When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be

Host: The night stretched over the city like a weary sigh — a velvet sky bruised with clouds, streetlights casting pools of amber on rain-darkened pavement. In the distance, a church bell tolled once, the sound echoing off wet stone. Inside a small café tucked between a cathedral and a bookstore, Jack and Jeeny sat by the window, each cradling a cup of cooling coffee.

The café was almost empty now, its air tinged with the scent of espresso and the faint hum of a melancholy jazz tune playing from an old radio. Outside, a few drops of rain began to fall — slow, deliberate, like punctuation marks between breaths.

Jeeny: (staring out at the rain) “Natalie Cole once said, ‘When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be disappointed, don’t you hope there is something out there that is not of human element?’”

Jack: (smirking slightly) “That’s a beautiful sentiment. Also a desperate one.”

Jeeny: “Desperation can be holy, Jack. Sometimes hope begins where human reliability ends.”

Jack: “Or delusion begins there.”

Jeeny: “You’d call faith delusion?”

Jack: “I’d call it emotional outsourcing. People can’t handle uncertainty, so they invent something cosmic to hold the weight.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe they sense something real beyond their own limits. You think disappointment in humanity means blindness. I think it’s the start of vision.”

Host: The rain tapped more steadily now, soft fingers against glass. The light from the streetlamp shimmered in their eyes — gold in Jeeny’s, silver in Jack’s. The silence between them felt fragile, but alive.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Humanity never disappoints me. Because I expect so little.”

Jeeny: “That’s not realism, Jack. That’s surrender.”

Jack: “No, that’s survival. If you stop expecting goodness, you stop being surprised by evil.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that a form of death? The slow, careful kind — where you stop believing not just in others, but in yourself?”

Jack: “Believing in others is naïve. Believing in yourself is dangerous. History’s full of both kinds of believers.”

Jeeny: “And history’s also full of people who prayed when logic failed them — and found strength logic couldn’t explain.”

Host: The wind outside rose, rattling the old windowpane, a sound like distant applause or warning. The café lights flickered once, then steadied. Jack’s reflection in the window blurred — half-man, half-ghost.

Jack: “So that’s it? When humans fail you, you just... outsource trust to heaven?”

Jeeny: “Not heaven. Just the idea that there’s something purer than what we are. Something that doesn’t betray.”

Jack: “But everything betrays, Jeeny. Even God, if you look hard enough at the world.”

Jeeny: “No. Only our idea of Him does. The divine isn’t what disappoints — it’s our attempt to make it human.”

Jack: “So you’re saying the problem isn’t God, it’s us.”

Jeeny: “Always.”

Host: The radio crackled, the jazz dissolving into static for a moment, then returning with a mournful saxophone note that hung in the air like a prayer left unanswered.

Jeeny: “You’ve never really believed in anything beyond yourself, have you?”

Jack: “I believe in evidence. Things I can measure, touch, test.”

Jeeny: “And yet you sit here, haunted by the things you can’t.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You think I’m haunted?”

Jeeny: “Everyone who’s ever been disappointed is haunted. The difference is — some of us try to name the ghost.”

Host: She said it softly, but her voice trembled with conviction. Jack looked down at his cup, where the last of his coffee had gone cold — a mirror of dark liquid, his reflection fractured by ripples.

Jack: “You think faith fixes disappointment?”

Jeeny: “No. But it redeems it. It gives it direction — like pain that leads to understanding.”

Jack: “Or to self-deception.”

Jeeny: “You talk like a man who’s lost faith and calls it enlightenment.”

Jack: “And you talk like a woman who keeps it because she’s afraid to face a godless sky.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But fear of emptiness is the first step toward seeking fullness. Doubt isn’t the enemy of faith, Jack — it’s the birthplace of it.”

Host: A bus passed outside, spraying puddles up against the curb. The sound faded, leaving only the rhythm of rain and the steady beat of their argument — two philosophies clashing beneath the flicker of a single overhead bulb.

Jeeny: “Tell me this — when you look at the stars, do you really believe all of it, every galaxy, every breath of beauty, is just an accident?”

Jack: “I think beauty is how the brain interprets survival. Stars don’t mean anything. We project meaning onto them because we need to.”

Jeeny: “Maybe meaning isn’t projection. Maybe it’s recognition. Maybe when we look at the stars, something ancient in us recognizes its source.”

Jack: “You make faith sound like memory.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Maybe believing is remembering — something we forgot when we learned to explain everything.”

Host: The rain softened, the night exhaling as if exhausted by their honesty. The café grew quieter — only the clink of a spoon, the whisper of steam.

Jack: “I used to believe, you know. As a kid. I prayed — really prayed. And then my father died, and I realized prayers don’t save people. Action does.”

Jeeny: (gently) “Faith doesn’t prevent death. It teaches us how to live with it.”

Jack: “And what about disappointment? How do you live with that?”

Jeeny: “You don’t. You transform it. You turn the faith you lost in people into a deeper faith — in something that doesn’t need to impress you.”

Jack: “Something not of the human element.”

Jeeny: (smiling softly) “Exactly.”

Host: She said it like a benediction. The words hovered in the air, fragile but luminous. Jack looked up — not at her, but beyond her, toward the rain-streaked window where the lights of the cathedral blurred into halos.

Jack: “You really think something watches us? Listens? Cares?”

Jeeny: “I think something knows us — even when we don’t know ourselves. Maybe that’s enough.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “And if it doesn’t exist?”

Jeeny: “Then I’ll still choose to believe — because faith is the only thing that turns disappointment into hope instead of despair.”

Host: The rain stopped, the silence that followed deeper than before, like the world holding its breath. Outside, the clouds began to thin, and the first faint trace of moonlight cut through — silvering the wet streets, glinting off glass, turning the city into a place both wounded and holy.

Jeeny: “You see that? Even after the storm, the sky remembers how to shine.”

Jack: “Or maybe it just clears itself. Nature doesn’t need forgiveness.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But humans do.”

Host: Her words sank between them like a prayer that didn’t need an altar. The café clock ticked once — sharp, deliberate, eternal.

And in that quiet hour, Natalie Cole’s question seemed to echo through them both — not as despair, but as revelation:

That when faith in humanity breaks,
we are invited to look beyond it —
not to escape the world,
but to rediscover the sacred within it.
That the hunger for something “not of human element”
isn’t weakness,
but the most human instinct of all —
to believe there must be more than our failures.

Host: The lights dimmed as the barista cleaned the counter for closing. Jeeny stood, wrapping her scarf around her neck, her expression serene.

Jack remained seated, staring at the moonlight on the floor, his reflection divided between shadow and shine.

Jack: (softly) “Maybe faith isn’t about finding God.”

Jeeny: “Then what is it?”

Jack: “Maybe it’s about refusing to believe disappointment is the last word.”

Host: She smiled, the kind of smile that carries both grace and grief.

Outside, the city glowed again — ordinary, imperfect, forgiven.
And as they stepped out into the cool night,
the silence that followed was not empty —
but infinite,
as if something unseen
had quietly answered.