This week’s Read of the Street is on the theme of reflection. An activity we all benefit from always. In a country that is full of woe and stress for many reasons, it is something we ought to do.
Our mind digs furrows for our thoughts to travel along. If we are not careful, they become entrenched and it becomes difficult for us to open our mind and therefore our heart to different perspectives. This can be harmful for ourselves if those pathways are self-criticism or doubt. Or, worse even, anger at others.
I read somewhere once that the Sanskrit word for ‘worry’ was the same as that for ‘funeral pyre’, because one burned the dead while the other burned the living.
Nelson Mandela is said to have taken the thought further; “resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies”.
At the beginning of every session of the Scottish Parliament there is a four minute ‘Time for Reflection’. In my sole term there from 1999 I always enjoyed these moments. The first was delivered by The Reverend Graham Blount who opened thus:
“I will now read some words from Psalms, which express the common ground of Christian and Jewish faith, and from the new hymn book that celebrates the common ground of faith shared by the Scottish Churches:
“If the Lord does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless; if the Lord does not protect the city, the sentries stand guard in vain. In vain you get up earlier, and put off going to bed, sweating to make a living—since he supplies the need of those he loves.”
“Let us build a house where prophets speak, And words are strong and true; Where all God’s children dare to speak, To dream God’s reign anew . . .
He closes with the end of the psalm: ”Let us bring an end to fear and danger, All are welcome, all are welcome in this place.”
Sometimes it is hard to dare to speak, and to be heard, amidst the cacophony of anger that increasingly demeans our public space. We all should reflect on that and what it means. And whether we are of religion or none, as we gaze ahead and ‘guess and fear’ we should luxuriate our minds in the words of that psalm spoken by Reverend Blount 21 years ago, ‘all are welcome in this place”. It would do us all good.