Thought for the Day
Good Morning Scotland
Radio Scotland
Monday, June 5th, 2009
Good Morning Scotland
Radio Scotland
Monday, June 5th, 2009
It may not be our turn this year. We don’t have to resign in disgrace. Or watch embarrassing little tidbits about ourselves tumbling out of the pages of the newspaper one after another in a steady torrent.
“We are not that soldier!" as they say. We are not that Minister or Member of Parliament.
It’s not us.
Don’t we miss a tremendous opportunity, though, when we merely stand outside the whole situation with a disgusted look on our faces?
I’m not saying that public outrage is a waste of time. It has been public outrage which has forced the issue to this point.
Those of us who are wise, though, will want to sit up and take notice as to how it’s done. How do people hold on by their fingertips at a time when their careers and their personal future are in tremendous jeopardy either because they’ve screwed up or because they’ve been misunderstood or because they’ve been swamped by a wave which is bigger than they are.
Rather a lot of us will end up at some point “holding on by our fingertips”. Our marriage might fall apart rather publicly. We find that we’ve become a casualty of office politics. Something from our past catches up with us.
It’s worth our while to watch these public figures – many of whom are watching their professional and even personal lives crash and burn – to see whether one can maintain maintain or even recover one's principles in the midst of it all – to see the degree to which courage and even altruism can be demonstrated – by a few of them - even in the midst of political disaster.
It’s like that story from 1st Samuel where the corrupt old priest Eli comes to realizes that the young boy Samuel is a prophet. Against his own interests he encourages the boy to speak even though it will cost the old man everything. Corrupt as he is – he still becomes one of the heroes in the story.
