Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Official Report 893KB pdf

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon, and welcome to today’s proceedings. As members will be aware, we are now practising social distancing throughout the building. We have removed chairs in the chamber to ensure that members are sitting a safe distance apart. It is very important that Parliament continues to function at this time but that it does so while we observe the vital public health message of keeping a safe distance. Those rules apply to me, here on the podium, so I apologise to colleagues on the left-hand side of the chamber who cannot quite catch my eye.

The rules also apply to our time for reflection leader, who has been asked to deliver his message from the Presiding Officer’s gallery. I welcome the Rev Iain May, the minister of south Leith parish church in Edinburgh.

I am speaking to you from on high. [Laughter.]

Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon. Recently, I was talking to the students and staff of Leith academy, in my parish of south Leith, here in Edinburgh, as they ended their term. I said that they need to look after their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their school and the community in which they live, especially in these challenging times due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In seeking that, I asked them to treat themselves and their physical body with care—to treat their body and what they put into it with the same respect as they would have for any special or sacred space. In the Christian tradition, as in most faith traditions, God expects us to do so. In Christianity, we are asked to see our bodies as a sacred temple—a place that is special and should not be abused or treated with disrespect.

That made me think of this special place. This seat of government is, indeed, a special place. This place, if you do not mind my saying so, is a temple—a temple of responsibility, wisdom and decisions. I hope and pray that what is said and what is decided in this place will always have a positive effect on those within it and, more important, on those outside, in our community and in our nation. If we believe that that is the case, we must treat ourselves, our colleagues and our fellow members with respect. Then we, as individuals, the body of Parliament and those whom this temple represents will, indeed, flourish.

Regardless of whether you have a faith or no faith, we all need to flourish. I ask you, as members of the Scottish Parliament, to think about what you will absorb and take in from your debates this day. Think about all that you have taken in over the years that many of you have spent in this place. Reflect on the many wise—and, unfortunately, at times, unwise—words that might have been said in this place. Use those memories and words to become the body of wisdom and responsibility that you are asked to be by those who sent you here.

I hope and pray that you will flourish, that this special place will flourish and that our nation and all within it will flourish as well.

Thank you.