I have every sympathy with Norman Wanstall's comments about the church's silence when thousands die due to the coronavirus (HT, May 21).

The truth is that we have no answer. Viruses, good and bad, have been with us from the dawn of life. They are bound up with our origin and evolution and some are an essential part of our physical being.

Sometimes we share responsibility for those which ravage human life because of our lifestyle and our exploitation of animals but we cannot escape the reality that we live in a fragile and uncertain world in which life can be brutish and short.

To set against this, we have to place the inexplicable immensities of the universe, the astonishing beauty that lies around us, the miracle of life itself, the development of human intelligence and the flourishing of love and compassion. These things also reduce us to silence. For these things also we ultimately have no answer.

Unless we can envisage a perfect world and leave behind this drama of triumph and tragedy, we are challenged as to which is the most fundamental reality. Either there is no meaning or purpose, only cold indifference, or there are signs which point to a greater reality, which some of us name God.

Seeds of the narrow leaved campion have been found buried in permafrost for 30,000 years and successfully germinated today. There are, likewise, seeds of faith and hope and indications of eternity, which the great religions of the world, when not prone to arrogance, seek humbly to nurture.

Graham Hellier (Rev) Marden