Be independent-minded

Moment with God by Anne Anjao-Eboi

Dr Stockmann is a medical officer of the Baths in the current KCSE set book An Enemy of the People. He discovers the water of the Baths in his town is contaminated and, therefore, unfit for use. The causes of the contamination are the tanneries that include his father-in-law's, Mortein Kill.

The pipes were wrongly laid on the advice of his brother who is the town mayor and the mayor refuses to take responsibility and instead engages the doctor in a war, which he cannot win because the mayor has might behind him. He uses his authority to manipulate the town into rejecting Dr Stockmann and officially declaring him an enemy of the people.

University of Nairobi students during a recent demonstration.[PHOTO: PIUS CHERUIYOT/STANDARD]

The irony in this is that a noble man becomes the most hated individual for the simple reason of doing good. But he is brave; he decides to fight for the truth even if it means doing it alone. He ends up coining a profound statement that the strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.

How independent-minded are you? Are you the type whose voice is never heard unless it is mingled with the crowd’s? There is time to consult, but we also need to be independent thinkers.

Sense of morality

Perhaps it is at the office and you are in a meeting with your manager. If you know there is something amiss the company should consider, speak out. If you feel you are getting a raw deal, say so. Keeping quiet will only lead to disquiet and grumbling, as did the Israelites who ended up wandering in the desert for 40 years.

God put in each one of us a strong mind and a sense of morality, which we are to cultivate. We must, therefore, use this mind for the glory of God. God says he has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.

Stoning vehicles and destroying property in the name of mourning a dead colleague is telling us you do not possess the spirit of a sound mind. Did you stop to consider the facts before you charged at an innocent motorist with a stone? Would you have acted alone or are you in the category of people Dr Stockmann calls the compact majority? Those he calls fools?

It is the frenzied misguided crowd that crucified our Lord, instead exchanging him for a notorious common thief. It is not until the temple was torn in two, the earth shook and darkness reigned for three hours during the day, that those who witnessed his death beat their breasts, saying a righteous man had been crucified.