Despite our present failings, the future can be bright if we step up governance

Are we living in normal or abnormal times? Is there any time in the near future that the security of the country will, as it were, be normal? Is law and order still a possibility as an aspect of normal government that we have always assumed to be the case at any time? Is it possible to accept to live with corruption because this is what has become “normal” in both public and private life? Is begging to be tolerated as an aspect of our lives, whether in church, business and among relatives, let alone where everybody else begs from politicians?

I am asking these questions because, over the last three years, life in Kenya—both private and public—has changed so radically that I have started questioning what I have always taken and assumed to be normal. At times I go to church and the sermon is so good I feel spiritually uplifted and energised almost instantaneously I get thoroughly deflated when, in the end, the preacher resorts to begging from the church for some material advantage. I do accept, of course, that the church cannot be run by the Holy Spirit alone; there must be some institutional mechanism for material sustenance of the church. What I find upsetting is for any preacher to use the pulpit to collect personal alms. Jesus never did this. But let me get back to the body economic.