I was rather surprised to get a call last week from my local paper, The Edinburgh Evening News, asking me to tell them something about my work as a Humanist Celebrant.
Among other things, they asked me to sum up the city in three words and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of any better than ‘Bowdent wi’ pride’. It comes from from Robert Lorimer’s wonderfully incomprehensible translation into Scots of the famous passage in Corinthians XIII (and my thanks to Robert McDowell for introducing it to me in the first place.)
Corinthians XIII is the reading that people of the Christian faith most often choose when they want something from the Bible, and as a humanist I welcome it because St Paul comes to the same conclusion about values that I do. Love is the most important one that unites humanity and as humanism is all about looking beyond the things that divide us, it’s very appropriate.
Here’s the text in full…
Gin I speak wi the tungs o men an angels, but hae nae luve I my hairt, I am no nane better nor dunnerin bress or a ringin cymbal.
Gin I hae the gift o prophecie, an am acquent wi the saicret mind o God, an ken aathing ither at man may ken, an gin I hae siccan faith as can flit the hills frae their larachs – gin I hae aa that but hae nae luve in my hairt, I am nocht.
Luve is patientfu’; luve is couthie an kind;
luve is nane jailous; nane sprosie;
nane bowdent wi pride; nane mislaired;
nane hame-drauchit; nane toustie.
Luve keeps nae nickstick o the wrangs it drees;
find nae pleisure i the ill wark o ithers;
is ey liftit up whan truith dings lies;
kens ey tae keep a caum souch;
ie ey sweired tae misdout;
ey howps the best; ey bides the warst.
there is three things bides for ey:
faith, howp, luve
But the grytest of the three is luve.
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