Ok; here I go fast! I am on an French keyboard in my hotel in Paris and I only have 5 minutes left on my ten dollar an hour internet access to post this message. Ok, that took one minute.
I have only this to say then.
Paridise is in Paris.
And, Americans sold theirs to Walmart.
I see this is no great revelation to the world. However? it is new to me.
I will try to explain more later.
Perhaps Paridise is bought upon the heads of riotors in the suburbs. I cant say. Perhaps they should eat some more cake?
All I knozw is the bread tastes better at the patisserie than from the man named wonder?
I have only this to say then.
Paridise is in Paris.
And, Americans sold theirs to Walmart.
I see this is no great revelation to the world. However? it is new to me.
I will try to explain more later.
Perhaps Paridise is bought upon the heads of riotors in the suburbs. I cant say. Perhaps they should eat some more cake?
All I knozw is the bread tastes better at the patisserie than from the man named wonder?
Comments
that is very profound but I still know exactly what you are talking about!
--Adam
On Tuesday night I attended a third degree presented at the Exile Lode, which also meets in the Grand National Lodge of France building, where they practice the rite of Emulation. This lodge does all of its ritual in English. Aftwards, again, I went to dinner and was well received.
The brethren treated me with tremendous warmth and it was a special experience I will remember for the rest of my life.
I took notes after both evenings, and tracked over 50 differences of interest to my American brethren. I plan to present an eductional lecture at Troy lodge when I return home about the experience.
I would be happy to discuss it with you, but I am not comfortable putting any of the details online. I'm sure we can chat when I return home.
What lodge are you in and where is it located?
Sure you have the touristy farmers market type setups in places like SF, but those tend to only be on the weekends and specialize in selling expensive cheeses and various overpriced yuppy food.
We need to make our way to the heart of the walmart in the back of the TV section and destroy it!
Of course you should only disclose what you feel comfortable with, and I wouldn't want to hear specifics about degrees that I have yet to attain. But maybe just a general indication, how it felt different.
I do know that some of the 'neighborhood feeling' still exists in many parts of San Francisco and New York.
Nevertheless, I think I shall open up a pattiserie when I return to the United States and sell many baguettes.
Munkholt, the key difference between the ritual I saw here and what we perform in the United States had to do with how it is performed. In the first lodge I attended the entire ritual was read from a script. Kind of like going to see a play but all the actors on the stage are reading aloud from scripts they wave about in their hands.
The second lodge meeting I attended there was some attempt at memory work, but the majority of the ritual was read from scripts the officers held in their hands. On a couple of occassions the meeting broke out into an impromptu school of instruction. It was the first meeting ever in the lodge for the senior warden.
In America we are forbidden from writing the ritual down in any way. It is given orally from past masters in school of instruction to the new officers. In 1990 Missouri finally issued a 'cipher book' which has the ritual encrypted. It is encrypted to the extent that the only persons who can easily read it is someone who already knows the ritual to begin with. There are many single and two letter abbreviations. In this manner it acts only as a memory aide. It is forbidden to use the cipher book in an open lodge meeting.
This was a pretty fundamental difference between how they conduct ritual and we do. Back home I have sometimes wondered 'why' we make such an effort to memorize and perform the ritual to absolute perfection. I will not question 'why' again; I feel our way is better.
To be fair, the first lodge I visited practices an uncommon and ancient rite and the ritual is new to them all. The second lodge I visited was performing ritual that was not in their native tounge. Moreover, this lodge only meets about six tmies a year and has no opportunity for ritual practice.
Finaly, the second big difference was the size of the lodge. A typical American lodge will seat anywhere between 150 to 350 people. It is typically the size of a large building, and we must walk the '4 foot line'. The lodges in Paris were the size of a large living room, seating about 20 though you could cram 40 people in very, very, tightly (think airline seating). They could hardly walk a 4 foot line since that would put them over halfway to the other side of the mosaic pavement.
That's about as much detail as I want to give online; and it really is the heart of the main differences. I don't want to sound critical of my European brethren. There are practical reasons why they do not have the entire ritual memorized and have tiny lodges (I was expecting some grand European temple to be honest). It's just that this is also what made it seem so very different.