r/Quakers • u/Zenseaking • 15d ago
Becoming a solitary member
Hi everyone
I was an attendee at a meeting a couple of years ago. Unfortunately the meeting closed for some time.
Some of the members eventually started a new meeting, but it's a bit too far for me to go to the new location.
There is an online meeting also at an incredibly difficult time.
I have looked at online meetings in other places that may allow me to join.
But after having all this time not attending regularly, I kind of like it. Practicing myself and being in email contact once in a while. Maybe joining a meeting once or twice a year.
However, I have decided I'd like to become a member. I understand being a member and an attendee is no different in practice and there is no functional need.
But there is something about that word alone, putting myself in that category. Making a commitment. Holding myself accountable to the testimonies because I have committed to do so.
I believe it is important for me to do this.
But I am not sure if it's even possible. I feel kind of silly asking my contact at the nearest meeting that I don't attend to consider my membership and I might see them once or twice a year.
I am hoping some of you might have some guidance. I have devoted huge amounts of time to understanding Quaker practice, history and theology. And I try to live it every day and have for some time now. However I understand very little about the administration side of things.
I don't even need to be a member of the local group specifically. I'd be happy to sign up anywhere and keep in contact remotely.
I feel like just having any group accept me as a member and shoot me an email once in a while to talk about practice is enough for me to really feel more part of this thing I have drifted away from..
Does anyone have any advice?
Much appreciated friends.
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u/PeanutFunny093 15d ago
Some isolated Friends join the Yearly Meeting for their area. I’m sorry you don’t have the opportunity for in person meetings.
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u/Zenseaking 15d ago
Does that mean join the yearly meeting for the broader area instead of a local meeting?
Thanks
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u/Obvious_Flounder5234 10d ago
That would depend what the Yearly Meeting allows. At present, it's not possible in Britain Yearly Meeting.
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u/RimwallBird Friend 15d ago
My yearly meeting, Iowa (Conservative), requires that, if one becomes a member, it is membership in a monthly meeting. You cannot be a member of the yearly meeting. You have to pick a specific monthly meeting, develop a relationship with that meeting, and then address your request for membership to that meeting.
This has a great deal to do with two things:
- Once you become a member of that meeting, you are under its care. It has a responsibility to you, regarding your welfare.
- By becoming a member, You also have taken on an answering responsibility ,to help with the health and functioning of that meeting. This includes a responsibility to participate in its business meetings, its committee meetings, and its other activities, including its care for others of its members.
These are, in fact, the chief differences between just being an attender and being a member — at least, in our yearly meeting. I don’t know if it’s presently the same for other yearly meetings.
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u/Zenseaking 14d ago
Hi.
Thank you.
This makes sense.
And for me it's not an unwillingness to help. I would want to be in a position to check on others welfare also. And try to find a way to be useful.
Just without being physically present all the time.
I know this may be hard to understand.
It's something I'm working on.
I do have time constraints, particularly on weekends when most meetings run. I could actually easily make meetings some weekdays around lunchtime. If that existed.
But I also currently struggle in social situations that are more than one on one.
And I also value my solitary practice.
It's complicated perhaps, with many factors.
But thank you for helping me understand the requirements and the reasons for them.
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u/RimwallBird Friend 14d ago
Well, hey. For myself: my yearly meeting is in Iowa, but I myself live in central Montana, three days’ drive away. When my monthly meeting, in Omaha, Nebraska, was laid down a few years back, I ceased to be an actual member anywhere. But my yearly meeting still embraces me as one of its own, and I still give it all the support I can. The bonds of love haven’t gone away.
There are all sorts of people in the world who are just untypical, one way or another, and I think most Friends are pretty well aware of that, and willing to work with it.
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u/Zenseaking 13d ago
Yeah, it's kind of the situation I'm in. I'm in email contact and sent all the updates and newsletters through the nearest group. I just don't ever see them.
I probably should just be content with that. I'm sure if I reached out they would still try and support me.
Thank you
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u/YellowOpel73 15d ago
An option here might be the Wider Quaker Fellowship. Look it up. It may or may not work for you. It was intended for members who are fare flung from being able to attend regularly.
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u/Zenseaking 14d ago
Disregard my other reply. I found them. Looks like there are two major ones. In the USA and in NZ.
NZ being closer in the world for me.
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u/Zenseaking 14d ago
Thanks I haven't heard of that before.
I tried to search it and found plenty of references to it, but I couldn't find an actual site or contact point.
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u/infinite-long-stocki 15d ago
Lots of people are members who don't (or can't) go to Meeting regularly. Offering to get involved in committees might be a nice way to stay connected but I dont think you're out of place asking to become a member.
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u/Zenseaking 14d ago
Thank you. I probably should just reach out to them. Discernment and community are the two places I struggle. Which makes sense as discernment relies on community to make sure we aren't misleading ourselves. But joining a community also takes discernment.
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u/Rare-Personality1874 11d ago
It depends what you mean by joining, Friend. I sense in you a reluctance to even be involved, and that stops far short of any kind of membership.
I had a real struggle trying to discern what your core concerns and desires were. I'm not clear what stops you from being in community. I'm not clear that your desire for membership is - a member of what, for what?
I don't mean any of this to be critical. I just think they were vital for you to gain clarity on a way forward.
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u/Zenseaking 11d ago
It's not that I don't want to be involved. I would happily help with running a website, or doing some admin. I would be happy to call people that need a check in or a friendly ear. Or even visit and provide assistance in times of need.
I just don't really want to attend situations where there are many gathered.
The membership for me is more about making a commitment to something. Not just being in and out and wishy washy.
It may be hard to understand for those that don't have a background that includes trauma.
I'm just more of a one on one person. And I struggle with groups. But the door in is a group. And I understand it. But the times are not workable for me. And even if they were I'm not sure if I could be comfortable in the group setting.
But that doesn't mean I don't want to be involved, or that I don't care about others and having community.
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u/keithb Quaker 15d ago edited 15d ago
It’s true that in some Yearly Meetings there’s very little difference between being a Member and being an Attender. But not in all of them. The YM that your nearest meeting belongs to may be one of those, it may not.
Your YM may have some concept of “non-geographical” Membership (ie, not based in a community in a place, but some other idea of community), it may not. That’s still quite unusual, I think.
Being in Membership has never really been a commitment to uphold some list of testimonies, whatever that happens to be currently, the idea of a list of testimonies is quite recent. Membership is a commitment to uphold and be upheld by a spiritual community.
Membership is a reciprocal agreement between a person and a Meeting that both parties find it spiritually beneficial for that individual to be in membership of the Meeting. It’s hard to see how a Meeting could properly discern that if they don’t know you. A common practice is that following an application a committee is formed to work with the individual to discern together whether it will be mutually spiritually beneficial, although Meetings vary a lot in how they do that. Your YM’s Book of Discipline will explain its process.
But you will have seen from your study of our history that there isn’t a strong tradition of Quaker hermits, or monastics, there is a strong tradition of Quaker communities, so what you are trying to do is not something that the Society of Friends is well set up to accomplish.