W here is God? It’s a question on the lips and in the hearts of many people these sad days. And my atheist friends point out with renewed fervor the arguments against a loving deity posed by the kind of arbitrary misery the tsunami meted out. If a loving God exists, why these children, these families, this scale of misery?

I’m no theologian, but I’m struck by the staleness of this sentiment. This is probably the worst natural disaster of our lifetime, to be sure, but it’s hardly the first of this magnitude. If it proves the nonexistence of God as we conceive him (or her), surely that proof has been around for millennia, standing out fat and unmistakable to anyone who reads history. Natural disasters and their attendant misery pepper the records going as far back as you can go, even further if you read the geological record. And with each, fragile humans suffer.

Maybe it helps that I’m one of those believers who is OK with having my faith full of unanswered questions, comfortable with science as a long unfolding of our small and tentative understanding of the mind of God. Maybe it helps that I’ve never viewed God as omnipotent in the way some do: controlling each minute pulsation of unfolding reality, from the heartbeat of the hummingbird to the shifting of tectonic plates. That doesn’t hold up: Some intelligent being sitting somewhere and saying, OK, this child will survive leukemia, this one won’t. This possum will make it across the road, this one will be roadkill. Doesn’t work for me.

What’s behind all this questioning, I sense, is the terror at our vulnerability, the vulnerability of all life and our fierce attachment to it. That’s part of the deal, whether we live in a fishing village in Bangladesh or in midtown Manhattan. We’re mortal, and our existence is precarious.

Speaking of Manhattan, I had a visitor last week from New York, and we agreed that that city, its unceasing rush and clatter, is one of today’s major miracles. Think on it: all those cars, all those pedestrians, all those lunatic cyclists, all those subway trains careening under the avenues — chaos! Isn’t it amazing that it works at all? That you don’t see constant carnage in the streets?

Or take a look at that ravaged Indian Ocean coastline, so much humanity wiped away in a few minutes — but the real miracle, really, is the fact that so much has gone on, relatively undisturbed, right on the lip of that enormous bowl of water, for so many decades and centuries. It’s the most amazing thing: the right combination of elevation, temperature, biological activity, for millions of creatures to survive. A small shift under the ocean floor, and instant misery ensues — I’m actually amazed it doesn’t happen more often.

And how about the unlikely phenomenon of this whole lonesome planet, sitting out here with just the right conditions for life, with so many other sterile worlds floating out there, lifeless?

How easy it is for us to see God in all the natural wonders of the world, from the Grand Canyon to the Himalayas — but how do we think those things took shape? The continents on which we live were created from unimaginable cataclysms — can you imagine the force that threw up the Himalayan chain as India crashed into Eurasia?

So where is God in all this? Look around, fellow humans! Look at the outpouring of help, of empathy, of dollars. Look at how the American president got turned around by the outrage of the world and his own country, and $15 million grew to $350 million and counting in less than a week. Look how the sectarian conflicts in Sri Lanka and Aceh have been left aside. Look how the United States has decided to work with the United Nations, after all, leaving aside its quarrels because the main thing now is to get the job done.

Look at the American soldiers and American helicopters working with the Australians in a region where they once spread death, now feverishly ferrying food and medicine in and bringing victims out.

The humans in that region are hurting and weeping and the entire world is rushing to put its arms around them, the same way the guys with the NASCAR bumper stickers jumped into their pickups and headed north after 9/11.

If God did not exist, in my mind, we’d all be shrugging and saying, “Yup. Tough things, those tsunamis. Now, about my hair appointment …” Instead, I find myself feeling unaccustomed joy at the use of my tax dollars, helping to bring succor. Another miracle.

I think of all the poor dead children, and the orphaned ones, and look at my own children and my heart clutches. We are all so fragile, and perversely, it’s part of what makes us so precious. Yet another conundrum that reminds me how ill-equipped I am to know the mind of God.

In that endeavor, however, we have been offered some help. Jesus teaches that God is love. Buddha preaches compassion. The prophet Muhammad preaches charity.

God is among us.