The Stone Of Destiny

I saw The Stone of Destiny at a cinema in my beloved Edinburgh yesterday. It brought tears to my eyes. It stirs the blood to see young men re-possess a sacred symbol of their nationhood which they perceive another nation (in this case England) to have stolen from them.

However, we struggle for an even higher goal - the healing of the lands - and for truth. The legend of The Stone of Destiny carries healing truth. It was the pillow of stone on which Jacob of the Bible lay his head, before he saw heaven opened. It was used by young King Joash at a coronation. It was taken with the Jewish refugees into exile. It came into the hand of a good, local Egyptian king named Gathelus, whose wife, Scota, desired to travel far. Eventually, via the Danube, these pilgrims came to Ireland with the precious stone. The Irish colonised part of northern Britain. They brought the Stone to Scone for a time. It was brought to Dunadd for the first Christian coronation of a British monarch, King Aidan, by Saint Columba. The future English King Oswald was brought up there in a faithful covenant between the parties of the two peoples. Saint Aidan was there, and the great Arthur, later eulogised in fables, who united Scots, Welsh and English in alliances of honour. Who knows if Oswald, too, was anointed upon that stone? The Kings of Scotland were crowned sitting upon it. When King James of Scotland became also King of England, and again when there was a Union between Scotland and England, this became a symbol of shared blessing, and was lodged beneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, to be used at the coronations of the joint monarchs of the Scots and the English. Following the re-possession/ theft of the stone, it was surrendered to UK authorities. Prime Minister John Major ordered that its home should again be in Scotland, but it should be taken to the Abbey for each coronation.

My proposal is this: That each person who touches this Stone should wrestle with God as Jacob wrestled, until the barrier between heaven and earth is broken through, and the barriers between every people on earth are broken through, and the Stone becomes the Sacred Place of God's Presence, where every human being on earth receives their due and honours another people. The Lost Tribes are re-United under one God. So help us God.