The Math of Learning Ritual
Master’s Message - Feb 2017
Brethren
The year is racing ahead and anyone who has viewed Damien's email on the plans for the year will notice how full the agenda is ......degree work aplenty. With busy family and work commitments this applies extra pressure around the ritual and it's mastery by each of us. And yet, that mastery by each of us is vital to giving each candidate the optimal Masonic experience on the night – and to the survival and prosperity of every lodge.
So how do we make a daily advancement in Masonic knowledge? How do we fit it all in to the busyness of our respective lives without detriment to family, work or our sanity?
The key is to be proactive and not leave it until the last minute - the little blue book has brought unnecessary hardship and stress to many a good Mason. For those of us in possession of the blue book of ritual and with the desire to set foot on the Masonic ladder to the Masters Chair, it's a journey of roughly 7-10 years sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, and with 145 pages of ritual for those who wish to master it, all the math is easy and works out to a couple of lines a day. And when is this magical daily advancement to take place? Personally I find the travel time to and from work to be the best; in the car alone I can repeat and recite to any volume and so create the conditions of the temple where volume and fluency is a must.
So for those brethren not on the ladder I hope you’re in the proactive brigade and starting to master some of the more basic charges. There are plenty of brethren to guide you along the way. Brethren such as WBro Todd can master a page a day - he's gifted with a photographic memory - for us mere mortals a few lines is the order of the day.
I took a summer to learn the traditional history... similarly a summer and autumn to master the installation ceremony which the grand lodge team undertake here, a month to master each of the working tools...and so it goes little and often. A habit forms and soon a few years have gone by and the little blue book is gradually mastered.
It's not magic, it's not scientific; just routine and effort. Happy learnings Brethren.
Sincerely and fraternally
WBro Allan
Worshipful Master
Lodge Devotion 723