The most meaningful thing I said in therapy today was as follows.

When I grew up in the family that raised me, though I am grateful for how they raised me, I felt living with them put a strain of guilt on any concept of spirituality or religion that I had.

Joey professed atheism the one time I asked him about his beliefs, and when he and Anna were in high school they both leaned this way. My father was outspoken as an atheist for a long time, and I heard his words on athiest rights and felt confused about what I should think. To his credit he wanted me to have a full chance to seek out and find for myself what I wanted to worship and believe.

My mother went to the Emmanuel Episcopal church and in my teenaged years I asked her if I could go with her. That beautiful church was the closest thing I knew to a place where people come together to connect with God and the Spirit. I loved looking at the stain glassed windows and to listen to the sermon, even if the sermon confused me at times.

When I began high school I felt confused about a lot of things especially because my friends were getting into things I felt were immoral like drugs and alcohol. I thought that since they said they were Christians but acted this way I had to teach them something. But I am not an atheist.

Daddy started going to Friends Meeting when I was about eight years old. And in 2001, I went to Monteverde, Costa Rica to live for two and a half months and discovered the Inner Light again in the Quaker Meeting there. I decided to call myself a Friend and a Quaker and though I was not sure I was a Christian it never seemed to matter.

When I came back to the States, to summarize ten years, I found that I am not a Christian. I did things that made me doubt if I was a Quaker either. Up until recently I have attended Friends Meetings and sought them out, but I currently seem to be evolving away from my Quaker identity.

In therapy today I told my therapist that when I was a child I felt I did not know how to explore my immense spiritual feelings and I felt squelched by a family that felt overpoweringly atheist. I know they did not mean me harm. They argued ideals, and I sought a different kind of meaning.

Last night I had a lot of time to sit and discern with just myself present, a gift that had been missing and needing in my life for a long time. As I thought with myself I grew aware that I need to stop letting the views of others impact me when it comes to the Inner Light or God. I am a vastly spiritual person and I there is something to be said about communing together with others who feel as you do about God.

As an end note, I am now thinking of trying out the Jubilee Church. My therapist suggested it might be right for me and I could tell she was called to tell me that and she knows me well and is a compassionate person.

The most important thing for children, Quaker or not, is that they have a way to get what they need about God. Just because I hungered for the Spirit and did not feel I was allowed it by most of my family then does not mean they did me wrong. I am here spreading my Truth and that is all that matters now. Everybody needs someone they can talk with about God, unless they are brave or encouraged to go straight to the source.

(For informaton on Jubilee see the following link: http://www.jubileecommunity.org/whatCreationSpirit.htm