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Good morning. Yesterday people trapped in Eastern Ghouta crept out of their shelters to look for food and supplies – but the five hour pause in hostilities never really materialised in spite of President Putin’s demand for the bombing to stop. While the violence continues the United Nations resolution for a 30 day cease fire has been pointedly ignored. It is no wonder that the people trapped in Eastern Ghouta feel abandoned. If the UN can’t help them, who now can? Western powers seem helpless. We simply look on while once busy streets are reduced to rubble and blood. The catastrophe in Syria undermines our cherished belief in progress. The United Nations was founded in the belief that a council of nations could ensure peace, but today, it seems impotent. Yet most of us still assume that the world will gradually get better as long as we keep trying; there is no difficulty which can’t be solved by the steady application of reason, no conflict which can’t be reconciled by fervent good-will, no suffering that can’t be relieved by money, medicines and empathy. This is not just the belief of liberal-minded progressives. Many faith communities, including my own, have bought into it. Our whole Western mentality is about naming problems and finding answers. Christians like me often slip into identifying our efforts towards peace and justice with that elusive reality ‘the kingdom of God’, which we pray for everyday. So we literally cannot comprehend the evidence that there are times when noble aims and striving don’t win. That could bring despair but there is another response. All through the so-called ages of faith, and even in today’s more sceptical age, most people have lived with wars and rumours of wars, expecting life to be dangerous, and often short, with the most vulnerable most likely to be victims. The horrors go back to antiquity. Perhaps our striving for a better world makes us undervalue the peace some of us are lucky enough to enjoy, and underestimate the effort that has to go on to maintain it. Peace is precious, but also more precarious than we like to imagine. Of course we hope there will be a way out for the people of Eastern Ghouta, humanitarian corridors enabling them to flee. But if this happens we should beware of trumpeting this as a huge success. They may have their lives, but think what they will have lost: home, safety, belonging, identity; all that gives meaning and purpose. A doctor interviewed on this programme last week said that he would not leave: he had to be strong for his people and his family: here is my childhood, my home, my house, my street. I have no idea today whether he is even still alive. But in his quiet dignity I saw another interpretation of the kingdom of God which I found deeply challenging. There are times when sheer faithfulness, even unto death, shows us what it is to be a person.