This theme of the insuperability of at least one problem in your life continues to absorb me — and in the light of hope and hopefulness.

I tell the story of a woman who recently attended a meeting of church executives, almost all of whom are absorbed by current issues and questions of identity in political terms. This person said to me afterwards, “It seemed like a voice spoke to me, as I listened to the virtue-signalling: ‘This form of Christianity has no future.’ ” What she meant was that there was no SAVING being proffered, nothing related to the fear of death and the questions of regret and remorse that overwhelm individuals as they grow in age.

I have to agree with my friend.

Then I watched an old “war horse” of a Hollywood movie entitled “The Sign of the Cross” (1936). For all its age, “The Sign of the Cross” is utterly blunt and shockingly direct concerning the human and philosophical objections to faith, faith itself, and the inter-face between faith and romantic love. The actors Frederic March and Elissa Landi pour all they’ve got into the decisive lovers’ disputes that create a highly affecting and dramatic, and to me completely plausible, conclusion. What is offered in “The Sign of the Cross” is a form of Christianity which has a very high and a very long future. Watch it.

And listen to Tyrone Davis now, great “torch song” singer of Soul Music, and hear how close he is to true experience.

HUGS always, PZ