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Good morning. “What’s the answer? I’m not making light of the rules, but what is the answer?” Was there a party? “What’s the answer?” Will we meet for Christmas? Will we catch omicron? How many more will die? “What’s the answer?” ' “Anybody have any questions today?” Oh yes. Plenty of questions. But what are the answers? How did we leave so many Afghans behind, or even abandon a single one who had a right to be here? What will happen to the women and girls? Will they ever finish their education, or be given in marriage before they should even be leaving school? What’s the answer? Will more desperate refugees drown from flimsy inflatables? How do we show compassion without risking more lives by encouraging others; how protect our shores without being brutal to those in far more need? What’s the answer? How can anyone inflict such torture on an innocent six-year-old? How can you hurt your own, or any, when you have children of your own? How could so many services miss his plight? How many more will suffer and die before we get it right; how many might not see Christmas? What’s the answer? Sometimes, the answer is simply, “I went home.” How can there be any cruelty, misery, wretchedness, desperation and death in the world if, as some of us claim, our God is a God of love? How can wars and pandemics continue, if He created and cares for us and is in control? What’s the point of prayer, if He seems to turn His back?? Are there no answers? Yes, there are. Did God come down and become one of us, born as a helpless baby? Yes, He did. Did He explain why He came, and teach us how to live and love? Yes, He did. Did He willingly embrace a life of deprivation and a death of unimaginable suffering; did He overcome death itself, and offer us hope for a far better future? Yes, He did. There are far more questions than answers: there always will be. And questions we can never answer: there always will be. “Does anybody have any questions today?” Oh yes. All of us have questions. Many, many questions. And questions without any answers. But we also have options. We can rage about our unanswered questions. Or we can provide some of the answers. Why are so many cold and hungry on our streets? Because we’ve gone home to warmth and wealth of our own. But we can give to help them. And we can hold on to the answers we do have. Faith, hope and charity at Christmas, and throughout another unknown year. Oh, and is the Trafalgar Square tree a naturally beautiful Nordic sparse spruce? Or are the branches, as the tree’s own twitter feed says, simply following the guidelines… What’s the answer?