Wise words from our Provincial Grand Chaplain, Bob Moore – The Future.
A while ago whilst helping a younger brother with his ritual. He was doing a good job of learning a difficult passage and eventually he got it almost right. I congratulated him on his progress, but from some of the incorrect words he came out with I asked him if he understood what it meant. His reply was ‘I haven’t a clue!’ He was learning words which might as well have been in a foreign language. I gave him a vernacular version of the story he was trying to tell the candidate, and he then found learning the original was easy.
Learning is no good without understanding and on the whole, we have failed to promote this.
We have all heard masons performing ritual and substituting words they know for ones they do not, and often, in the process, making a nonsense of the result. Things like ‘the suppository of my secrets’.
Incidentally I discovered recently there is a whole genre built up around misheard song lyrics or misheard words. They are called mondegreens, a term coined by an American writer, and it refers to a Scottish ballad with the line ‘They killed the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green”, which as a child she had heard as “The Lady Mondegreen”.
I cannot resist just a few: the aria from Handel’s Messiah – Come to tea, my people; the Beatles – She’s got a chicken to ride; as a child, my father hated the 23rd psalm because he could not understand why good Mrs Murphy should follow him all the days of his life.
My favourite though is a lovely story of three infant boys who, as part of the preparation of their class nativity play were given the task of sorting out the arrival of the three wise men. The teacher did not want to dictate to them, as the play was meant to be their own work, so she left it them, telling them only they had to bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. On the day of the performance, they entered the stable, bowed low and presented their gifts, first, ‘I bring you Gold’, the second one, ‘I’ve got you some more.’ And the third one said ‘And Frank sent this’.
Now, I am a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist. I love our ritual with its ancient and often obscure language, even the bits which are nonsense because of the years when it wasn’t written down but only passed on by word of mouth. I love the symbolism of our furnishings and the subtle nuances of meaning in all the actions of our ceremonies. I know that some of you will agree with me. But you know, if we have our way, we will preside over the death of what we love.
There must be changes in our organisation if it is to grow and thrive if it is to be relevant to a modern society. We cannot change the men of the 21st century to suit our love of the anachronistic. I read only today that 82% of men between 18 and 44 will have posted at least one video on social media this year. These are the men we are hoping to enlist!
There have already been many changes in organisation. We’ve had the introduction of mentoring, an emphasis on communication, the strong encouragement of learning through the development of Solomon. I was lucky enough to be involved with the early development of it as lead editor of the Royal Arch section. Since my time though it has grown out of all recognition and the shapers of the future are using it to develop their knowledge of the Order. We have a whole new approach to membership through internet approaches and the introduction of the member pathway, plus a whole re-organisation of the structures in London.
To secure the future we will need to see more and probably bigger changes.
We may well see the ritual updated to modern language. We may see changes in the dress code. I hate the thought, but I have to say, the root of Freemasonry is not the ritual and the ceremonies. They are the doorway though which we enter, and all our pomp and ceremony is really only cosmetic.
The root of Freemasonry, its ‘raison d’être’ is the effect it has on us as men and, through us, on our communities. Perhaps the role for us oldies is not the dog-in-the-manger ‘nothing must change’, but the role of ‘guardian of the essence’. We can lose the trappings, but we mustn’t lose the meaning and purpose and we cannot protect that if we have never bothered to find out what it is.
As a refresher, have a read through the charge to the initiate and challenge yourself to comply with all it requires of you, because we are now the founders of the next 100 years of each of our Lodges. Each one of us, whatever the length of your experience in the craft, has a part to play and a responsibility to carry. The hopes of the founders of each of our Lodges are now in our hands.
I pray that God, by whatever name you each may know him, will be with you, to guide you in all you do, so that all your Lodges continue to enhance their communities and so that your work as Masons may be as long lasting as that of your eminent predecessors.
A response from Andrew Spiers of Quantock Lodge
