Presiding Officer, members of Parliament and everyone here, I would like to
express my sincere appreciation for the opportunity to address you.
I am Italian by birth, Scottish by adoption, ordained in the Waldensian
Church and currently serving in the east end of Glasgow.
Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘As a woman, I have no country ... I want no country
... my country is the whole world’. To me, that applies well, as I have a distinct
preference for wild and untamed places.
Tollcross-Shettleston parish is one of them. It is challenging and demand-
ing, as are many who inhabit the place. It is known as a location of multiple
deprivation and often prejudices are the only available narratives about the
place. Its categorizing is often partial and unkind.
I have one example to the contrary.
The church became involved in hospitality towards another Christian
denomination almost by accident. A group of Eritreans asked permission to
worship in the sanctuary. Their congregation is almost entirely formed by
young refugees, who are predominately male.
It has 70 members and is growing. Most of its members had a treacherous
journey across land, desert and sea to get here.
Despite all that, they have an unwavering faith and look hopefully on
the future and on humanity itself. Worship on a Sunday is now Italian-Scot
Presbyterian in the morning and Tigrigna Coptic Orthodox in the afternoon.
Learning to share the same space and accept each other has not always
been easy. For some it was an innate instinct and for others it has been a learn-
ing curve, but for all involved it has been a profound experience of growth
and acknowledgement of interconnectedness.
We knew it intellectually and we knew it inside ourselves, but to know it
whole-heartedly was a completely different matter. It was a change of percep-
tion that will never be forgotten.
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