Worth the Wait

A little more than 8 months after my first post mentioning Freemasonry, I am at last an Entered Apprentice.

I'm still digesting the ceremony, which is a pretty remarkable thing to have the opportunity to experience in this 21st century.

I am a little surprised at how much I had already absorbed by osmosis over the last 8 months... I have deliberately avoided descriptions of the degrees this whole time, and indeed that which I swore an obligation to protect was new to me... but there were quite a few phrases and concepts thrown around that I recognized from various Masonic writings I've perused over the months.

As I read back over that first post about Masonry and bullshit detectors, I can suddenly remember how vaguely suspicious I was when I wrote it - suspicious of the fraternity as possibly being just another good old boys' club, and suspicious of the rituals, which I didn't know anything about at the time. I had the typical "Why is it called a temple if it's not a religion? What do they do in there?" questions still rattling around in my head.

With the benefit of first-hand experience, I can finally, unequivocally state that that kind of unease about the ritual is totally unwarranted - so if you're reading this from the same place I was last summer --interested in Freemasonry but not sure about this "ritual" stuff you hear so much about-- seriously, don't let it put you off. Read some books, contact a lodge and talk to some Brothers, and if you're a man of good character who believes in a supreme being, then go for it.

About the night of the ceremony:

I arrived before the stated meeting as I had been instructed, and met the other three candidates - three of us are all in our early thirties, and the fourth in his early twenties. As we were getting prepared, Brothers were filing past us into the lodge room before the meeting. We were reassured several times that there was no harm or humiliation in store for us, and that every Mason in the lodge (or any lodge, through history) had gone through the same thing. We chatted and joked amongst ourselves to dispel nervous energy while the lodge conducted its business meeting before the degree. The Tyler poked his head in from time to time and talked with us as well. I learned that my lodge building had once housed a Royal Arch chapter, an Order of the Eastern Star chapter, and even a Knights Templar commandery, but over the years participation dropped off to the point where the few remaining active members wound up being absorbed by bodies in neighboring towns.

Finally, we were brought into the lodge room one at a time. As it turned out, I went last and so I had a few minutes outside the lodge room alone with my thoughts. It was a little bit strange to be in the middle of a 300+ year old ceremony while looking out the window and seeing the electric lights and oblivious traffic zooming back and forth on main street. It was quite interesting to think about my granduncle, my great-grandfather, and my great-great-great grandfather being in the exact same place in other lodges some 70, 100, 150+ years ago, not to mention all of the historical Masons whose names are always being rattled off: Washington, Franklin, both Roosevelts, et cetera. The "famous Masons list" has become a bit of a cliché, but knowing that those men went through more or less the very same experience does serve as a kind of bond with them, and an equalizer.

After it was over, I will admit that I felt a little bit like Inigo Montoya at the end of The Princess Bride ("I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it's over, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life."); after waiting for 2/3 of a year, all of that mental energy leading up to my First Degree has suddenly dissipated! I am a Mason - since the other night it's a thought that pops into my head occasionally, and I'm still not used to it. The fact that I do indeed attach some significance to the fact is clearly an indicator some of that elusive meaning with which I've been obsessed.

After lodge was closed, we formed a reception line of sorts and all of the Brothers in attendance came by to introduce themselves and congratulate us. I'll be going back to the lodge on Monday to start working on my proficiency, and later this month I'll be heading to another lodge in the district to attend a "lodge of instruction", which I understand to be an orientation/lecture program that is part of the Masonic experience under the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. I can't wait to get started.

Me - 1, Driveway - 0

We enjoyed about 36 hours of particulary craptastic weather here on Tuesday and Wednesday, about 10 inches of snow followed by hours and hours of freezing rain. The crust on the snow is about an inch thick, heavy enough that the dogs can walk on it without punching through.

The topper is that the fellow who plows our driveway seems to have forgotten about us, and missed the window of opportunity to do anything before all the slush turned into ice.

A word about our driveway: It's long and steep, and it gets no sunlight at all. The hill slopes away on one side, so if you're not careful (or if you're slip-sliding your way down it backwards) you'll find yourself on the middle of a hill among the trees.

Fortunately, I have a good-sized 4-wheel drive truck. I need to get to the lodge tonight, and rather than trying frantically to escape the driveway in the nick of time later, I opted to spend most of my lunch trying to get the truck down to the bottom of the drive for easy egress this evening.

I only came close to getting stuck once, at which point I gunned it and rolled smoothly out into the road.

I am very much looking forward to our new driveway, which is flat and considerably shorter.

Postscript, 5:38 PM EST: It should be duly noted that our plow guy showed up around 4:30, and took care of our icy driveway as best he could - It's an unenviable task. Thanks C.!

Speculative Premasonry

As my first degree approaches, I'm becoming increasingly self-conscious of the fact that everything I've written, other than the few descriptions of first-hand experiences during my petitioning and investigation, is purely speculative... it's informed by other Masons' accounts of their own experiences, but ultimately I won't know what Freemasonry in my Lodge will be like until Thursday night and beyond.

I've also been contacted by several Massachusetts Brethren who have come across this weblog, and suddenly I'm beginning to feel a bit duplicitous... early on I decided to keep writing pseudo-anonymously because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers by naming names or lodges. However, by the same token I don't want my decision to remain anonymous to be a cause for gossip or raised eyebrows in my lodge if word gets around once I become an active member.

I think I am probably being hypersensitive; the only critical thing I have really written about my lodge was my initial reaction to our web site, and how my initial e-mail bounced. (And as it turned out, my e-mail did get through despite the error message I received.) I will raise the question with the Worshipful Master at some point after I am inducted; one of the first things I'm going to try and do is get the ball rolling on a new web site for my lodge, and questions about what's "fit to print" will definitely be a part of that discussion.

Go vote!

Hey all you Americans living in a super Tuesday state:

Polling is about to close at most places in the eastern time zone, but the rest of the country should have 1, 2 or 3 hours left.

Go cast your vote if you hadn't already! Turnout was brisk this evening at my tiny town's polling place. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out - but if you don't participate in the process you can't complain about who winds up in the white house next year.

Furtive, conniving and ridiculous?

In his article about the UK's Internet Lodge 9659, William Shaw writes that in the 1970's, thanks to a high-profile bribery scandal involving a Mason, "The once-respected fraternity became perceived as furtive, conniving and ridiculous."

From what I've seen of the uninformed general public perception of the Freemasons (read: people with no personal knowledge or experience with Freemasonry other than what they read in an Alan Moore comic book or saw in a movie), that's a depressingly succinct description... the Masons are either a shadowy force bent on global domination, or a bunch of silly, self-important old guys with funny handshakes, aprons and hats.

Of course, if you want both angles at once, this week's episode of Psych, revolving around skullduggery by members of a secret society, probably won't disappoint. From what I've glimpsed in the teaser commercials, at least it looks like a fictional fraternity. And I'll admit, I'm a fan of the show, so I'm actually sort of looking forward to it... a light comedy take on the subject should be a lot easier to watch than all of the tabloid "documentaries" that I'm always ranting about.

Locked & Loaded

I just arrived home from a good day's work on the house to find the February newsletter from my lodge, wherein was the date for my first degree. No schedule conflicts, hooray! I will be initiated with three other brothers.

The Profane Perspective

(This is a long one, but it's been in my draft pile forever and not finishing has been distracting me from getting other stuff done. I'm going crank it out and have done with it. Thanks for indulging me. -A)

Because I've had so long to research and reflect upon Masonry without actually being inducted, lately I've found myself trying to step back look at the Freemasons from the perspective I had last May.

I knew next to nothing about the craft, with a few misconceptions and the totally baseless, vague sense of suspicion that seems to have permeated American culture thanks to the usual suspects... from Leo Taxil to 21st century pop culture. I also think that, in this age of being able to call up nearly any fact with nothing more than an internet connection and some search engine know-how, people are just growing increasingly, automatically suspicious of any collective type of secrecy. It doesn't matter if you tell someone, "yes, there are secrets but they're really only limited to parts of the rituals, grips, and tokens... and you can go find those on the internet/at the library/at Barnes & Noble," the assumption seems to be that if you won't spill the beans in spite of the beans already having been spilled, you've got to be up to something.

That perspective is misguided and unfortunate... it reminds me of people who say, "Well, if you're not doing anything illegal then why do you care if the government taps your phone or reads your e-mail?" I think that what's missing from the current popular responses to questions about the Masons' secrets ("Not a secret society, a society with secrets", the Ben Franklin quote about the biggest secret being no secret at all, "You can find all the secrets online") is a follow-through explaining why anyone would bother to uphold an oath to protect something that can no longer be protected.

Instead of being vaguely evasive, I think a better response would be a proud explanation that being a Freemason means something, that we're proud to belong to such an old and storied organization, and that upholding the oaths is a way to signify what it means to be a Mason. That being a Mason is about being upright and true to your word. It might be a little harder for people to raise their eyebrows at a statement like that than "I won't tell you, but you can go look it up at the library." Bro. Brent Morris said something to this effect towards the end of one of those Discovery or History Channel shows (I won't call them documentaries) about the Freemasons, and it was probably the most illuminating moment in the whole program.

Early last summer, before I had even set foot in a lodge, I was obsessed with the notion of meaning. At the time I had trouble describing what I was after, I think mostly because I hadn't yet absorbed a good sense of what goes on in a lodge. What was nibbling at the back of my mind is that curious overlap between the spiritual/religious and the social. Nobody questions that a religion's customs and rituals hold meaning for their practitioners... not even most atheists would dispute that. What about Freemasonry? It's such a peculiar institution, "religious but not a religion", as one description goes. From that secular perspective, it's hard to parse what the rituals and obligations mean, if they're not to be ascribed to a system of worship. I know that was one of the things that really puzzled me when I first began looking into Freemasonry.

Reading many a Mason's weblog in the ensuing months has given me a wide enough set of perspectives to realize that there is no one, single meaning behind it all. For some it's a deeply spiritual outlet in their personal quest for enlightenment, or self-improvement. For others it's a time-honored fraternity with an illustrious past, in desperate need of rehabilitation and/or protection from uppity whippersnappers. For a lot of men, it's about just being able say you're a Mason and wear a ring or lapel pin even if you never go to lodge.

For my part, I stumbled onto Freemasonry in search of something like "Boy Scouts for grown-ups", and that's still a phrase I use to explain to some friends why I decided to join... when I'm talking to a former scout who really enjoyed the camp-outs and troop meetings, their eyes light up and they know exactly what I'm talking about. One of my absolute favorite descriptions of joining the Freemasons is in this discussion forum thread, where a Mason says "For me, it was like slipping into a comfortable old coat and finding a note in the pocket."

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who, even if they had absolutely no prior opinion about the Masons, would read Freemasons for Dummies from cover to cover, put it down, and still say, "but what's the point? Why would grown men put on aprons and funny hats and spend so much free time doing that? Do they actually take it seriously?"

My response to a reaction like that? "Results may vary." It's like the fine print at the bottom of the weight loss commercial; just because they're showing people who lost 150 pounds doesn't necessarily mean you will too. Joining the Freemasons because you're enchanted by the idealized, noble, englightened fraternity of gentleman philospher-philanthropists you've read about online doesn't necessarily mean that's what you'll find at the lodge down the street.

If you try to lose 150 pounds overnight (or drag Freemasonry kicking and screaming overnight into your vision of what it should be), you're going to get frustrated and disillusioned. If you have the will and the patience to work at it over time, though, you'll get there.

So what are my expectations as someone who has been accepted but not yet inducted? Over the past seven or so months I think they've gone from "lose 150 pounds" to a more realistic "lose maybe 50 pounds, keep it off, and see if I can't continue the trend."