“God was something I did not understand the way kids who went to church did. They said God was a man in the sky with white hair and a beard like Santa. This seemed strange to me. When I thought of God, I imagined only mist over the pond, a sliver of moon in a dark sky, scatterings of stars, birdsong.”

“I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky...”

“Imagine something. Something that fits in the dark. Say the dark is the sky at night. Imagine something in it.”“A star?”“Yes.”“I can’t. I can’t see it.”“Okay. Don’t try to see it. Try to be it. Would you like to know what it’s like to be one? Be a star?”“A movie star?”“No, a star star. In the sky. Keep your eyes closed, think about what it feels like to be one.” He moved over to her and kissed her shoulder. “Imagine yourself in that dark, all alone in the sky at night. Nobody is around you. You are by yourself, just shining there. You know how a star is supposed to twinkle? We say twinkle because that is how it looks, but when a star feels itself, it’s not a twinkle, it’s more like a throb. Star throbs. Over and over and over. Like this. Stars just throb and throb and throb and sometimes, when they can’t throb anymore, when they can’t hold it anymore, they fall out of the sky.”

“Was her God up there in the sky as she believed? Did he truly hear man's whispers,his thoughts? Hunter could see his own Gods,Mother Earth,Mother Moon, Father Sun, the wind coming from four directions. It was easy to believe in what he could see. Why did Loretta's God hide himself?”

“...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”

“Did life really matter? Could hopes and dreams and plans and life end so quickly, so terribly? She looked at the sky. Was anything there besides stars? What did it all mean? What was God? Who was God?”