Does God Sleep

At first light, I stood, gazing out the window. I thought not of the dawn, but of God who watches it rise. The morning light is like the waking fingers of God touching the still sleeping land. Our world stays primed to betray the innocent, destroy the small or the soft and the beautiful. Oshie and Carlos, docile alpacas claimed as "Part of the family," are no more. Gentle beauties, savagely slain; the only clue, one ghastly paw print in the snow. Did God sleep as tragedy stretched under tiny diamond stars in the frozen dark of night? "They were our buddies," sobbed the stricken ranchers. Grief-gouged wounds heal slowly, leave shadows reaching into eternity.