Our salvation lies in what we do today, not in distant future

As this year and a decade curves to a close, it is not strange to find yourself wondering what of your 2019 will be significant in 2020. We may also want to search our souls for the personal meaning in the late Dean William Inge’s phrase, “whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” The phrase is re-visited in this year’s best Christmas movie “Two Popes.” The movie elegantly re-enacts the conversations between the aging Pope Benedict XVI and a soon to be Pope Francis. While theirs was a theological conversation about how the Catholic Church should interact with the challenges of the secular world, it is also a conversation we need to have with each other.

By most accounts, 2019 was economically, politically and socially difficult for most of us. Poor governance, corruption, high cost of living, unemployment, inequality and discrimination stalked us very personally. Most of us chose to chase the new thousand shilling note rather than challenging why it is always placed beyond of our reach. Confronted with very real household challenges, we adjusted our private lifestyles rather than advocating and acting for what we really want for our lives. Our leaders over-concentrated on forging new bridges for a gentlemen’s agreement when many of the deeper and more structural issues remained unchallenged.