We rented a traditional Mexican home and filled it with our adult children. Our stay there intentionally covering the Day of the Dead holiday, November 1 and 2.
The home’s small, private courtyard featured a beautiful blue tiled fountain, and this fountain became the base upon which we built our family’s altar. It wasn’t our first time experiencing Dia de los Muertos, but it was the first time we constructed our own altar, in memory of our own family.
We knew how to do it, and we did it correctly. Flowers, candles, special foods, candies, even a beloved Cadillac Margarita for my wife’s mother, and his Camel cigarettes for my father.
We sat, as a family, remembering parents, grandparents, loved ones who have passed along. We shared stories of them and memories. We made sure that their favorite things were represented.
It was a deeply moving experience, and I think that it brought all of us still here on this earth even closer together. It was certainly something that we all agreed we would like to repeat.
The next year, we did repeat it. Not in Mexico, but in our home.
We built an altar, and attempted to recreate the experience. It didn’t work. It wasn’t a deeply profound and spiritual experience as it had been the year before.
The reason was simple.
We invited friends. As it turned out, we invited the wrong friends.
A married couple, people we’d been friends with, and traveled with for many years. A fellow Mason even. They had suffered loss, so we thought that they could benefit from this form of remembrance.
But the husband didn’t take it seriously. He didn’t take the crafting of the altar, the lighting of the candles, the sharing of memories seriously. I can only guess that he was so corrupted by Halloween that he couldn’t understand Day of the Dead.
His lighthearted joking ruined the experience for everyone else.
Ruined it to the extent that as a family, we’ve not done it since.
It is much the same with Masonic ritual. Particularly our Degrees.
We might think that telling our candidate that joke about the goat will help lighten the mood and put him at ease, but it does not. What it does instead is ruin what should be a profound and moving experience.
I’m all for hearty laughter and good fun, but like everything in life, there is a time and a place. Masonic Degrees are not that time.
Personally I feel there is a difference between taking a ritual seriously (without which the ritual does not work) and being able to smile while doing it (because we should never take ourselves seriously).
My impression about the goat jokes is that they express an uneasiness about the ritual, and the need to say "I know it's a bit ridiculous, don't worry". I agree it is not the message we should share with our new initiates.
But that does not mean that the Worshipful master cannot smile or make a respectful joke during the ritual, because we are confident in what we do.
MW, your description of the optimal way to recognize Dia le los Muertos is a great illustration of the atmosphere for the optimal degree. I take from your comment the right atmosphere requires the right people with shared objectives and relevant experience. I can think of a handful of times when I've experienced degrees, or other ritual ceremonies, with that right combination. One was the rededication ceremony at my Lodge a few years ago. You and your team were well prepared and performed superbly. My Lodge Brothers, and virtually any Brother from our District, all wanted the renaming of our Lodge in honor of VW Dean Quigley to be a very special occasion. Another was a few months later when our Lodge was finally able to arrange VW Quigley's Masonic memorial service with his family. After extensive preparation and thought the memorial service was flawless and the perfect of solemnity and entertaining anecdotes. In both examples the right people were in the room.
Now, how to we get the right people in the room for degrees? We need to guard the West Gate to ensure that the right Brothers are already in the room and the candidates will be worthy of staying in the room once they're there. Then the degree team needs to be fully staffed, after which that team needs to prepare. Preparation must include thorough practice to find out who needs to study more, both those who haven't yet memorized the ritual and those who think they've memorized but in various aspects have actually forgotten. Or if it is a agreed that certain parts of the degree may be read that the reader can read and recite with some level of proficiency. I trust that you'll agree that these factors are not always at play (that's a "most friendly manner" way of saying it).
I agree with your view of how things ought to be, and I'm willing to do my part for the degrees in which I'm involved. If you're going to pick a cause pick one that's going to be around for a while.