Where is God?

“Where is God?” I asked my mother.

I attended preschool at the Salvation Army, where God’s love for us was a frequent topic of our songs and activities. I knew that my very best friends, who lived across the street, went to church every Sunday and had plenty of sayings about God, the devil, heaven, and hell. I wanted to know where God was.

We were walking home from preschool. It was early autumn, the leaves just beginning to turn and fall onto the brick sidewalks that mesmerized me with their intricate chevron patterns—patterns that shifted into winding rivers as the earth settled beneath them and the roots of old trees pushed them upward. These trees had stood since the birth of our country, silent witnesses to time. My imagination was stirred as much by the cobblestone streets and wrought iron fences as by the “green pastures of Death Valley” (that’s how I heard Psalm 23)—with sheep grazing in sweet spring air that I imagined.

Was that where God lived? In the green pastures of the secret valley of heaven, walking alone in the sunshine with sheep as His company, watching over us. Was God in the sky—the “up there” that adults were always referring to? Was He (God was always referred to as he/him in my world) riding the clouds like magic carpets, wandering around the world watching us?

I also wondered if God was Uncle Sam, because the city was still covered with decorations from the bicentennial celebration of 1976. His image was everywhere, so it made sense to my five-year-old mind that the “He” in “He’s got the whole world in His hands” might be Uncle Sam. Was God a white-haired white man with a blue top hat decorated with stars, red-striped pants, and a bright blue coat with long tails?

“Where is God?” I asked my mother.

“The Quakers say there is a piece of God within everyone,” my mother responded.

My mother, an immigrant to America and my greatest resource for all of the knowledge I sought, frequently referred to the Quakers, and in particular Ben Franklin. I wondered if her attraction to the ideals of the American creation was connected to her roots in Quakerism as much as her love for my father. The ideals of prudence, equality, autonomy, and the basic goodness of people were certainly intermingled in my mind as both spiritual and patriotic. My preschool being located in the heart of Old City, where America was born in the minds of well-intentioned, privileged white men, meant that most of our field trips involved walking to historic buildings with whitewashed lessons on the creation of the United States of America. Like my mother, I fell in love with the ideals, and even later, when I learned a more well-rounded history, I still loved the ideals, even with the realizations that they had been compromised in the building of a nation.

When my mother responded, “The Quakers say there is a piece of God within everyone,” I knew this was true.

Not because it made sense to my preschool mind, but because I felt it in my bones, in my heart, and in my gut.

God is in everyone rang true like warm sun on my skin, like floating in the ocean, like bare feet in the dirt.

My wondering stilled for a moment because I heard the truth—not with my ears, but with my whole body. I had a sense of settling, fullness, and comfort. I felt the openness of my solar plexus spread the warmth and ease throughout my body.

Where do you feel truth in your body?

Your experience is the ultimate authority.

Never underestimate the power of a quiet moment of noticing what you are experiencing.

I find these moments most available in the liminal spaces—just after waking and just before sleep. The first thing I do and the last thing I do each day is check in with myself by noticing how I am breathing. I choose, again and again, to turn toward peace and love.

When are your opportunities to check in with yourself?

Your breath is your most direct experience of yourself—both your confined, identity-obsessed self and your limitless, eternal self.

Your lived experience is more valuable than any measurement, data, or intellectual analysis.

I invite you to lean into moments of quiet noticing—and discover yourself.

When you are anchored in your own experience, you know the Truth. You don’t need any influencer, government authority, or artificial intelligence to convince you. You know what is right and wrong for yourself, and you know what is true or untrue.