The Tao of Masonry

Well, we pulled it off.

On Saturday, March 29, a dozen and half officers from the eight different lodges of District 5 managed to put together a very nice FC degree in the auditorium of the Masonic Health Care Center in Wallingford.

Anyone who has ever seen the bedlam which accompanies a normal degree rehearsal can only imagine what our single rehearsal was like the week before the degree. Well, that’s not fair – since half the people didn’t show up, the confusion in the temple wasn’t anything like it could have been, I’m sure.

On Saturday morning, several of the brothers met at Friendship and piled the officer’s stations, jewels, aprons, and the movable set of stairs into RWB Gary Arseneau’s and Senior Steward Kyle Charette’s pickup trucks. WB Ted Hasty, the poor guy who coordinated this event was already at the auditorium, moving the chairs and rearranging the room. By 10:45 am, everything was in position.

Which was perfect timing for my arrival at 10:55.

Apparently, WB Ted was a bit antsy about the event, and got there very early just to make sure that things were going to work out. He’s obviously my Bizarro world twin: he shows up as early as I tend to show up late. Oh, and I think that Ted has a reaction to the red kryptonite.

After the room was set up we were treated to lunch in the MHA cafeteria. I declined, owing to a traumatic lunchroom incident in my childhood involving spaghetti, soy meatloaf, and canned wildebeest – the details of which are best left to the imagination. But shortly afterwards, several of us took a small tour of the Ashlar Village facility, just up the hill from the hospital. Ashlar Village is a small community having a mixture of independent and assisted living buildings. We took a look into the newly remodeled main building. “Newly remodeled” is perhaps not the best term, and for the last several years it seems to be under a new plan called “constant remodeling.” I think that the facility changes every month. One of the highlights, though, was the small lodge room that has been built on one of the basement areas. It hasn’t been used for any official purpose, however as you can see from the pictures it’s had some unofficial uses.

By the time we got back, other people started showing up: officers from other lodges, several interested onlookers, and eventually, a few brothers from the hospital itself. Personally, I was a little disappointed at the turnout – only eight brothers from the hospital and nearby Ashlar Village ended up visiting. But that disappointment was mitigated by learning that one brother had not been to a lodge in over 40 years, and another had been hoping to see a degree for several years, but had no way to travel. Four of our guests were in wheelchairs, one had a walker, and another had a cane. One brother happened to pass by me heading down the hall and called out “What part are you doing, sonny?” I slowed down to talk to him and keep him company on the walk down. After assuring him that I really did not need to borrow his ritual book (why do some of the old timers read the books while following the degree? Self-appointed quality control inspectors?) he told me not to walk with him because he was shuffling along rather slowly and he didn’t want to hold me up. “I’m pretty sure I’ll make it by one-thirty!” he called after me as he inched along the hallway.

Click here to see the rest of the photos

The degree itself was a pleasant affair, made interesting because we had one candidate from Sequin-Level and one from Unity. Being a Fellowcraft degree, Friendship brought along their stairs. Yes, we have a set of spiral stairs that appear to have been built in the 50s; they disassemble for storage, so we were able to fit them into the back of a pickup and haul them down. Some of the visitors who had never been to Friendship spent some time testing them for strength; but we’ve never had a problem. I fear, however, that we’ll need to make some minor repairs, simply because age and knocking around in a closet every few months is taking it’s toll on them.

The officers performed admirably and the candidates had a very nice degree, made even more memorable by the fact that parts were done by officers from eight different lodges. Even the “Staircase Lecture” was broken up into several parts to allow the lodges to take a more active role.

On the way home, most of us wondered why we didn’t do this kind of thing every year. By the time several of us had driven back to Friendship to help unload the furniture, we’d resolved to have another District degree for the residents of the hospital for next year.

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

For those 19 readers that I have in Connecticut, there will be a Fellowcraft Degree at the Masonic Hospital in Wallingford on Saturday, March 29 at 1:00 pm in the auditorium.

The purpose of the degree will be to allow Masonicare residents who can not normally get out to attend a degree. The various lodges from the 5th District will have different officers take the chairs, and we expect that several candidates from the 5th District will be passed.

We drew names positions out of a hat at a recent Blue Lodge Council (our periodic District meetings), and came up with this mix of positions:

Worshipful Master: Valley Lodge# 36
Senior Warden: Sequin-Level #140
Junior Warden: Unity #148
Senior Deacon: Friendship #33
Junior Deacon: Frederick-Franklin #14
Senior Steward: Silas Deane #147
Junior Steward: Village #29
Chaplain: Evening Star #101
Charge: That egotistical District Lecturer.

Several of the lectures are going to be split up amongst various other officers in order to have a good representation of the lodges in the 5th District. The degree is being coordinated by the already overworked Ted Hasty, the Associate Grand Marshal for the northern part of our district. Anyone who remembers that all lodges have their own little quirks and “traditions” can well imagine the amount of aspirin that WB Ted is going to need in order to coordinate (and accommodate) eight separate lodges.

Some of us will be showing up at the hospital at 10:00 am in order to transform the auditorium into something that resembles a lodge room. Hope to see you there!

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The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur because of all the family visiting, people to transport to and from airports, phone calls, and the assorted arrangements that one makes when a family member dies.

I visited my grandmother at the hospice section of the hospital where she had been checked in. She was tired, but alert; we joked about the advances in hospital technology since she had been a nurse in the 1940s. She offered me a cookie, and after an hour or so decided that she wanted to take a nap. Less than a week later she was moved to a nursing home. My wife and I drove out to visit, but she was sleeping. I stayed away for the next few days, having come down with one of those flus that’s been making the rounds. Three days later, she passed away.

She was 95 years old. She died peacefully in her sleep, in a warm room surrounded by trashy romance novels, jigsaw puzzles, and loving family members. We should all be so fortunate.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.

The funeral was almost a week later. In any group of people in which I am present, you’d come out pretty well if you had bet on me to be the one person who wasn’t following the directions. I pulled into the visitor’s parking at the funeral home, which means that I never signed in for the automobile procession, had my name logged in, etc. As it happens, this allowed me to be the first to leave the funeral home and head for the church, several blocks away. I took a turn, drove halfway down the block and something out of the corner of my eye made me slam on the brakes.

If you were the soccer mom in the minivan behind me, I’m really sorry about that.

I had happened to catch sight of the familiar square and compasses on a sign as I drove down the street; I was surprised because I hadn’t known that there was a lodge in this town. Just a few weeks earlier I had been at a lodge in the next town, in a huge, old building. This lodge, just across the river, was a complete contrast. A small, unassuming building in a residential neighborhood, with the S&C prominently displayed. I’ll have to stop in sometime.

But that’s not what I’m writing about, either.

I pulled into a side parking lot of the church, and waited in the cold for the hearse to show up. After the family had gathered, we opened the back of the car and brought the casket out to trolley and wheeled it through the outer doors of the church and waited while the other family members filed past the casket and into the pews. We then wheeled the casket up toward the sanctuary.

It has been some years since I’ve been to a Roman Catholic service, probably since before I joined the fraternity. The church was done in the architecture more common after the 1960s – open and airy, almost giving the impression that the services were taking place outdoors. But it was the imagery on the crucifix – an ornate cross carried by one of the assistants – that caught my eye.

The crucifixes that I remember seeing when I was younger tended to be thin strips of wood, supporting a small sculpture of the crucified Jesus. This version was made of wide sections, with Jesus painted in the typical crucified manner: arms outstretched, head hanging down, blood on his side.

But that’s not what caught my eye. I had never seen – or at least, had never noticed – imagery around a crucifix. This one had at the bottom (under the picture of the cross itself) a skull atop what appeared to be a small pile of bones. While Connecticut Masonry does not use the skull and coffin in the ritual, it’s certainly familiar to any Mason who has seen pictures from other jurisdictions.

Looking up, I saw on the left side of the cross-piece a stylized picture of a crescent moon. This was matched on the opposite side by a stylized picture of the sun, complete with a number of radiant streamers. Both of these pictures would have been immediately recognizable to any Mason in Connecticut who has ever carried a Deacon’s staff. The likeness was unmistakable.

But there’s more.

At the very top of the cross was a large equilateral triangle. Inside the triangle was a dove, poised head downward. The wings, however, were partially outstretched and bisected the upper sides of the triangle, passing, or perhaps, breaking through the sides. The wings angled upward in such a way that if you had drawn a line from wingtip to the head and up to the other wingtip, you would have an angle approximating 90º.

Just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, at some point in the service I leaned over to my 12 year old daughter. “Check out the symbols around the cross by the casket,” I whispered.

It took her about three seconds. “That’s a Mason thing, isn’t it?” she whispered back.

Okay, so it wasn’t just my imagination – the setup had vaguely Masonic undertones.

As I listened to the priest describe the significance of the white shroud, the flowers, and the various other items around the area, my mind drifted off to wonder how our two organizations managed to develop the symbols that they
did, and why we had similar – though not necessarily identical – explanations for them. It led me to wonder if the semiotics – the underlying symbology itself – wasn’t based on some deeper or older meanings, meanings of which we may be currently unaware. Or perhaps, meaninngs which have passed the threshold of awareness because they are such a basic part of our cultural memes.

But that’s not really what I’m writing about.

Driving from the church to the cemetery, we passed a well-known local landmark; a statue of one of our Revolutionary War heroes mounted on a horse with one foot raised. I reflected on the folklore which suggests that one foot raised means that the subject was wounded in battle, while two legs off the ground meant that he was killed in battle.

The service at the cemetery was very brief, perhaps owing to the raw, damp weather and the forecast of snow. Several of the family members tossed rose petals into the grave.

My sister rode with me on the way back home, and we passed another well-known local statue of a famous area resident who had lived until a ripe, old age in a nearby city. He was on a horse with both legs off the ground.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.

My sister stayed with us overnight in order to better catch an early flight out. Although we had eaten in the afternoon, we decided to have a little snack. She put some bread into our new Italian-designed toaster-broiler-convection oven. She spent some minutes fumbling with the buttons, until I showed her the combination that would work: the one that looked like a stylized sliced section of a loaf and the other one that had wavy lines, presumably to represent heat. Very easy to follow, if you know what you’re looking for.

Sis doesn’t get out to Connecticut all that often, so we spent some time chatting, trying to catch up with each other’s lives. She’s less active with her church than she used to be, but has been spending a lot of time building up her side business as a photographer. I, of course, have been working a lot and when I’m not with my family, I’m usually doing something in my capacity as the District Grand Lecturer, which I explained was the guy in the area that tried to help the lodges in my area maintain the integrity of our ancient ceremonies that we have performed since time immemorial. I went on to explain that each ceremony has specific significance to it and teaches certain lessons in morality and natural philosophy. I also explained that while most states are similar in ritual, other countries have ceremonies and forms that are virtually unrecognizable to us – although, of course, we’re all still brothers… and in some cases, even sisters.

At that point I had to stop explaining so we could get some pizza.

But that’s not what I’m trying to write about.

The next day I dropped her off at the airport. On the way, I noticed the sign for the local Machinists and Aerospace Workers Union. There’s something familiar about it, isn’t there?

Anyway, I continued on my way to work, put in a full day, and then headed down to lodge right from the office. Just as I was pulling into the parking lot, a light blinked on in the dashboard of my new truck. I’d never seen this light before, and had no idea what it meant. I parked the car and opened up the manual in the glove box to see if I could figure out what it was, but I couldn’t find it.

I hope it wasn’t anything important.

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This District Grand Lecturer position is a totally sweet gig. All I’m actually required to do is make sure that the incoming Master of a lodge passes a ritual test, and at rare times, oversee a little written test on the Grand Lodge rules and regulations. In Connecticut, most lodges have their installations from December to January; human nature being what it is, this means that I would be at my most busiest toward the end of the Masonic year as I do the certifications during October and November. The rest of the year I am free to spend on loose cars and fast women, while basking in the fame and glory.

Well, I suppose I could if I really wanted to.

A while back I had a discussion with a brother who insisted that the District Lecturers were unnecessary, and that the simple requirements could easily be done by the District Deputies or their Associate Grand Marshals. And indeed, he’s quite correct; the position as it now stands does not require much work, and carries very little authority. I’ll be the first to admit that almost anyone could handle the minimum requirements. Hell, they asked me, didn’t they?

But why would anyone want only the minimum requirements?

Over the last year, several lodges have asked me to help them polish their ritual proficiency and floorwork, and so I spend most of my time at lodges reviewing degree work, and at rehearsals, giving tips, making suggestions, and (hopefully) inspiring new officers to be better by coaching them along. Not surprisingly, this is exactly how I was taught in my own lodge by experienced Past Masters.

Recently, the Master-elect at one of my lodges asked if I would be willing to help out at their degree rehearsals. As it turns out, all of the junior officers are new guys, and the Wardens are not Past Masters. You might think that this would have been a challenge, but in fact, I was thrilled to see that all of the officers put in a lot of work to learn their parts in such a short amount of time. It’s really a good feeling to be around men who take pride in their work and who want to make an impression on the candidates. We spent a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon going over floorwork, coordinating the parts, and rehearsing lines. As it turns out, this was also helpful brush-up for the new Master who hadn’t done an EA degree in 28 years.

The result was a very fine degree two nights later, and a group of very proud officers. They’re so pumped that they’ve scheduled another EA degree for mid-February. Considering that this lodge had been having some difficulties over the past few years, it’s heartening to see that things are turning around for them.

That lodge joins my affiliate lodge in the ranks of those who are making concerted efforts to improve the quality of their ritual and degree work by setting higher expectations for the officers, scheduling one or more rehearsals for each degree, and having back-up plans in case of last-minute emergencies.

Each lodge is responsible for their own degree work. Unfortunately, many junior officers have not seen good degree work modeled for them, and so aren’t able to pass on those good habits when they become senior officers. Connecticut typically runs one ritual seminar per year… at least, they used to. We stopped even that for a few years when the District Grand Lecturer system was put into place, in essence taking away the one opportunity that many officers had to learn. Last year, the Lecturers got together with the Committee on Masonic Education to put on the first ritual seminar in four years – and it attracted over a hundred Masons from around the state, plus another few dozen purple aprons. The feedback was so positive that we’ve scheduled another one, to be held in February.

I think that’s great.

I also think that it’s not enough.

And this bring me back to the point about the necessity of the District Lecturers. Some of us have held “mini-seminars,” inviting the officers around the district to an evening of instruction, held at a particular lodge. I’ve been working with one lodge at a time at rehearsals, believing that it’s better to work with officers in smaller groups. Either way, we all believe that it’s important to address the ritual issues, and having one or two officers in each district dedicated to Masonic education and instruction seems like a better approach than waiting until an officer is ready to be elected to the East.

Many jurisdictions have appointed officers to oversee ritual instruction, but how they handle it varies widely. Some have an appointed person in each lodge, so that there is always one authority on what to do (or not) at every rehearsal. I like that idea because it prevents the multiple cross-feedback loops that new officers get when two or more Past Masters have varying ideas of how things should be done, and spend half the rehearsal arguing over why their way is better or how they never did something that way before.

Anyway, they asked me if I’d be interested in doing this gig again next year. Of course, I agreed; It’s just too sweet to pass up.

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Every year, the next-to-junior Past Master of Friendship Lodge gets the the unenviable task of gathering together a large group of his predecessors for the purpose of putting on a Master Mason degree. We typically hold two sets of degrees, one in early spring and one in the fall, and the Past Master’s degree is performed at the Master’s discretion. Some choose to do it early to give them more time to study for their own degree.

If you’re having deja vu, it’s because I first wrote that last year. Once again, I’m amazed that I’ve been blogging for a year and a half.

Last year, I sat in the East because the PM in charge of the degree wanted to slack off see it done properly didn’t have the time to prepare over the summer. This year, the degree was again held in November, and WB George, PM from 2005, followed suit by taking the JD position and asking WB Richie to take the East. Yours truly ended up in the West, although not exactly riding off into the sunset.

Because of the various schedules of the PMs involved, plus a large benefit dinner that involved most of the officers the previous weekend, there were no rehearsals for this degree. Now, in theory this should not make a difference; we’re all experienced ritualists, and being Past Masters, we’ve all had some degree of practice.

You know what they say: In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.

Amazingly, however, most of the PMs did a great job, even though it’s been years since they’ve sat in the big chair. WB Bob reprised his role as SD and this year managed to leave by the correct door, and RWB Bob and his Past AGM Dick came out to give a great Q&A lecture. Our lodge has an extra part of the GMHA drama that takes the form of a prelude (and postlude) to the official ritual, and our RW Gary, the GSD took on the part of Hiram with his usual aplomb. We called upon a few of the regular officers to fill in other parts of the Craft, and managed to put on a great Master Mason degree… despite the fact that for some reason my brain was geared to an Entered Apprentice degree.

How embarrassing.

A day or two previously I was at another lodge in order to certify their SW in the ritual. We usually do this on the EA degree, and because he did not ask any other officers to help out, I played the roles of the other places and stations in order to give the ritual a better “flow.” When he was finished, another officer popped in and even though he wasn’t prepared to do his certification, we ran through it anyway. The result was that I ended up with the EA degree stuck in my head, much in the same way that a song or TV commercial plays and replays itself over and over until it’s cleansed by a few single malts or if it’s one of the more pernicious forms of earworm, perhaps a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

So, WM Richie opens the lodge, and when he comes to my station, asks how many anciently composed a lodge of Master Masons.

My answer was immediate: “Seven or more.”

Richie is a pro. “When composed of only three, who were they?”

*ahem*

It didn’t stop there, of course. Signs? I was on the wrong degree half the time and it was a never ending source of amusement to watch me correct myself half a second after my brain kicked in. In fact, a visitor from another lodge came up to me later and said “You know, I’m a member of York Rite and Scottish rite, and I don’t believe I recognize that sign you gave at the end there. Was that one of those mystery degrees?”

Wise guy.

In an interesting twist on how a man will often bring in a younger family member, one of the men we were raising was watched by his son-in-law who came up from New York City to see the degree. This particular batch of candidates have already made themselves useful in the lodge, coming down to help for various events since the summer. That’s great because often new brothers feel at a loss because they don’t know anyone or how things work. I’ve found that more than meeting nights, helping out at events – dinners, blood drives, food drives, etc., are a much better way to get to know your new brothers because it’s a much less formal setting, and doing actual, physical work give everyone – even the new guys – an opportunity to feel useful. I’m sure that they will all be great additions to our small but active group of brothers.

I managed to redeem myself in the second half, in which, saving the best for last, I gave the charge. It was the best damned EA charge ever heard in a MM degree, too.

Afterwards, RWB Gary said, “Well, Very Worshipful, that was a rather interesting degree. Certainly an interesting mix of ritual in there, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure,” I agreed, “and some of that ritual was even from Connecticut.”

Obviously, the purpose of appointing me as District Grand Lecturer was to illustrate the point that W.C. Fields once said, “No man is totally useless; he can always serve as a bad example.”

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Appearances to the contrary, the handsome young men in the photo are not up for the parts of Curly, Moe and Larry. No, that’s me in the center, flanked by two of the four five Connecticut Masons who are guilty of blogging. Movable Jewel currently serves with me on the Committee for Masonic Education, and North Eastern Corner came to the recent officer’s seminar held at Ashlar Village, the Masonicare facility in Wallingford.

I’ve discovered that I have more online friends than local friends, so it’s always rare but interesting to run into someone that I “know,” but have never met in person. As it happens, though, I have met all of the Connecticut bloggers. Masonic Renaissance is a fellow District Grand Lecturer, and the mono-nymed Radcliffe of Metaphysical Freemason – the latest person to admit “If Tom can have a blog, then anyone can” – is actually a member of my lodge.

Is Connecticut big enough for five people to blog about Masonry? Hartford Advocate writer Adam Bulger wondered about the proliferation of Masons who blog in his recent article.

“I said it seemed odd that Freemasons, an order noted for its secrecy, would have so many members writing blogs, which are often like online confessionals.”

What didn’t make the article was that a lot of Masons are proud of their membership, and enjoy talking about it. Unlike the old days when you might never know that a relative had been a member of the Craft until after he died and you were sorting through his things, many Masons today are interested in exploring their journeys, and in discussing how similar and yet different their experiences are.

Of course, some of us (*ahem*) are just attention hounds.

The seminar itself is a half-day session in which Junior and Senior Wardens are given an overview of the things that they’ll need to know for when they assume the Oriental Chair. The seminars are a little different every year, but we cover a little bit about planning and organizing, team building, Masonic jurisprudence, rules and regulations, how to run meetings, etc. We also have a similar seminar for those who expect to be elected as Master in the coming year. We stress planning and team-building because most of us can’t think of anything worse than having the new Master take the gavel and then say “Uh, okay. Now what?” Similarly, if a Master has a plan for his year, he needs to understand how to delegate tasks, and how to follow up on them so he’s not caught short at the last minute. I was very pleased to find that all of the attendees that I talked to found the seminar enlightening and informative.

A nice post about the Warden’s Seminar can be found on Movable Jewel’s blog.

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I am often out to lodges both in and out of my district, and as a result I get to see a lot of different ways to have a degree ceremony. Unfortunately, sometimes I see lodges that – and I’m going to put this as tactfully as I can – really do not seem to be putting as much effort as possible into initiating our new brothers into the mysteries of the Order. That is why it’s a pleasure to watch a lodge perform a well-crafted degree.

The other night I stopped to see an Entered Apprentice degree at Evening Star Lodge. Evening Star No. 101 is what I think of when I imagine a rural lodge; it’s in one of the older lodge buildings in District 5, a small building near the center of the village, with little room for parking cars (although at one time I’m sure they had room for a lot of horses). The lodge meeting hall is on the second story of a narrow building, and the lodge room itself is on the third floor. No elevators, Stairmasters, but at least you don’t have to rappel off the side of a cliff to get down. I’ve been to Evening Star several times, but never for a degree.

I got there about fifteen minutes before lodge started and was greeted by WB Gerhard, the Master from last year, now the Chaplain. He explained that it was a move-up night, and that the Junior Warden was heading up the degree. I said hello to a few other guys that I knew, and went upstairs. It was a little strange to see RW Sivert, my predecessor, in a plain white apron. I greeted him, and looked around the lodge. It’s about the size of Friendship, maybe a bit thinner and a bit longer. I introduced myself to the JW, and headed to the East to chat with the Past District Deputy and a few other guys. At some point right before the degree started there was the usual few moments of panic as they realized that one of the Stewards failed to show; likewise the Marshal, who was slated to give the EA charge, was out sick. A member who showed up at the last minute was drafted to be a Steward (in Connecticut, the First Section lecture – sometimes called the ‘Catechism Lecture’ – is generally given by the Stewards). Just when they thought someone might have to read the EA Charge, I heard what was happening and volunteered to recite it. The JW accepted, and asked me to take the Marshal’s seat. I had been looking forward to one of the more padded chairs, but since my butt is cushioned all day in my office, I graciously accepted.

Anyone that’s been active in the lodge for a few years knows that the two bits of ritual that always need last-minute replacements are the First Section lectures and the Charges. When I became the District Grand Lecturer, I made a point to remember the Charges; a few years ago, I was in a lodge in which nobody was present to do the charge, and the WM asked me to read it. Despite the fact that I had no beforehand knowledge, I was still embarrassed. So, I figured that if I was going to need to look over the ritual proficiency of the lodges, I should at least bring something useful to the party.

The replacement Steward grabbed a book and ran over the section for a few minutes, while I grabbed my Palm and did the same. A few of the guys were amused to see that I had it on my PDA, but truthfully, it’s been a huge help for me. I don’t often carry my ritual book around, but I’ve always got my Palm Tungsten handy. Since I had just done the charge several times in the last couple of months, I just wanted a quick reality check – mainly to make sure that what I remembered was the EA charge and not, say, the Master Mason charge (which I’ll be giving in a few weeks). My greatest ritual fear is not that I’ll forget a line, it’s that I’ll suddenly recite a line from another degree.

Despite the last minutes changeups, the degree started off well. I was surprised to see RW Sivert filling in for the other Steward – apparently both of them were out that night. Solemn and serious, the Stewards and Senior Deacon did their jobs well. I was pleased to see how seamlessly the officers integrated the Koran – the candidate’s Volume of Sacred Law – into the ceremony, as if they’d done it dozens of times in the past.

After taking his obligation, the candidate was presented with his apron, together with a “long form” lecture from another brother. I’d seen this done before – two Friendship brothers use the long form all the time – but this brother also had a bit of an introduction or preamble, which was rather nice. I don’t know if he made it up, or found it somewhere else, but it was a nice touch.

Some lodges take a long break after the candidate new brother is sent back out to change, but Evening Star simply waited five minutes or so, and got right back into the ceremonies. I watched the Secretary present the working tools, and the replacement Steward and the JD present the First Section lecture. About halfway through the lecture, it occurred to me that while most of the officers – indeed, most of the men present – had been around the block a few times. There were several Past Masters in the officer’s seats, but they had not developed that bored, disinterested attitude that I’ve seen in a few other lodges. Every one of them presented their parts with calm, practiced voices and mannerisms that were a pleasure to observe. Despite having only a few minutes to look over his lines, the fill-in Steward spoke naturally, as if he’d been rehearsing all week. The brother giving the Apron Lecture was also natural in manner, and the Secretary had explained the Working Tools as if the candidate had just stopped by his garage.

Afterwards, I talked with several of the officers for a bit. We congratulated each other on fine degree work and had some coffee and pie. It turned out that one of them – the brother giving the Apron lecture – was a member on the committee that oversees ritual and ceremonies. We had an interesting conversation about the rumor that the next version of the Connecticut ritual would be written in some kind of code. A lot of people seem to think that code makes it easier to memorize, because you have to work at learning the words. While I agree that working at breaking the code could help, he mentioned that another good thing is that the new brothers that need help now have a reason to sit with a mentor for a while, getting to know them and feeling more comfortable. Interestingly, he and I both learned the work from a plain English book, and don’t feel it’s affected our quality of ritual; obviously so, as he had one of the more “natural” speaking qualities that I’ve seen.

Admittedly, I’m accustomed to the snap and sizzle of the new officers at Friendship; we haven’t recycled a Past Master in 30 years, so every officer is a “new” officer. The good thing is that our lodge has a lot of vitality, however, it makes us forget that there are other ways to be good at degree work. As I drove home, I was hungry, so naturally a food analogy came to mind: ritual work at Friendship made me think of sushi, while Evening Star was more of a comfort food, like beef stew.

Yeah, the analogy leaves a little to be desired, but I had not had a chance to go home for dinner first, okay?

Seriously, though, even though we’re all brother Masons, individual lodges develop their own culture. It was nice to visit a lodge in which everyone seemed relaxed and comfortable. I’m sure that the new brother will find himself right at home.

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

September is when lodges in Connecticut come back from their summer break, and frequently have candidates from late spring to be initiated. It’s common to see the busier lodges schedule a set of degrees in the spring and then another in the fall. As we approach the end of the month, most of the lodges in the 5th District have now had a fall EA degree. Over the last week, I’ve attended four of them, and participated in three in some capacity. One of the occupational hazards of being a District officer – indeed, of being any kind of officer who’s name and phone number can be remembered or easily looked up – is being asked, generally on short notice, to take a small part in a degree when a regular member is suddenly indisposed. My not passing up an opportunity to show off help out means that I often get asked to do some small part. In fact, when I became the District Grand Lecturer, I made a point of brushing up on some of those parts that are often the cause of frantic last minute phone calls by overworked Masters; I have all three Charges on my Palm so I can refresh my memory on short notice, in addition to my favorite piece of ritual, the Letter G lecture.

Good thing, too, because as I was attending one EA on Monday, I got a call from the ritual team captain of another lodge asking if I could do the EA charge on the next night. Having just rehearsed it at two lodges the previous week, I was naturally agreeable for another chance to display my enormous ego help one of the lodges in my district.

I well understand that many lodges do things differently from each other, but I’m often surprised at the large differences between lodges that are barely ten miles from each other. In Friendship Lodge, the chaplain offers up prayers from his place in the East, next to the Master. Several other lodges, however, escort the chaplain to the altar – a nice touch. Some have the Senior Deacon carry the American Flag to a position in the lodge prior to the brethren reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, others leave the flag in the stand. In the opening and closing ceremony, in some lodges the Junior and Senior Wardens acknowledge being addressed by the WM or another officer, others simply skip any acknowledgment and get right on with the words in the book.

Oh, and speaking of the words in the book…

Connecticut has a printed ritual monitor. For the last ten years or so, new officers who were given a copy of the ritual monitor turned to the front of the book and started learning the ritual. First, right at the very front, are a couple of pages on going to refreshment and coming back to labor. Then comes the (shortened) EA opening and ceremony, followed by the rest of the degree. Then comes the (also shortened) FC opening ceremony, followed by the rest of the degree, including the (also shortened) Middle Chamber lecture (sometimes known elsewhere as the “Staircase” lecture). Then comes the (yes, shortened) MM opening, followed by the rest of the degree. Then comes a section on decoding the few portions in mnemonics, and finally, all the way at the very end comes the correct, full-form opening ceremonies. In the section known, for what it’s worth, as the “Appendix.”

Yes, I typed that correctly. The official opening ceremonies are in the very back of the book.

At one time I understand that the book was in code (“mnemonics” they called it), then it went to English with only certain parts in code. At some point – obviously before I came along to explain things to them – the Grand Lodge authorized an edition that had, for reasons still unclear to me, a shortened version of our opening ritual right at the front of the book. The shortened version (so they explained to me) was to be used as a courtesy for when non-Masonic guests were waiting without, perhaps to come in to address the lodge as part of some evening program. Since a properly done opening ceremony takes less than ten minutes – five minutes if your officers are young and spry (and yes, I’ve timed it) – I fail to see what shaving three minutes off of that time actually accomplished… that is, what it was supposed to accomplish.

I can, however, tell you what the Jurassic Park-like unintended consequences have been.

For the last ten years, new officers have been reading the front of the book and learning the shortened opening ceremonies. As they became older, more experienced officers, they modeled those ceremonies for the next crop of new officers, and so on, until after several years, most lodges “forgot” how to do full form openings – unless there happened to be a Past Master who, for once, would have been correct in stating “That’s not the way we used to do it in my year.”

Even worse, since the closing ceremonies mirror the opening, some (by which I mean “most”) lodges that substituted short openings soon mutated the short opening into a short closing. And since the “labor and refreshment” sections draw on the opening, is it any surprise that some (that is, “most” in my experience) lodges now have mutated that section, as well?

In my opinion we’ve had too many years of not modeling the best ritual that we can do, and I think that this has been damaging to not merely the officers, but also to the candidates. What must a new candidate think after he goes through the interview process, hears the stories from the older members, and reads the list of the famous Masons that we love to trot out to impress the new guys, only to walk around a chilly room, blindfolded and half naked, and hearing sniggers, a multitude of prompts, “Ooops, sorry, heh heh” and other whispered asides? Personally, I imagine that I’d feel cheated out of a potentially great and moving experience if my first introduction to Masonry was conducted by a group of brothers who didn’t seem to take the ceremonies seriously enough to rehearse them beforehand. What, after months of anticipation, could possibly induce me to come back?

To reiterate, the short form was supposed to be used only to expedite the opening of a lodge in order to get right to important business. In my district there are eight lodges, and I know that several use the shortened forms regularly – including on degree nights. I’ve also seen a few of those use the (incorrect) mutated shortened closing ritual. One of them just got out of that habit a couple of years ago, and in the last year has gone to full form for all meetings, and once they got into the habit, nobody complained that it “took too long” to open lodge.

I’m not blaming this all on the book, however. A few years ago the Grand Lodge made a few corrections and reprinted the book, but it’s essentially the same as the previous one. Rumor has it that plans are underway for a complete overhaul, but even if it came out next week, it will take several years to undo the damage bad habits that have been learned from watching the bad habits of the previous generation of officers. Why? Because simply giving somebody a book to read does not make them proficient in ritual. Good Masonic ritual is learned by reading and understanding the words and phrases, coupled with seeing it properly modeled by those who are proficient – that is, comfortable utilizing gestures and inflection, and in using the an
tique turns of phrase. The words and directions are already in our ritual monitors; brothers who are interested enough to read the thing – even to casually skip around – can certainly figure it out. The question that we need to ask ourselves is why they don’t do it more often.

So, it started off simply enough. I was to travel to Newington to Sequin-Level Lodge No. 140 in order to check the ritual proficiency of one of the officers. We opted to do this on a night that they were to have a degree rehearsal – a plan that I encourage because running a degree is nerve-wracking enough without the officer worrying that I’m going to be checking little flubs on my clipboard. Certifying at a rehearsal gives me a chance to coach the officer, and perhaps toss out some ideas for the rest of the lodge.

Unfortunately, the officer had some issues which prevented him from attending the dress rehearsal. Even more unfortunately, that left nobody to take the East for the EA degree that was only 2 nights away. Fortunately, the Senior Warden, who has been filling in as Master for the last few months was ready to take the helm.

Perhaps that’s because a few years ago, he was the Grand Master in Connecticut.

I took the chair across from the Most Worshipful Chip and we went right into a dress rehearsal. We paused several times to give tips to the Senior Deacon because this degree was to be a “move up” night for the officers, but it was an otherwise smooth experience.

Despite the fact that he was a Grand Lodge officer, MW Chip did an exemplary job of opening and closing a lodge, and accordingly I’m now able to certify our Past Grand Master for Ritual Proficiency.

This means that he’ll be able, should he be so elected, to move up into the East in his home lodge.

As to the rehearsal? The way it stands now, it looks like I will be sitting in the Senior Warden’s chair for the upcoming EA degree on Thursday evening. I’ll let you know how things go.

Pictured above: The officers of Sequin-Level at rehearsal on Tuesday evening:
1st Row: Marty, John, Steve
2nd Row: Bob, MW Chip, Larry
3rd Row: Chuck 2.0, Bill
Back Row: The District Grand Lecturer

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry