All That Matters

What I Learned While Looking for God in America

Are there paths to God hiding in plain sight?

In 2014, Tom Soma left his job, sold his home, and set out from Portland, Oregon, in his ten-year-old, twenty-one-foot RV to ask people across America two questions:

  • How do you experience the Divine?
  • How does that encounter color your life?

From their answers, he hoped to address a third question: Can the ways we connect with God help transform how we engage with each other and the earth?

Part classic road narrative, part spiritual memoir, and part open-hearted inquiry into what unites us, All That Matters follows Soma over 53 weeks and more than 26,000 miles as he speaks with hundreds of people, friends and strangers alike, who share their insights into one of humanity’s most intriguing mysteries: the essence of our connection with whatever created us.

Along the way, Soma probes not for what people had learned or believed but what they’d lived and felt—their direct experience of divinity. And what he discovers is both surprising and hopeful.

Warmly written, humorous, and humane, Soma’s journey reveals that though the word “God” often divides us, the experience of what really matters does not.

All That Matters is an invitation to look more closely at the world around us and to find the divinity within—right where it has always been.

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ISBN: 979-8-90026-323-6
Imprint: Amplify Publishing
SKU: 18-1682-01
Categories:Amplify Publishing, Memoirs and Biographies
“Tom Soma is your devoted guide on a clear-eyed, honest, and heartfelt quest for God, spirituality, and the meaning of life and death. You will be, as Soma was, transported." —Bryan Gruley, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and critically acclaimed author of the Starvation Lake and Bitterfrost thriller series
“It takes only a few pages to recognize that Tom Soma was the absolute best person to write this book. Not because he packed his suitcase with assumptions about where the answers to his questions might be found, but rather because he was intent on listening to everyone in his path. All That Matters paints a vivid picture of the soul of America, offering spiritual revelations that surface in the most unexpected places. A beautiful journey for the reader.” —Mike Rich, award-winning screenwriter of Finding Forrester, The Rookie, and The Nativity Story
“A captivating, witty, and deeply human journey into the heart of America’s spiritual soul. Tom’s search for God is filled with unforgettable characters, unexpected wisdom, and profound insights that challenge, inspire, and delight. Provocative, uplifting, and impossible to put down. For the record, I’ve tasted Tom’s cinnamon buns, and there’s no reason to search the country—his are simply the best!” —Megan Wagner, PhD, author, therapist, spiritual guide, and world traveler
“How do people experience the Divine? That's the essential question in Tom Soma’s enlightening new book. Experience is the important word here. Because the question ‘How do people learn the Divine?’ would be a stale ride to a dead end. This book is not that. Instead of following someone else’s directions, Tom sets out on his own journey—and finds in the answers of ordinary Americans both wisdom and hope. The story is alive and the writing pure. Steinbeck would be proud.” —Joel Beverly, author of In the Absence of Belief and Artemes

Tom Soma

Nonprofit Leader & Soulful Conversation Catalyst

Tom Soma is a writer, poet, and longtime nonprofit leader whose articles have appeared in PORTLAND magazine, The Oregonian, Full-Time Dads, Mothering, and Spirituality & Health. He is also the author of No Small Thing—and Other Periodic Musings, a collection of essays set at the Ronald McDonald House, and The Secret Ingredient—More Musings from the Ronald McDonald Houses, published by NewSouth Books.

His professional career began with a year of volunteer service at a legal clinic, followed by two years caring for emotionally disturbed children in a residential treatment center. He later worked in higher education fundraising at the University of Portland and Lewis & Clark College.

Between those roles, he devoted eight years to part-time writing and the full-time parenting of his three daughters, who initially provided rich inspiration and later rewarded him with five grandchildren. In 1999, he was appointed executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Oregon and Southwest Washington, which he led for fifteen years. From 2016 to 2019, he directed Children’s Center in Oregon City, Oregon, a child abuse intervention center.

A Michigan native and 1979 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, he lived in Portland, Oregon, for forty-two years before moving with his wife to St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2021.

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