Below is a letter I wrote this month to Durham Friends Meeting (DFM) requesting that my membership be transferred to Beacon Hill Friends Meeting (BHFM). It was read at DFM's July 2010 Meeting for Worship with
Attention to Business, and Friends approved my transfer request; the clerk will be sending a letter to BHFM soon. I would like to share this letter widely not just with members of Durham Friends Meeting and Beacon Hill Friends Meeting, but with all my fellow Friends and friends who mean so much to me.

I have additional thoughts about what it means to transfer membership as a Young Adult Friend, and how that fits in with the transient nature of being a young adult, but I will share them at another time.


Seventh Month, 2010

Dear Durham Friends Meeting,

I am writing to you to request that my membership be transferred from Durham Friends Meeting (DFM) of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) and the Piedmont Friends Fellowship to Beacon Hill Friends Meeting (BHFM) of New England Yearly Meeting. I have been trying to write this letter for many months now, not for lack of clearness, but for all that I wish to express in such a letter. It is difficult to fit all of my gratitude for two communities dear to me in a single letter of a reasonable length.

I still often find myself referring to Durham Friends Meeting as my “home” meeting, and by this, I mean that it is my first Quaker community, the one in which I grew up. I have fond memories of crawling under the folding chairs in the old building as a baby, and then, when I was a little older, of counting the number of people wearing glasses while anxiously awaiting First Day School – 15 minutes of silence always felt like forever. In the Durham Meeting I went from being the anxious child to the high school young Friend who chose to stay in the full hour of worship well before officially aging out of First Day School, and who sought official membership before departing for college. There are many in DFM who watched me grow up, and I continue to find nourishment from these Friends. Durham Friends Meeting will always be a home community for me, and I am grateful for our continued relationship.

A year after leaving Durham to attend Wellesley College in Massachusetts, after checking out a couple of other Friends meetings in the area, I landed in Beacon Hill Friends Meeting. Without knowing it, these Friends held me each week as I struggled with grief from the recent loss of my brother, Charles, arriving for meeting every Sunday, and then leaving quickly without speaking to anyone. When I began to regain my energy many months later, I found that I was already becoming a known part of the BHFM community. This meant a lot to me. I have now been a part of BHFM for four years, and, having graduated from college, am even serving on Ministry and Counsel. This community has been a constant presence in my life while so many other things have changed – from one semester to another, different social situations, tough academic times, and even graduating from college and searching for jobs. I feel supported and nourished in BHFM, and I am ever grateful for this. My gratitude only grows as I find my relationship with this community continuing to deepen.

I will always remain connected to Durham Friends Meeting, and I know that I will always find a home there. I also want to celebrate the home I have found in Beacon Hill Friends Meeting, and to align my membership
with what is true in my present life. It is with joy and gratitude that I request this transfer of membership.

In the Light,

Claire