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Good morning. In 1814 Ivan Krylov wrote a story called The Inquisitive Man about a person in a museum who sees countless tiny objects, but somehow doesn’t notice an elephant. Dostoyevsky and Mark Twain took up the notion, and the phrase ‘elephant in the room’ became proverbial. This morning is a curious one on the Today programme because, for historical and legal reasons, we’re not discussing the thing we’ve all spent the last six weeks talking about. For a programme like this that prides itself on leaving nothing out, that takes a lot of forbearance. As a culture we like to feel we avoid groupthink and name the elephant in the room. But it’s not always helpful to talk about what everyone’s thinking. It’s common for critics of religion to say that faith is simply a series of defence mechanisms erected to create an emotional barrier against the elephant in the room that is death. I actually think, on this occasion, the critics are onto something. We do all have to find a way to come to terms with our own mortality. But there’s no use talking about it all the time. On Jesus’ last night before his crucifixion, he took three disciples with him deep into the Garden of Gethsemane, and said, ‘Keep watch while I pray.’ But when he came back, he said, ‘Could you not stay awake one hour?’ I wonder why they fell asleep. I doubt it was because they were tired. More likely they were emotionally overwhelmed. They knew the danger Jesus was in. But they couldn’t stay in that terrifying place for any length of time. It’s hard to blame them. You can’t always boldly name the elephant in the room and simply move on. Sometimes you have to stay in that place and find a way to exist without any evident place to move on to. Christianity is indeed a way of coming to terms with death – by redeeming the past through the offer of forgiveness, and unlocking the future through the promise of eternal life. But that confidence and hope doesn’t mean talking about death all the time. Sometimes when everyone in the room is thinking the same thing, but not saying it, you can have the best conversation – the longest laughter, the most poignant silences. Often when there’s a word we don’t mention, there can grow a deeper perception of what we’re truly about together. We might not always speak of death; but we still have to find a way to share life. We might not say the word ‘election’ today; but we may all the more recall that true politics – the art of living together despite our differences – is for every day.