Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 20 September 2022
In the past few days, it has been hard not to be moved by the words written in the book of Ecclesiastes:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted ...
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance”.
Even if we do not have faith, the poetry of that speaks to the collective experience of the past days, as people across our communities have sought to respond to the death of the longest-serving monarch in our nation’s history, and as a family has mourned a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
Across West Scotland, constituents have cried and laughed as they shared their memories of the Queen and her many visits in the cause of the service to which she pledged herself at such a young age, and which she carried out faithfully until just 11 days ago. Whether she was launching ships on the Clyde at Port Glasgow, opening the Tannahill community centre in Paisley or visiting factories in Irvine, people remember where they were, each word of the conversation that they had and, of course, how they felt when they met her in their own towns and villages.
The Queen was the great constant in our ever-changing world, giving a sense of certainty in a world that is all too often uncertain, and enduring with people and places in good times and bad. I was struck, when listening to the service of thanksgiving from Belfast cathedral last week, when the Archbishop of Armagh, John McDowell, said that there were two people whose deaths we could never imagine: our own and the Queen’s. That blend of constancy and touching of so many lives is why her loss has been so keenly felt, even by people who have no connection to, or belief in, a constitutional monarchy. There has been a real sense of an era ending.
In that Belfast service, we were also able to reflect on the Queen’s commitment to peace and reconciliation. Her leadership in letting go of the past, no matter how painful, and in acknowledging difference and using symbols and language as a way of showing respect and understanding, have helped to make the unthinkable become reality. As someone who shares British and Irish citizenship, I thank her for that. We all still have much to learn about the power of rooting ourselves in forgiveness, patience and reconciliation.
Yesterday, many people felt as though a door closed. Who could help but feel that sense of finality, as the haunting pipes faded beyond the doors of the abbey or St George’s chapel? Like King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, we know that there is a season and a time for everything.
Inspired by the Queen’s sense of duty, her service to communities such as those in West Scotland, and her commitment to reconciliation, let us also sow seeds of good in our time.
Requiescat in pace.
10:27