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freedom.
Herds of cattle are a common sight everywhere in the countryside.
Last week I noted with interest that among each herd there was at least one bull/cow with a bell around its neck.

The bell is put around the neck of the troublesome or errand beast. The bell rings with movement thus it is easier for the herders to notice it when it is moving away from the herd and also when round up cattle at the end of day.

Funny, I thought how the bell acts like conscience. Unfortunately the cow has no mind to learn from the bell.
What is conscience you may ask? Conscience has been defined as an inner feeling or voice that act as a guide to the rightness and wrongness of one’s behaviour.

I am tempted to equate conscience with the Holy Spirit, which is Spirit of truth, the counsellor and teacher.
In Christian fraternity we know that when we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit.

It has also been defined as the “complex of ethical and moral principles that control or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual.”
If we are to go by the second definition conscience comes through socialisation. Cultures have their norms and values and these are passed on through socialisation that starts from birth.
The Bible in Proverbs 22:6 says: “Train up a child in the way it should go: Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

If conscience is a voice or an inner feeling then I would like to believe that people are born with it.
It is then developed and strengthened with the training and teaching through the child development process. It can also be dulled with exposure to negative things in the social environment.
It had been said that exposure to things such as pornography can dull a person’s conscience. What normally is considered wrong that would naturally cause one to cringe becomes normal to the individual.

Each person has a conscience to guide behaviour. It helps one to have self control. It tells us what to do and not do.
It tells us where to go and not to go. It even directs our thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts can run away with us and conscience comes in with pointers.
It brings to the fore the principles or values that have been inculcated in us over years of socialisation.

Conscience could be what one artist called the voice of reason. It is not something tangible and cannot be seen.
The battle of conscience is in the mind and it is a fight without a witness. Mohandas Gandhi describes conscience as a “higher court than courts of justice.”
He says that “The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.”

Ignoring one’s conscience is at one’s peril. My first car was fitted with an alarm bell that went off at speed above 100km/hr.
The warning bell is meant to warn the driver of the danger of speeding as it has been said speed kills.
I noted that the bell is so persistent. The more I increased speed I could hear as if the bell is groaning or as if it is choking with speed.

At times I would ignore the bell in the same manner that we ignore our conscience.
Dear reader, if conscience is what we have said it is, then we are never alone. Like our shadows it never leaves us.
Think then of the many times that you have done the unthinkable assuming that you are on your own. You were not alone your conscience is your witness.

I think this is why what is done under the cover of the night will finally be uncovered.
No matter how hard people try to deny most end up being caught.
I have heard of people who end up mad and telling the world what they did in darkness.

I believe the conviction from conscience is so strong that the pressure on mind loosens some nuts and bolts in the head.
Dear reader, I think you know of people who bring out something up out of context and you wonder where that is coming.
You would not have said anything about the issue and yet it is brought up.

I believe the person could have said it, thought about it or done it and his/her conscience pounds on him/her persistently. In the end it forces out the disguised confession from the individual.
Our conscience is our guide and we must allow it to function through feeding ourselves with the right material.

Scripture says hiding the word of God in our hearts helps us not to sin against God. It also goes to say that the word of God is lamp unto our feet.
I know these days they are so many people who behave as if they have no conscience at all.

They have actually locked up their conscience in the freezer so that they can do as they please even if it hurts others.
As has been said what goes around comes around. Whatever we do when we side step our conscience will catch up with us.
When I was in Form One we had this drama on “Everyman.”

Everyman lived his life ignoring all the good deeds, discretion you name them and pursued worldly pleasures.
When life took a turn all these world things such as money departed and even boasted that it is wanted by everyone. So money could not come because he/she was busy elsewhere.
Like most of us, Everyman only remembered good deeds and discretion when he had no one else on his side.

So he called on them. In response good deeds said “here I lie cold in the ground I am bound and cannot move”.
The moral of the story is the more we ignore the voice the more we throw away our lives.

In Sunday school we use to sing “aka kamwenje kangu rega kapfute”
(this little light of mine let it shine). We all need to keep this fire alive, as George Washington said

“Labour to keep alive that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.
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