives in Scotland:

May the peace and blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, come down upon you all and remain with you forever.

Amen.