Blimey, there’s nothing like an offhand comment on a theological topic for

drawing the 2,000-word e-mails. I’ve been getting an education in theodicy.

Out of which I should like to drop. Look, I’m an Anglican: we don’t **do**

theology. I’m also a pessimist, believing that life is a pretty rotten

business altogether, illuminated by occasional bright flashes.

The rest of you must figure it out as best you can. I’ll stick with the

words I learned young, which seem to me to sum up the whole business pretty

well, and which I have found conform to observed reality at least as well as

the average scientific theory:

“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of

misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were

a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.”