Cloud Quakers is a regular Quaker Worship group. We could perhaps be a Meeting, and might be someday, but for now we are a group of regularly attending Quakers who meet online on Zoom, on Sunday evenings at 7 pm Mountain Time. 7 pm US Mountain Time is 8 in Chicago, 9 in New York, and 6 in California; we apologize for the inconvenience to those in Europe, Africa or the Far East. To join us, download Zoom (it takes ~ 5 minutes), dial 373 452 424, and you're in.
You'll find five or six regulars, and regular visitors. It's remarkably popular, and there are lots of people out there who seek a Quaker community. We intend to provide one for a wide range of people, including those who simply can't attend their local one, or don't really have a local one (mine is 70-80 miles across the White Sands and an incredibly harsh desert), or don't really fit in with their local one. My view is that we can be a community on Zoom; we can minister to each other; we can provide connection to the Quaker community.
There are at least five major kinds of Quakers nationwide, and they are very different from each other. It's a sensitive issue, that we don't pretend that we represent all Quakers when in fact we are just five; that we don't speak for all Quakers when we give our view about such things as gay marriage or the use of the Bible as absolute word. Different Quakers have gone different directions. My view is that we should try to recognize the global picture as well as possible, and at the same time forge our own path as we wish as a meeting. I think there's enough interest out there to eventually come up with and stock at least another meeting. It could be that the times are more important to waltz around, than the issues; at least we haven't run up against many theological differences. We've had conflict, but that's different. All communities have conflict.
Join us if you dare. A little Quarterly statement appears below, but I call it that just because we seem to have made it to our first quarter mark. We are not a Quarterly yet, but maybe someday we will be.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Cloud Quaker Quarterly
The Cloud Quakers Worship Group is now fairly stable as at least four or five of us come every week. It's nourishing, interesting, and lively. I couldn't ask for more. My own purpose was to have Quakers in my life, and around as I try to raise the last four of my ten children, who also happen to be pretty tough, as they present issues we weren't totally familiar with. Now, as I participate in Cloud Quakers on a Sunday evening, my whole family knows I'm at meeting. They tiptoe around me and listen in a little. They consider it a part of me and what I do, and I like that.
There are several issues that have come up in the course of starting a new meeting, not the least of which is zoom itself. Somehow my friend Maurine, a founding member, got listed as "Admin" and her picture now appears as "Admin," while the rest of us appear with our names by our pictures. I am not even sure how she became "Admin;" I certainly never gave her the honor, and so, now I'm wondering how to get it back. She doesn't want it. Like most Quakers; when Nominating Committee comes around, we're nowhere to be found, and so those who are missing get nominated. But in this case, it's a matter of knowing Zoom.
And as we get larger, zoom shows and streams each of our pictures, but you can no longer see each one, because the screen will literally show only about five or six. The remaining are tacked on to that five or six, and you can see them with effort, by clicking on an arrow, but only at the expense of those who you were in the presence of earlier. We like to be in the presence of each other; that's why five or six, on this platform, is probably the ideal number. But surprisingly the format and accessibility of Cloud Quakers is popular, and people are joining us from all over. Starting with us five or six, and our friends, we have an ever-widening community.
It's possible that we attract a few who have had trouble fitting in with their local meetings. I don't have a problem with that. If this were to become regular, our people might be a little more outcast, swim-against-the-tide type Quakers. I don't have a problem with that either. I believe Quakerism is itself large enough to fit those who want to be Quakers but who don't necessarily enjoy worshiping with the local variety. I know when I was in a certain medium-size town in Texas the local variety was mostly evangelical, fundamentalist, etc., and if I hadn't found friends of my own variety, I might have become disjointed altogether. As it is we Quakers are a little scarce in this world and there are whole swaths of the countryside, southeast Kansas for example, where they're hard to be found.
If Quakerism were able to hold and sustain a larger population of like-minded souls, who are attracted to our ways but unable to find agreeable communities, Quakerism would be much larger than the four or five thousand that it is now. It's the existence of communities, that nourish their people, and shine their light on their children, that are the essence of sustainability. We in the loosely knit online Quaker community can do many of the same things for our members as the old rural, meeting-house based communities used to do for theirs; it's just going to be different. We can't shake hands after meeting, or offer hugs. But we'll have to have our own traditions to sustain us.
The question comes up about whether we should be a meeting; whether we should have Meeting for Business; whether we can do some of the things meetings do. I am of mixed feelings. We are now a worship group, and I don't have any problem having a worship group that is somewhat outside the regular structure of Quakerism. I very occasionally attend Las Cruces meeting; I am still a member of Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting. I've been a Quaker for long enough that I don't have a problem representing it or clerking a meeting. In a sense, though, I want that connection, and may go down to Las Cruces just to ask for it. We would be part of Intermountain Yearly meeting, I suppose. We would gain membership in a Yearly that perhaps would know about us, and visit, and / or help us out.
Ah, but that's a question for another day. For this one, let's simply figure out how to use Zoom to our best advantage.
There are several issues that have come up in the course of starting a new meeting, not the least of which is zoom itself. Somehow my friend Maurine, a founding member, got listed as "Admin" and her picture now appears as "Admin," while the rest of us appear with our names by our pictures. I am not even sure how she became "Admin;" I certainly never gave her the honor, and so, now I'm wondering how to get it back. She doesn't want it. Like most Quakers; when Nominating Committee comes around, we're nowhere to be found, and so those who are missing get nominated. But in this case, it's a matter of knowing Zoom.
And as we get larger, zoom shows and streams each of our pictures, but you can no longer see each one, because the screen will literally show only about five or six. The remaining are tacked on to that five or six, and you can see them with effort, by clicking on an arrow, but only at the expense of those who you were in the presence of earlier. We like to be in the presence of each other; that's why five or six, on this platform, is probably the ideal number. But surprisingly the format and accessibility of Cloud Quakers is popular, and people are joining us from all over. Starting with us five or six, and our friends, we have an ever-widening community.
It's possible that we attract a few who have had trouble fitting in with their local meetings. I don't have a problem with that. If this were to become regular, our people might be a little more outcast, swim-against-the-tide type Quakers. I don't have a problem with that either. I believe Quakerism is itself large enough to fit those who want to be Quakers but who don't necessarily enjoy worshiping with the local variety. I know when I was in a certain medium-size town in Texas the local variety was mostly evangelical, fundamentalist, etc., and if I hadn't found friends of my own variety, I might have become disjointed altogether. As it is we Quakers are a little scarce in this world and there are whole swaths of the countryside, southeast Kansas for example, where they're hard to be found.
If Quakerism were able to hold and sustain a larger population of like-minded souls, who are attracted to our ways but unable to find agreeable communities, Quakerism would be much larger than the four or five thousand that it is now. It's the existence of communities, that nourish their people, and shine their light on their children, that are the essence of sustainability. We in the loosely knit online Quaker community can do many of the same things for our members as the old rural, meeting-house based communities used to do for theirs; it's just going to be different. We can't shake hands after meeting, or offer hugs. But we'll have to have our own traditions to sustain us.
The question comes up about whether we should be a meeting; whether we should have Meeting for Business; whether we can do some of the things meetings do. I am of mixed feelings. We are now a worship group, and I don't have any problem having a worship group that is somewhat outside the regular structure of Quakerism. I very occasionally attend Las Cruces meeting; I am still a member of Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting. I've been a Quaker for long enough that I don't have a problem representing it or clerking a meeting. In a sense, though, I want that connection, and may go down to Las Cruces just to ask for it. We would be part of Intermountain Yearly meeting, I suppose. We would gain membership in a Yearly that perhaps would know about us, and visit, and / or help us out.
Ah, but that's a question for another day. For this one, let's simply figure out how to use Zoom to our best advantage.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Friday, February 1, 2019
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