"God's Aways on Business"

"I don't think God knows who we are. I think He would like us, if He knew us, but I don't think He knows about us.

But He made us, Miss. No?

He did. But He made the tails of peacocks too. That must have been harder.

Oh, but, Miss, we sing and talk. Peacocks do not.

We need to. Peacocks don't. What else do we have?

Thoughts. Hands to make things.

All well and good. But that's our business. Not God's. He's doing something else in the world. We are not on His mind.

What is He doing then, if not watching over us?

Lord knows."

in Toni Morrison, A Mercy