I was lying awake as usual and, as usual, looking through the window at great skies and mountains. How absurd the notion of an Abrahamic God was. But then, why these signs all about us? Why the feeling of peace in the chapel this morning? The feeling we are not alone?

I thought of the dead being present. Immediately the unpleasant cold shiver came. But then I lay still and asked the dead to gently touch my palm, my right one. Immediately I felt a feeling of warmth in it. Then I asked them to touch the left and I felt a feeling of warmth there.

I feel asleep. I dreamt that I saw the Virgin Mary, a very rare sighting in my dreams. Then, unprecedented, she said something. But what? I woke up. I couldn’t remember except that it was something very ordinary.

For one like me whose faith is as great as a pathetic little pea, this is all I am granted.

But when people guided by a kind of insular reason claim the futility of faith, they should for a moment, in the still of the night, open their hearts.