I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.

Where awe actually lives

Most of us grow up with the idea that spiritual experiences happen in specific, designated places—a church, a temple, a formal ceremony. But anyone who's felt their mind go quiet while walking through trees, or noticed how their breath slows near water, knows there's something else happening. Alice Walker is pointing at something real: sometimes the transcendent sneaks up on us in the most ordinary moments, when we're not even looking for it. Nature doesn't demand anything of us. It just is, and we show up, and something clicks.

What's interesting is that this isn't really about religion being wrong—it's about recognizing where your own sense of awe actually lives. For some people that's a cathedral; for others it's a forest path or a quiet corner of a park. The mismatch Walker describes is something a lot of people experience but rarely name: you sit in a pew feeling nothing, then you step outside and suddenly feel everything. That gap between where we're told to feel spiritual and where we actually do is worth paying attention to. It's often pointing us toward what genuinely matters to us, rather than what we think should matter.