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 What price words?
'The value of investments can go down as well as up'. How often have you read those words at the bottom of an advertisement for some financial product or other?
Of course, they have to be there.
Unwary consumers have to be warned, especially in the current economic climate, that there is no absolute promise of a crock of gold at the end of their financial rainbow.
The value of investments can go down as well as up.
The value of words can, it would seem, go down as well as up too.
When Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill spoke of the need for compassion in the case of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi he tapped into a source of Christian values which runs deep in the veins of Scotland.
After stressing the importance of remaining true to principles even in the face of atrocity, he went on to say that 'compassion and mercy are about upholding the beliefs that we seek to live by, remaining true to our values as a people' (see BBC website report).
However, hardly were the words out of his mouth than they were turned against him.
'Compassion' was spat back at him with added venom across the Atlantic, and seemed to be a byword for liberalism and soft-heartedness.
Mercy was seen as mollycoddling and grace as giving in.
Gracious words were quickly dismissed as a cover-up for shady dealings, and the Saltire which appeared to be flying high was dragged through the mud instead.
How quickly words lose their currency.
We have seen it with the word 'love' which can mean anything from lifelong devotion to sexual aggression and everything in between.
We have seen it with the word 'God' too, which means many things to many people.
One of the key reasons that Jesus came to earth was because the words of God, either written or spoken, never quite got the message across with as much power as the personal touch.
In the end, Jesus' arrival was a costly means of saying 'God is like ... this'.
The compassion of God was never better expressed than in the powerful self sacrifice of the cross.
We will never know the impact of Scotland's merciful gesture on Mr Megrahi.
As Kenny MacAskill said, he now faces 'a sentence imposed by a higher power'.
However, it is to be hoped that he now understands the word 'compassion' from a different perspective, and that others do too.
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