Is "God" really listening?

I often wonder if the "god" of my youth is in fact still there, and listening. If perhaps I, as my grandmother would say, turned my back on "him" yet he is patiently waiting and watching.
The older I get the less religious I am and the more spiritual I become. I find it's not about rules bound in ancient books, written by old men. I see it as being about the beauty within and not in a mystical place we will acquire after death. That we should look inward to find the most sacred of places, not above.
Yet the world around me struggles to put everyone in a box, labeled for religious scrutiny. To say my "god" is in everything and everyone around me, the potential everywhere to come into fruition in everyday life. That my "church" is in any place I feel it move me. That I don't meet my congregation at any specific time in a allocated destination, but wait for the moments where I can be a reflection and live my beliefs in each day. Putting that out there would surely have every religious labeled man, woman, and child shouting blasphemy. How could they understand raising my children in a spiritual way without boundaries from ancient times and the fear of punishment lashed down from a "heavenly father" that is supposed to love them unconditionally as I do. I just don't see how teaching them that the truest of all love will only continue to love them if they fit into slot A, but if they should falter as we all do they risk eternal damnation by the one love that should matter the most. In my heart I know that the truest love they can find is deep inside. To love themselves for the being of light that they are. That "god" dwells inside every living entity on this planet. They only have to look with an open soul to find it.
I think the spirit of God is such a beautiful idea, mucked up by people afraid of what they would find if they looked within. So instead they insist that following a set of guidelines on the outside will somehow grant them spiritual beauty on the inside. It doesn't matter how well you sugar coat a piece of shit, it is what it is. If you don't spend a little time everyday being the light within it will get mucked up with crap, crap that can only be purged by seeing the beauty and reveling in all that is around us. Not by asking for forgiveness from a higher power simply because you fear punishment in the afterlife.
If "god" is still there and is listening, she must be so disappointed in this light called man. Taking such simple principles of life and twisting them into the modern day judgemental vehicle that organized religion is. Tacking a simple name and face to her for worship. Yes, I will teach my children that god is all around, in each of. That by looking within and loving what's inside, they will find "god" and learn to be the spirituality that this crumbling world of ours needs. To fill themselves up with life and share it; in that god will not be watching but living.