Quote 1
Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like s***.
It? I ast.
Yeah, It. God ain’t a he or a she, but a It.
But what do it look like? I ast.
Don’t look like nothing, she say. (73.46-50)
According to Shug, God has no gender and no race. God is something inside of every person.
Quote 2
She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can’t miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That’s some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that’s going, and praise God by liking what you like. (73.52-54)
Shug find a connection to God in nature, not in the idea of God an old white man. She also sees God in all things pleasurable, from experiencing being in nature to the enjoyment of sex.
Quote 3
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. (73.58)
Shug sees God’s love in the beauty around her. She believes that God places beauty in the world to make human happy; that God made the color purple in order to cause pleasure.