“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
“From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” (Acts 17:26)
With Burns’ Day coming up the Headteacher’s theme for this week’s school assembly is one word: “Scots”. She has left it to me as to what I do with that for the ‘Message from Mr Younger’ in the assembly. So here goes…
What makes us ‘Scots’? Is it where we’re born or brought up or live? Is it our food – who else in the world eats haggis?! Is it our language? My Scots Thesaurus has three whole pages on Scottish words for ‘stupidity’! But when I started reading that section I was surprised by how many of the words were actually quite affectionate or sympathetic. And I began to wonder if (at our best) that’s what makes us ‘Scots’…a shared language that expresses our innate tolerance and brotherhood with one another. So I guess I should throw in a nod to Burns here:
“let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.”
It seems to me that there is something good and positive in the Scots psyche that has absorbed and integrated the idea that “we’re a’ jock Tamson’s bairns”. Or, if you want a theological angle on this, what makes us truly ‘Scots’ is the realisation that “we’re a’ Adam’s bairns an’ we aw’ hae the breath o’ God in us.”