All day long, the health of our beloved mare hung in the balance. I wondered if I prayed and asked for her to get better, if God would care. It's been a long time since I've believed in a God that cares about the personal minutae of my life, let alone a little Arabian mare.

Yes, I believe in God, I just think he may be a little more remote than I'd been led to believe in my previous church-going life. Yeah, yeah, I know that somewhere in the Bible it says that the hairs on my head are numbered and that a sparrow doesn't fall that God doesn't know about it and care.

But-- Too many bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. Of late, I don't see much rhyme or reason there.

Is it all a crapshoot? Maybe that's too harsh. I know at least that it's unpredictable. A wild and wooly reality in which we find ourselves, spirits in the materia. And one of these days, we'll return to the place from which we came.

In the meantime, it seems that I have forgotten how to pray.

Good news to report, though. Miss Morningstar is on the mend. Now my poor husband just needs to recover from a day of heavy worrying.