Browning’s Christmas Eve Christmas Eve, 1849, England. A cold, wind-whipped pedestrian seeks refuge from a rainstorm by slipping into the back of a stone chapel during a sermon.  A mere nine people are listening to the preacher, whose logic and grammar are abysmal.  The poet, already cynical about the holiday, pours out on paper a storm of questions as blustery and biting as the storm outside.

I have learned that not all cynics are denying the goodness of God.  Some, in fact, are truly hungry for good and are asking why people are so bad at making God known.  Sometimes the answers are surprising. . .