Dia de los Muertos
Ritual requires respect
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.
Since writing this post, I've been reading the comments, remembering and contemplating the situation.
Raph mentioned 'uneasiness about the ritual' and I think that is probably what happened with our friend. Fear likely caused him to cross the line into near mockery. Fear of what? Vulnerability I suppose. As men we do have a long tradition and social norm around remaining composed and stoic. The nature of a ritualistic remembrance of someone close who passed tends to break that down, and that could inspire fear of how one might be perceived.