It’s not that I didn’t believe in God. I’d stood at the edge of the ocean and looked for the other side. I’d seen the way a rose’s petals un-swirled elegantly from what once was a bud without consequence. I’d sat in the woods, far from civilization, and stared up at the unobstructed stars, wondering if I could count them all if given the time. It makes much more sense that someone spoke those perfections into existence rather than accepting that they were one big cosmic accident. I was the cosmic accident.

            Why would the Creator who swirled the rose and poured the expanse of the ocean care about the meaningless crimson hair on my head after creating the stars in that great darkness? Why would I think that love was any more than Jake’s smoky breath or a hundred-dollar bill from my father? It would have been nice.  But I’d seen the evil the world could access. It was all the darkness in my heart could ever seek to know.