CarolC: Like I said, we'd never go to Meeting, much, when I was growing up. But as a kid, I just extended the concept of Inner Light to all living things (not just humans), and went outside and had Silent, Unprogrammed, Meetings with the trees.

:-)

That's how I became Pagan Quaker.

Since then, my meditations have led me to the idea that the Inner Light is inherent in all matter in the universe, without any Divine Point of Origin.

That's how I became a non-theist Quaker.

I'm not a "non-believer," though (really dislike that term). I believe in many things: first among them that Life is basically Good. And that the World is Beautiful.