The following article relates to a small display of sculptures made from soap which is on one of the windowsills in St Mary’s. It is written by Marion Bryans, who writes regularly to the person who carved them – a prisoner on Death Row.

I was asked to write something about the sculptures made from soap that are on display in the Cathedral just now. It is my pleasure to do this.

The soap sculptures were made by my friend Rodney Emil on Death Row in Nevada. He also had to make his own tools from what was available in the prison. Rodney is self-taught and makes things “to order”. He made a garden pond with butterflies and flowers for a friend of mine who wanted to give it as a birthday present. It was exquisite. The butterflies were “flying” suspended in air.

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He also made a frog for my niece, who loves frogs. It was so life like and detailed, I thought it might “jump” at any moment.

Rodney says making the soap sculptures brings him peace. When making them he is fully focussed. Making a sculpture becomes his world at that moment. They take many hours to make and he has to make his own colours as well. Having spent several decades on Death Row, making the soap sculptures gives him deep pleasure, an outlet for his creativity, work of his hands that he can share with others and provides a source of income.

When our son, Daniel was granted Leave to Remain Rodney crafted an eagle soap sculpture to give him as a gift and celebration. I have added it to the display so that it can be more widely seen.

Recently in our letters, Rodney said he wanted to donate a gift of some soap sculptures to a church. This was a thank you to God in gratitude for all he had received. He hoped the people coming to church would enjoy them. The obvious choice of church to me was St Mary’s which is open, inclusive and welcoming. I asked him if he was happy to display them in our church. He was delighted.

His praying hands sculpture is one of his favourites. The heart, lock, chain and key never cease to amaze me. The key actually fits the lock and can turn! I don’t know how he manages to do that. God unlocking all our hearts.

These are but a few of what he has made and can be seen in the church display. I hope you will be delighted to see the sculptures. Appreciating his skill, detailed work over many hours and the considerable effort this gift has taken. Including buying the soap, careful packaging and postage – all generously given by Rodney as a blessing and gift to St Mary’s Cathedral.

There are copies of Lifelines magazines and brochures beside the display. Please feel free to take away and read.

I first heard of Lifelines from a friend as we were making sandwiches for a soup kitchen. She spoke so matter of factly about the friend she wrote to on Death Row. She had met him through Lifelines, an organisation that supports and befriends prisoners on Death Row in USA. It’s not a religious, political or campaigning organisation – only about offering friendship. Somehow that resonated and touched me.

I wrote to Lifelines and was given a penfriend. I was a bit nervous writing a letter to a complete stranger on Death Row. I’d never had a penfriend as a child/ teenager as I know some people do.

But it was refreshing to start from a clean slate, for both of us, to get to know one another. I’ve never looked back from that first letter all those years ago. Little did I know how much it would change my life and enrich it. I thought I would be helping out a guy, imprisoned and awaiting death, who needed a friend to write to.

But, it was two way – I learned so much from Mahir Ringo, my first friend. We wrote to each other over several years. What a deep and enduring friend he became. He converted to Islam while in prison and thought deeply about things. Mahir was in “the Hole” when we first wrote to each other. Complete segregation, no visitors, no books, no fresh air, never outside his cell. I sent him photos of Spring flowers, Scottish hillsides, my garden, as his only source of greenery and beauty of nature.

We lived in 2 very different worlds and yet forged a connection that still warms my heart today

His creativity knew no bounds. He played chess by shouting out his moves to another guy in a cell in the “Hole”. The guy shouted back his moves. Mahir would write it down on a piece of paper. A game took several weeks.

I remember his excitement and anxiety when returning to the general prison population on Death Row, after years in the “Hole”. The adjustments to be made being with people again. All the things that had changed in his absence. He was overflowing with ideas and projects to help prisoners and never stopped trying to make life better for others. For me, he became part of my family. It was hard when he was given the date of his execution. To know the exact date and time. Shock and realisation – the barbarity of the system.

Our last letters were precious. We still wrote of our inner lives, what gives life meaning. To the end he was instigating projects and ideas to make prisoners lives better and about being a better person. He particularly wanted me to keep on writing to guys on Death Row as he said it meant so much to receive a friendly letter. – It was literally a Lifeline.

He gave me permission to publish his letters and talk about him. I haven’t done that yet, maybe one day. He died full of life and love. How many of us can say that?

If anyone is interested in writing to someone on Death Row in USA and wants to chat about it further you are welcome to contact me via the cathedral office.

We all need a friend. I can’t imagine my life without the friends I am so fortunate to have beside me. Could you be a friend to someone who has no-one they can call a friend?

St Mary’s Cathedral opened as St Mary’s Church in Great Western Road on 9 November 1871 with considerable ceremony.

The architect’s original vision for St Mary’s can be seen in this picture:

However, when the church was opened the spire was not yet completed. So in 1871 it looked like this:

There are extensive details of the opening ceremony reported in the Scottish Guardian including details of who was present, some of the details of the worship and reports of what was said at the celebratory lunch.
These can all be read here: St Mary’s Opening SSB

Many thanks to Roger Edwards for providing the pictures and article.

This article was published first by the International Anglican Family Network

Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city. For 20 years, it has welcomed asylum-seekers arriving in the UK. During this time, many different agencies – Government, charities, church and community groups – have been set up to support the thousands of asylum-seekers from all over the world arriving in the city. Despite this, many experience destitution and desperation in the hostile environment created by British Government policy. This is the story about how one woman, living comfortably in retirement, first became aware and involved.

Some years ago, I was shocked to read in the newspaper about a young man, an asylum-seeker, who had sewn his lips together to draw attention to his plight. He lived near me! How could I ignore what was happening on my doorstep? My husband and I got involved as volunteers in a church-run night -shelter for destitute asylum-seekers. I also volunteered as a holiday host for the charity Freedom from Torture, offering week-long holiday- and respite-breaks for asylum-seekers from elsewhere in the UK.

My husband and I were part of a large congregation at St Mary’s Cathedral, with its ‘Open, Inclusive & Welcoming’ slogan. A discussion about asylum-seekers after a Sunday service raised interest and concern about what could be done to help. Knowing how lonely and isolated the men from the night-shelter were, I suggested we might start by individuals meeting with one or two of them after church for a cup of tea and a walk to explore the sights of Glasgow. The first to volunteer was a 90-year old woman who invited two of the men to lunch with her family at home. The idea snowballed and more became involved, socialising and sharing a wide variety of activities and, in turn, learning first-hand of the difficulties and struggles people have in our country and about the cultures and circumstances from which they had fled. For some, it resulted in lasting friendships and support.

Other members of the congregation came up with more ideas. We already had a weekly ‘open house’ where volunteers showed any visitors around the church, with leaflets for them to take away. Sometimes, homeless people or asylum-seekers popped in and asked for help. As well as a cup of tea and a listening ear, we wanted to do more for them. A leaflet was prepared listing places in the city where people could get free meals, clothes, showers, support for their asylum claim and charities offering support and advice. This proved very useful and also educated the wider congregation on how to help such people whom they might meet on the bus or in the street.

As Christmas approached one year, we used our pew leaflet to ask for people to donate £5 to provide a voucher for a meal and overnight stay for an asylum-seeker in the night shelter. This proved an attractive Christmas gift and stocking-filler and led to many wanting to know more and to offer continuing financial support to the shelter.

The Cathedral Provost, who already had a range of badges for sale at the back of the church, decided to make one saying ‘Refugees Welcome’. This proved a huge success, with many of the congregation wearing them and reporting interest from passers-by. As well as ‘thumbs up’ support from passing strangers and enquiries about where the badges could be obtained, it led to many discussions sharing information about supporting refugees in Glasgow and refuting negative myths.

An English priest referred an Iranian asylum-seeking family moving to Glasgow, asking if we could welcome and support them. We visited them on arrival and helped with clothes, bedding and children’s toys. We also helped them liaise with various agencies and become familiar with the city. They were warmly welcomed at our Sunday services, and afterwards, with their young daughter readily making friends in the Young Church group and quickly learning English through playing with other children. Initially, the parents’ English was very limited so we guided them to join language classes. Strong friendships developed leading to letters of support to the British Government Home Office and giving evidence in support of the family at their immigration court hearings.

Other Iranian asylum-seeking families started attending St Mary’s and were warmly welcomed. Some asked to be baptised, confirmed and married. The Bishop also became involved with the Cathedral leadership and congregation in representations to the Home Office and immigration courts. Pew sheets were used to inform, update and inspire members to request positive action on behalf of asylum-seekers and refugees by writing to their Members of Parliament and the Home Office Minister.

The wider congregation continued to donate bedding, clothing, household goods and baby equipment for free distribution to refugees setting up their own homes, having obtained official ‘Leave to Remain’. Some members learnt to teach English for Speakers of Other Languages in order to offer classes in the church.

As the congregation had members from a wide variety of professional backgrounds, we recognised that we were wellplaced to offer one-to-one mentoring to asylum-seekers and refugees who already had some fluency in English and were seeking to gain UK-recognised professional qualifications. Many already had such qualifications and experience in their country of origin. When COVID-19 happened we had to develop new ways of continuing support during lockdowns and church closures.

Now in my 70s, life is so much richer and heart-warming than I ever envisaged. I continue to learn so much about courage, resilience, compassion and forgiveness because of my asylumseeking friends and my growing ‘family’. My husband and I now have an Iranian ‘son and daughter-in-law’ and I am ‘grandma’ to children from Sierra Leone, Gambia and Iran.

The Primates of the Anglican Communion recently met in Canterbury. Rather than rely on media reports of what they said, here’s what they said in their own words.

The meeting of Anglican Primates, the senior bishops of the Anglican Provinces, took place in Canterbury between Monday 2 October and Friday 6 October at the invitation of the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury.

We affirm that we believe our time together to have been a gift from God, through which we experienced many signs of God’s presence amongst us. The sense of common purpose underpinned by God’s love in Christ and expressed through mutual fellowship was profound.

Primates from 33 Provinces attended the meeting. Three Primates were absent because of a combination of personal circumstances and difficulties within their Provinces. Primates from Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda declined to attend citing what they believed to be a lack of good order within the Communion. We were saddened by their absence and expressed our hope and prayer that all will join us at future meetings.

We welcomed sixteen new Primates attending for the first time , including the Primate from the new Province of The Sudan. They received a briefing on the role of the meeting, within the Instruments of Communion, on the day before the main meeting.

The first morning was spent in prayer. The agreed agenda focussed on the Five Marks of Mission of the Communion, in particular the challenge of sharing the love, compassion and reconciliation of Jesus with those in need around the world. This followed initial consideration of the internal affairs of the Communion

Internal Affairs of the Communion

We welcomed the progress being made towards the 2020 Lambeth Conference (#LC2020) and encouraged all Provinces to seek to find ways to contribute towards the cost of their Bishops and spouses attending.

It was agreed that the Archbishop of Canterbury be invited to regional meetings of Primates and others during 2018 and 2019 so that the vision for the 2020 Lambeth Conference can be shared. The Archbishop of Canterbury will consider whether another full Primates’ Meeting will be held before the Lambeth Conference. We welcomed progress in implementing resolutions agreed by the Anglican Consultative Council in Lusaka in 2016; in particular the responsibility of all Provinces to ensure comprehensive safeguarding measures to protect children and vulnerable adults. The creation of the Anglican Safe Church Commission was welcomed and endorsed.

In our last meeting in January 2016 we made a clear decision to walk together while acknowledging the distance that exists in our relationships due to deep differences in understanding on same sex marriage. We endorsed this approach, which we will continue with renewed commitment.The Archbishops’ Task Group, established in 2016, gave an interim report on its work. This was warmly welcomed, particularly the recommendations around development of common liturgy, the principle and practice of pilgrimage and a season of prayer of repentance and reconciliation.

We listened carefully to the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) and with sadness accepted that the consequences for our relationships agreed in January 2016 would also apply to SEC after its decision on same sex marriage. This means that for three years, members of SEC would no longer represent the Communion on ecumenical and interfaith bodies; should not be appointed or elected to internal standing committees and that, while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they would not take part in decision making on any issues of doctrine or polity. The Archbishop of Canterbury will take steps within his authority to implement this agreement.

We agreed the importance of all Provinces contributing to the operational costs of supporting the communion, but according to each Province’s capacity and potential to contribute.

It was confirmed that the Anglican Church of North America is not a Province of the Anglican Communion. We recognised that those in ACNA should be treated with love as fellow Christians.

We discussed difficulties arising from cross-border interventions, agreeing that the principles were clearly stated from the Council of Nicaea onwards and in the 1998 Lambeth Conference. We recognised that there were opportunities for joint initiatives and mission partnerships for the benefit of the Gospel where these are agreed between Provinces. However consent was critical to any inter-provincial collaboration and it was essential that courtesy and love should be extended to Provinces at all times.

Attempts to deal with breaches of consent and courtesy should be made in regional Primates’ Meetings and only referred to the Secretary General and the Archbishop of Canterbury as a last resort. We recognised that persistent and deliberate non-consensual cross-border activity breaks trust and weakens our communion.

We recognised that there is a need for a season of repentance and renewal including where interventions may have happened without prior permission having being sought.

We reaffirmed commitments made in 2016 regarding the LGBTI community, specifically the Communion’s sorrow for previous failures to support LGBTI people and its condemnation of homophobic prejudice and violence.

We welcomed the news that the Church of England has embarked on a major study of human sexuality in its cultural, scientific, scriptural and theological aspects and anticipated considering the results of this work at a future meeting.

External Issues

For most of the meeting we focussed on external issues including evangelism and discipleship, reconciliation and peace building, climate change, food security, refugees, human trafficking and freedom of religion. On the final day the Anglican Inter Faith Commission was launched.

The world has never felt the need of a Saviour more keenly. We have shared stories of pain and loss, of natural disasters and tragedy, of violence and threat. However in this world we have joy, courage and hope because of the light of the Saviour of all, Jesus Christ. God has poured his love upon his whole Church by his Holy Spirit. The Church lives to proclaim this gospel in word and deed. We therefore commit ourselves afresh to lead those we serve in the joyful announcement of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We pledge to pray for the empowering of the Holy Spirit, that we may witness effectively to the good news. To this end between Ascension day and Pentecost in 2018 we call all those who are able, to join us in praying ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ – that the Holy Spirit may empower the announcement of the Gospel so that many may believe.

We recognised that at least half of the Provinces in the Communion had areas with food security issues. Whilst developing nations suffered more, there were pockets of food insecurity elsewhere, for example, reliance on food banks for many in the British Isles.

As at previous meetings, we were deeply concerned to hear accounts of the severe impact of climate change, including the threat of rising seas to many islands and low-lying lands. We understood the importance of giving moral leadership because the effects of climate change are not evenly distributed. Drought and flooding most affect the poorest of the poor, with the least resources to rebuild a home, replant a field or seek medical care for flood-borne illnesses. We recommitted ourselves to advocate for improved stewardship of God’s creation.

We heard powerful testimonies of the church’s engagement in reconciliation in a number of places, particularly by those torn apart by apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and civil wars, historic and on-going: in places such as South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We pledged solidarity with each other in this sacrificial and often costly ministry.

We are committed to mediating in situations of violent conflict; ministering to the victims of war, including refugees; upholding indigenous rights; supporting the victims of sexual and domestic violence; and maintaining a faithful presence in situations of extreme persecution and terror. We discussed the role of reconciliation at every level, from personal relationships, to communal, societal and with the rest of creation, including care for the environment. Reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel – it is because we are reconciled to God in Christ that all are given the message and ministry of reconciliation.

We recognised the vital role of all spouses in supporting bishops and archbishops, and particularly the importance of women placed in front line roles because of the offices held by their husbands. We appreciated the leadership and initiative of Mrs Caroline Welby and others in supporting women in such situations.

We heard of the plight of Indigenous Peoples, resulting from government policies of forced assimilation associated with colonial expansion. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission that addressed this history in Canada grounded its report and calls to action on the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We reaffirmed our commitment to encourage all governments to support the UN Declaration.

We recognised God’s call for justice and dignity for all humanity and raised with profound concern the desperate plight of millions of people facing hunger. We are committed to support actions which end hunger, promote sustainable agriculture and address the root causes of food insecurity.

We grieved for the 65 million refugees and internally displaced people forcibly uprooted by conflict, persecution and violence; the nearly 20 million displaced by natural disasters; and the millions of vulnerable migrants. We committed ourselves to respond with others to ensure protection, meet immediate need, and address underlying causes.

We heard about the suffering of 40 million victims of modern slavery and human trafficking – a crime against humanity which profits from the exploitation and abuse of vulnerable individuals. We committed ourselves to address this issue in ourb countries and across the globe.

We discussed freedom of religion and belief and heard about particular challenges faced in some Provinces. We endorsed the need to ensure that provisions relating to the freedom of religion are included and upheld in national constitutions, working with ecumenical and interfaith partners, where appropriate.

We heard of issues arising from living alongside those of other faiths; a painful daily reality in many Provinces. We commit to seeking ways to develop better understanding on the path to peaceful co-existence. We are excited at the prospect of the Anglican Inter Faith Commission working in this area.

We were deeply grateful to the staff of the Anglican Communion Office, and especially the Secretary General, to the staff at Lambeth Palace and at Church House, Westminster. We are especially grateful for the warm welcome, generous hospitality and kindness offered by the Dean of Canterbury and all at the Cathedral: their contribution was very important in setting the mood of the meeting in prayer and mutual listening. We also thank the Community of St Anselm for their prayer, help and support.

We leave enriched by the communion we share and strengthened by the faithful witness of Anglicans everywhere. We deeply appreciate the prayers of many throughout the world over our time together.

Canterbury
6 October 2017

As a band, we have continued to take it in turns to run the ringing throughout the year – again my thanks to everyone who has got involved.  However, personally I feel that this year we have lost some of the common threads of the prime ring and taking time to concentrate on striking.  Furthermore, the principle of structured learning for individuals to allow us to improve standards across the whole band seems to have suffered.  I suggest we reconsider this approach at the AGM.

We are continuing to have teaching sessions at the start of our Tuesday practice nights – newest recruits, Hannah Newman and James Hill have both nearly mastered the basics.  Hannah has just achieved Learning the Ropes Level 1.  My thanks to our teachers: Terry Williams, Tina Stoecklin and Jonathan Frye.

In May, we entered two bands in the SACR Striking Competition and retained the Inveraray Trophy for a second year.  We are also lucky to have the St Andrew’s Shield for the best call change band in the tower at the moment thanks to local ringer, Thomas Gay, who won it ringing as part of the SACR Youth band, the Spartan Tartans.

As well as normal ringing for Evensong on a Sunday, we have rung regularly in the morning on third Sundays.  We have also rung for Ascension Day, Pentecost, Christmas Morning, Christmas Eve Carols, Epiphany, Candlemas, Easter Sunday and Maundy Thursday services.

In September, we supported the Cathedral Doors Open Weekend and this year we took about 70 visitors right up into the bells to allow them to explore the tower in full and a get a view up the inside of the spire.

We rang for one wedding and hosted the October, January & March SACR ten bell advanced practices.

As a local band, we have rung twelve Quarter Peals throughout the year marking a number of special occasions including twice for the 90th Birthday of the Queen in both April & June.  We rang to celebrate Andy Murray’s win at Wimbleton and to congratulate our ringer, Iain Milne on his confirmation.  We rang to mark the 10th anniversary of Kelvin’s appointment as Provost at St Mary’s Cathedral and also for BBC’s Music Day.

Poignantly in June, we rang a quarter peal for Kerr.  Kerr learnt to ring at Glasgow and was elected a member of the tower at last year’s AGM.  He was really pleased to have been able to join us in the tower for the quarter peal despite his illness but he sadly died in July.  We rang for his funeral in the Cathedral and appropriately raised a glass to him in the Bon Accord afterwards.

In September, we rang Ruby Delight for the 40th wedding anniversary of David & Jan Dobson, winners of a sponsored quarter peal arranged by Bishop Idris retired Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway for the Rotary Club.

At the end of September, we rang a quarter peal of Bristol Royal to say fare ye well to Sue Wilkinson – who was moving back to Yorkshire and to Jonathan Spencer, who had finished his summer studies at Strathclyde University.  It was first in method for them both and a real achievement for the local band.  We will all miss port & cheese parties at Sue’s Hobbit Hole and wish her all the best in her new job.

The local band has also rung three peals – in June, we rang to congratulate local ringer, Jennifer Tomkinson and her husband, Mike on their Golden Wedding Anniversary.  In December, we rang 8 Spliced Major and in April, we rang the collection of methods know as the Nottingham Eight to congratulate Thomas & Inga from the Bon Accord on birth of their son, Thorfinn.

We have a Glasgow & Paisley Tower Outing to the Ringing Centre in Tulloch planned for September 2017.

Ruth Marshall

It is 6.45am on a glacial morning in early March. The streets of Glasgow are still and silent, the city only just beginning to wake up. I turn into my local park beneath a sky that is turning pink and gold. My lips feel frostbitten. It has been a long and dark winter, but, when I look across to the church spire that lies beyond the trees, the sun is coming up.

“I step out of the ordinary,” croons Heather Small from my MP3 player. “I can feel my soul ascending.”

In my head – and only in my head — I am a gazelle.

For a time, I am utterly content with the world and my place within it.

I am not the fastest runner, and I have often not been the most consistent runner, but for the last ten years, my running shoes and the streets of Glasgow have been where I’ve gone to work off bad days, and to fly high on good ones. I’ve muddled through frustrations, and prayed for wisdom, and re-centered my world whenever I’ve been living through things that have made it tilt a bit. If the streets of Glasgow have been unavailable, the streets of really anywhere at all will do. I’ve been able to soak in the fresh air and the glory of creation all over the world, in ways that I wouldn’t have if I’d not been a runner, from the banks of the Clyde to the trails of the Scottish islands to the streets of Shanghai in the rain. And when I’ve stopped, it has always been to find that in some way I’ve never tried to articulate before, the miles I’ve covered been good for my soul.

Of course I would be lying if I said that I didn’t also enjoy the more tangible benefits of being a runner – the personal bests, the race bling, and an enhanced ability to enjoy all manner of deep-fried Scottish deliciousness. These are all wonderful things, but on their own they wouldn’t be enough to keep me lacing up my trainers.

I run because I find surprising things on my runs. I’ve come to a delighted halt in the falling snow after happening upon two horses all dressed up in their quilted jackets. I’ve arrived back at my front door to discover that the essay or speech or research that I’d been wrestling with has written itself in my head while I’ve been gone.

I run because when I do, I’m more — more focused, more aware, more content. I’m better able to control – or at least, better able to productively channel — the manic gleam that I tend towards when it feels as though everything is falling apart and I’m standing in the middle of the maelstrom. I’ve lived with at least one person who would say bluntly that I’m less grumpy. In short, I am more of the things that make me more of the person that I want to be.

And I run because it is a transcendent and transforming experience.

I was not an athletic child. I was uncoordinated, wheezy, and far more likely to be found with my nose in a book than wielding a hockey stick. In my school reports, I was an “absent-minded professor” who had been given up on by the PE department. It has been twenty years and I remain a clumsy and distractible bookworm, but I am now a clumsy and distractable bookworm who has run a marathon.

To run 26.2 miles is to go on a journey that is much, much further than that. To run any distance at all — and perhaps especially if you’ve grown up thinking that you couldn’t — is to become a different person.

It’s to become someone who can believe in the possible. If you can do that, you can do anything. You can change the world.

I’ve said that I haven’t always been the most consistent runner. The commitment I made to myself during Lent year was been to become one, knowing, because it has happened before, that I am a better version of myself when I do.

There are some people who would say that I’ve missed the point of Lent, and that Lent shouldn’t be a self-improvement course.

But – why not?

After all, Christianity is a self-improvement course. A lifelong commitment to becoming who we really are, and aspiring to the fulfilment of our God-created and Spirit-inspired potential.

In that forty-day trek through the Lenten wilderness, we stripped ourselves bare, we became our most raw and real selves, and in doing that, then, yes, Lent can be a place where we can come to find ourselves and start over. And if we can do that, then, just maybe, we really can build the kingdom of heaven on Earth.

I turn for home. Heather Small is still singing in my ear, “I’m on my way, can’t stop me now, and you can do the same.”

Reading Pádraig Ó Tuama’s In the Shelter: finding a home in the world, about telling stories in the shelter of the Corrymeela community, in the place he problematises in a poem’s title as ‘[the] north[ern] [of] ireland’, I think of an undergraduate essay I wrote for a course of Practical Theology, in St Andrews University in the late 1980s (a decade or so before the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998). In it, I identified the phenomenon of what is now commonly known in critical theory (and may have been then, but not to me) as ‘multiple selves’.

I wrote of categories of identity, of Us and Them, which were problematic because historically, culturally, linguistically and/ or ecclesiastically, they included the identity of the Other they attempted to exclude:

‘Protestant’ being rooted in the Pre-Reformation Church, which ‘(Roman) Catholic’ claims also to be in unbroken continuity with and which also, at Vatican II, accepted much of the protest of Martin Luther, 400 years on; ‘Scot’ coming from and returning to ‘Ulster’, territory which does (not) include Donegal and which is (not) ‘Irish’ and is also (not) ‘British’ – another humdinger of a category that can designate anything from ‘Brythonic Celt’, through a successful ‘Welsh’ (Tudor) exercise in propaganda, to ‘English’ and ‘Commonwealth’ and ‘United Kingdom’.

Each phrase that I have written in the above paragraph is so problematic that it would be quite reasonable to argue that it is a downright lie. And yet it tells a truth. I have not attempted to draw out all instances of contradiction and connection, overlap and oversight that are possibilities among all these categories of identity.

My point in the essay was that the only way to peace is to accept the reality of this blurring of identities and to tell our stories. Argument of the ‘you’re wrong so I’m right’ variety can’t do that. Mostly because it depends on asserting and maintaining rigid categories of ‘you’ and ‘I’, of ‘us’ and ‘them’. (Of course I’m thinking of David Hare’s wonderful play, Us and Them, and if you haven’t in your life yet seen a youth theatre group perform it then do so.)

The pain of the Referendum on Scottish Independence this year, before, during and after, was one which is not supposed to exist. We don’t have a word for that which, ‘over there’, (another quote from Hare) has been called Trioblóid/ Troubles, which Ó Tuama explains means ‘Bereavements’. Of course it really has meant that in both languages.

We don’t have a word in English, or in Scots, or in Scots Gaelic, or in any of the other indigenous languages of these islands for the Troubles between ‘English’ and ‘Scot’. We have had no way to express this pain – and because we can’t express it, the pain has nowhere to go. The attempts of ‘No’ voters to come to reconciliation have met with inchoate rage from those who are ‘Still Yes’, a rage that cannot find adequate words to express itself as there is no common ground to argue over; the decision to vote ‘Yes’ in the first place was met with some of the same feeling, mostly on the internet and over the border, but here in Scotland this decision, when not shared, was met with much sorrow, with hurt and with incomprehension.

A good friend of mine, a good friend and a good man, said to me, in a pub on Great Western Road, in Glasgow, at the height of it all, when I was full of the disenfranchised of Maryhill waving banners and having the hope of making a difference, and frustrated with him for not getting it: ‘it really pains me when you talk about Scottishness as a club, of which I am not a member’.

I was simultaneously ashamed, and annoyed with him for being awkward. He’s like Màiri Mhòr nan Oran, Big Mary of the Song, who was banned by her dour minister from singing inside the house and outside the house. Màiri Mhòr stood in the doorway of her house and sang. My friend is like that, awkward, and I want to trace his genealogy and add up the years he’s spent ‘here’ or ‘there’ and come to a decision: is he or is he not Scottish? But then I’d have to do that for myself, and that would be unnerving.

During the year I spent in California 1990-1991, while not marching with banners proclaiming NO BLOOD FOR OIL! (if the protestors kept them, they’ll have been well used since) I participated in groupwork on prejudice and liberation. Focussing especially on the negative media portrayal of Islamic/ Middle Eastern men (watch Sex in the City 2 for an instance) I discovered my deepest racial prejudice. I was anti-English. Which was awkward, since my mother grew up (when not evacuated to her mother’s people in the West Highlands) in a village that Miss Marple would have felt at home in, my grandfather was born within sound of Bow Bells and – though his father came from Germany and, perhaps, generation upon generation, from Israel – his mother was from East Anglia and her surname means ‘home’.

We need to listen to each other, both sides, now, in Scotland. Not rush to hug each other in a false reconciliation which only continues to ignore the pain which is unspoken since officially it doesn’t exist.

‘(Still) Yes’ voters need to hear how it feels to have the door of this exclusive club called ‘Scottish’ shut in your face, the shock and hurt of your dearest friends and neighbours and indeed family wanting you and yours politically over the border like Jock O’Hazeldean and the lady that was(n’t) his. Sometimes very aggressively. Sometimes violently. Sometimes thoughtlessly. I was shocked, then ashamed, when an old friend from Barbados was chipping in with his hopes and fears (for ‘No’) over the internet. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ I asked him. He told me. I’m middle-aged, with more degrees than sense, and had ignored the fact (fiction) that Barbados is ‘British’.

‘No’ voters need to hear how it feels to constantly correct not just ‘foreigners’ but our southern neighbours, even living amongst us, when they conflate ‘England’ and ‘Britain’, again and again and again. Still. How it feels to be tongue-tied in yer ain tongue, which no teacher, correcting you, again, ever told you contained words footnoted in Shakespeare (for monoglot English speakers) incomprehensible in Oxford but instantly recognisable from Friesland to Scandinavia. How our myth of oppressed national identity that draws a clear line from the Clearances by anglicised lairds to the closure of the steelworks at Ravenscraig in the wake of the Thatcher years is so problematic that it would be quite reasonable to argue that it is a downright lie. And yet it tells a truth.

In Hare’s play, it gradually becomes reasonable to draw a line of separation, to mark it with a string, a fence, ever higher, finally, of course, with a wall. In Ó Tuama’s book, he quotes the Irish saying: Ar scáth a cheile a mhaireas na daoine/ It is in the shelter (shadow) of each other that the people live. He draws out the ambiguities of scáth among which, in English, are the idea of living in someone’s shadow, and of the shadow self. Embracing, accepting and celebrating my Englishness, overlapping and intermingling with my Scottishness, has been a great joy, a great challenge and a great liberation. I feel more whole, I also feel far more confident in asserting the Scots language. One does not preclude the other. I don’t assert the English language as there’s been too much of that already.

If we are to heal, if we are to live together in 2016 and beyond, in harmony, in whatever political constellation we democratically decide on, we need to come out from under each other’s shadow, and enter into our own. We need to shelter each other’s stories because even if they contain lies they tell truths. We need to stop arguing, stop denying our troubles and start sharing our heartfelt pain through telling our stories. Both sides, now.

Photo Credit – Simon Greig CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

This week’s magazine entry is a photogallery of the stalls at the World Christmas Fair.

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