Latest / The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons / The Masonic Roundtable - 0574 - Masonic Anachronisms

Transcript

The Masonic Roundtable - 0574 - Masonic Anachronisms · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:21
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:24
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:30
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are
• 0:33
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the participants and do not
• 0:36
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge statements or positions.
• 0:38
  Speaker: Make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:40
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:43
  Speaker: We love seeing you live every
• 0:44
  Speaker: Thursday night in Facebook and
• 0:46
  Speaker: YouTube land.
• 0:46
  Speaker: There's always fun.
• 0:47
  Speaker: Hello and good evening and your chats may show up in the show.
• 0:51
  Speaker: And if you can't catch us live, catch us in the replay or in
• 0:54
  Speaker: your favorite podcast app.
• 0:56
  Speaker: As always, you know me, John T
• 0:58
  Speaker: Ruark, past master of the
• 1:00
  Speaker: Patriot Lodge, number nineteen
• 1:02
  Speaker: fifty seven, in Fairfax,
• 1:03
  Speaker: Virginia.
• 1:05
  Speaker: And next up, Brother Joe.
• 1:08
  Speaker: Wow.
• 1:08
  Speaker: I'm never mixing it up.
• 1:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker: On your toes.
• 1:12
  Speaker: Who am I, Joe Martinez?
• 1:14
  Speaker: And I'm here for a change.
• 1:15
  Speaker: Uh. Let's see.
• 1:16
  Speaker: Past master of Manasseh, Lodge number one eighty two.
• 1:18
  Speaker: Scott Sherman smooches to you.
• 1:21
  Speaker: And, uh, Manassas, Virginia.
• 1:22
  Speaker: And a member of things and stuff.
• 1:24
  Speaker: And yes.
• 1:24
  Speaker: I'm here.
• 1:25
  Speaker: I'm not in a car.
• 1:26
  Speaker: I'm not in a plane.
• 1:27
  Speaker: Joe is here to be with you.
• 1:29
  Speaker: You're safe.
• 1:30
  Speaker: I love it.
• 1:31
  Speaker: I'm here.
• 1:31
  Speaker: Next up, Robert Johnson.
• 1:33
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 1:34
  Speaker: How are you?
• 1:35
  Speaker: Hello and good evening.
• 1:36
  Speaker: Robert Johnson, postmaster,
• 1:38
  Speaker: Waukegan, seventy eight, and
• 1:39
  Speaker: Space Novum, eleven eighty
• 1:40
  Speaker: three, in the great jurisdiction
• 1:41
  Speaker: of Illinois, the host of the
• 1:43
  Speaker: whiskey podcast.
• 1:44
  Speaker: And, uh, uh, I think I'm the opening speaker this weekend at,
• 1:50
  Speaker: uh, the, uh, the Light Within Masonic Education Symposium at
• 1:54
  Speaker: sunny Kissimmee, Florida, at Orange Blossom Lodge, like
• 1:59
  Speaker: essentially planned by, uh, Orange Blossom Lodge.
• 2:04
  Speaker: With the overwhelming assistance
• 2:06
  Speaker: of one past TMR night, Juan
• 2:11
  Speaker: Sepulveda.
• 2:15
  Speaker: Yeah, it should be a good time.
• 2:17
  Speaker: S Brent Morris is going to be there.
• 2:18
  Speaker: We got a couple other people.
• 2:20
  Speaker: I think some guy named Jason Richards might do a
• 2:23
  Speaker: presentation, albeit virtually.
• 2:26
  Speaker: So it's going to be great though.
• 2:29
  Speaker: That'll be fun.
• 2:32
  Speaker: I'm super stoked.
• 2:33
  Speaker: Give all the hugs.
• 2:34
  Speaker: You know I will.
• 2:35
  Speaker: You know, I'm going to bring all the hugs to all of the
• 2:38
  Speaker: Floridians and the mouth kisses.
• 2:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker: That too.
• 2:41
  Speaker: Just, you know, cheek cheek.
• 2:43
  Speaker: Yes.
• 2:44
  Speaker: Speaking of Jason Richards.
• 2:45
  Speaker: Hello.
• 2:46
  Speaker: There he is.
• 2:47
  Speaker: Oh, how are you?
• 2:48
  Speaker: Here?
• 2:49
  Speaker: Getting Robert Johnson's sloppy seconds as the clean up hitter.
• 2:55
  Speaker: And yes, I'll be virtual.
• 2:58
  Speaker: Uh, Jason Richards, past Master of Vacation Lodge number sixteen
• 3:01
  Speaker: in Clifton, Virginia.
• 3:02
  Speaker: And yes, I will be on the zoom for, uh, you're bringing all the
• 3:09
  Speaker: handsome Masonic event.
• 3:11
  Speaker: No mouth kisses for Jason.
• 3:13
  Speaker: Like, even if it's cloudy outside, your face will bring
• 3:17
  Speaker: the sunshine inside.
• 3:18
  Speaker: It's going to be great.
• 3:20
  Speaker: But the cool part is, is like you're doing a what?
• 3:25
  Speaker: One of your presentations that
• 3:26
  Speaker: you only do, like in large
• 3:29
  Speaker: settings, right?
• 3:29
  Speaker: So this is like, it's virtual, but it's, it's the exclusive.
• 3:33
  Speaker: It's a premiere.
• 3:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:35
  Speaker: It is.
• 3:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker: I'm breaking my own rules by doing this presentation.
• 3:40
  Speaker: Um, virtually.
• 3:42
  Speaker: But they said they wouldn't record it.
• 3:45
  Speaker: So there you go.
• 3:47
  Speaker: Like I'll love it.
• 3:49
  Speaker: So it's still special.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:52
  Speaker: You know who?
• 3:53
  Speaker: You know what else is special?
• 3:54
  Speaker: What?
• 3:55
  Speaker: Our patrons.
• 3:55
  Speaker: Patrons?
• 3:56
  Speaker: Yes.
• 3:56
  Speaker: They are.
• 3:57
  Speaker: They are very special to me.
• 4:00
  Speaker: Um, they've been supporting the show for many years.
• 4:03
  Speaker: If you want to support the show, head over to patreon dot com
• 4:05
  Speaker: slash the Masonic Roundtable.
• 4:07
  Speaker: Thirteen more years, baby.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Thirteen.
• 4:11
  Speaker: Aw, don't don't do that.
• 4:13
  Speaker: We're just going to keep going.
• 4:14
  Speaker: We're going to keep going.
• 4:15
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:15
  Speaker: We're going to keep going.
• 4:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker: Maybe the subject we talk about will not.
• 4:22
  Speaker: Uh, just all of a sudden fill in the blank round here.
• 4:25
  Speaker: The occult roundtable.
• 4:29
  Speaker: We're not allowed to use that word.
• 4:31
  Speaker: Take it easy.
• 4:31
  Speaker: We're not.
• 4:32
  Speaker: Grand Lodge of Virginia up here in Illinois.
• 4:35
  Speaker: The occult roundtable sponsored by Kashi.
• 4:38
  Speaker: Go!
• 4:41
  Speaker: Oh, goodness.
• 4:43
  Speaker: All right.
• 4:44
  Speaker: Well, you guys are great.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Thank you for all your support.
• 4:47
  Speaker: Uh, next up is everyone's favorite topic, Everyone, which
• 4:52
  Speaker: is especially chosen.
• 4:56
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 5:07
  Speaker: With a little splash symbol at the end.
• 5:10
  Speaker: Boop!
• 5:11
  Speaker: Boop!
• 5:13
  Speaker: All right.
• 5:13
  Speaker: What have we got, Jason?
• 5:15
  Speaker: This week, we've got a brand new one.
• 5:17
  Speaker: We have the Scandal Knight.
• 5:25
  Speaker: That looks pretty sweet.
• 5:27
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Speaker: Style.
• 5:28
  Speaker: Would you say it is?
• 5:29
  Speaker: So it is a Scandinavian folklore inspired.
• 5:35
  Speaker: And so today we have the page of Wands.
• 5:40
  Speaker: Oh, nice.
• 5:43
  Speaker: Got a little manifestation there.
• 5:45
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 5:46
  Speaker: Little beginnings of manifestation.
• 5:48
  Speaker: I have made fire or new spiritual work.
• 5:53
  Speaker: You're trying a new practice.
• 5:55
  Speaker: You're you're dabbling, dabbling in something new.
• 6:00
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Youthful ambition.
• 6:03
  Speaker: The intern.
• 6:05
  Speaker: It's infinity, bro.
• 6:08
  Speaker: Limitless potential.
• 6:10
  Speaker: The world is your oyster.
• 6:12
  Speaker: That's what it is.
• 6:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:14
  Speaker: That's cool.
• 6:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:16
  Speaker: Indeed.
• 6:18
  Speaker: Nice.
• 6:19
  Speaker: Now, I kind of want to see some of the other cards, but that's
• 6:22
  Speaker: not what we're going to distract ourselves with today.
• 6:24
  Speaker: Today we're going to talk about
• 6:26
  Speaker: the past and the future and
• 6:30
  Speaker: everything else in between,
• 6:31
  Speaker: specifically Masonic
• 6:34
  Speaker: anachronisms.
• 6:35
  Speaker: So what is anachronism?
• 6:37
  Speaker: Well, it's something that is out of place, specifically out of
• 6:42
  Speaker: time, where, um, some of the best examples, uh, I know, like
• 6:47
  Speaker: there's, I think it was in the Gladiator movie where they
• 6:51
  Speaker: filmed and like one of the actors had a, had a watch on
• 6:54
  Speaker: like, they wouldn't have watches on in that time.
• 6:57
  Speaker: And it immediately breaks,
• 6:58
  Speaker: breaks the illusion or a plane
• 7:00
  Speaker: flying overhead.
• 7:00
  Speaker: Right.
• 7:01
  Speaker: Um, but we in the fraternity do things sometimes on purpose,
• 7:07
  Speaker: sometimes by accident.
• 7:09
  Speaker: Yeah, I think, I think John
• 7:11
  Speaker: likes anachronisms because his
• 7:12
  Speaker: favorite movie is back to the
• 7:14
  Speaker: future.
• 7:14
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 7:15
  Speaker: Here.
• 7:15
  Speaker: Let me.
• 7:16
  Speaker: So just got off my, uh, my motherboard and.
• 7:20
  Speaker: Yes.
• 7:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Speaker: You know, anything, anything that looks like it took a time
• 7:24
  Speaker: machine to the wrong decade is is kind of an anachronism.
• 7:29
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 7:30
  Speaker: You know, remember you got that in there.
• 7:32
  Speaker: So it's like time.
• 7:34
  Speaker: Chronos.
• 7:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 7:37
  Speaker: As soon as John started talking,
• 7:39
  Speaker: you know what I thought of the
• 7:39
  Speaker: most?
• 7:40
  Speaker: The more recent one was, uh,
• 7:42
  Speaker: that Starbucks cup in a Game of
• 7:44
  Speaker: Thrones episode.
• 7:45
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 7:45
  Speaker: You know, it's sitting there right on the they're in the the
• 7:48
  Speaker: dining hall or whatever.
• 7:49
  Speaker: And there's a Starbucks cup right there.
• 7:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:52
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 7:52
  Speaker: And any Mel Brooks movie, but that's on purpose.
• 7:58
  Speaker: What was it in, uh, in Troy, I think in Troy.
• 8:02
  Speaker: Uh, during a battle scene where Brad Pitt is Achilles, right?
• 8:06
  Speaker: He's going in.
• 8:06
  Speaker: You can see this airplane flying overhead.
• 8:09
  Speaker: That's what I thought it was.
• 8:10
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:12
  Speaker: You can't catch em all.
• 8:13
  Speaker: You can't catch em.
• 8:14
  Speaker: Can't catch em all.
• 8:14
  Speaker: Not like Pokemon.
• 8:15
  Speaker: Um, but it brings up a good point.
• 8:19
  Speaker: We remember those because they break the immersion.
• 8:24
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 8:24
  Speaker: Now, sometimes you want to put an anachronism in to break the
• 8:29
  Speaker: immersion on purpose.
• 8:30
  Speaker: In other words, to like,
• 8:31
  Speaker: separate from your normal status
• 8:34
  Speaker: quo.
• 8:34
  Speaker: And then there are sometimes things that we do that break the
• 8:37
  Speaker: immersion that ruin the experience of Freemasonry.
• 8:42
  Speaker: So tonight we're gonna, we're
• 8:44
  Speaker: gonna have a whole laundry list
• 8:45
  Speaker: of things that are out of time
• 8:47
  Speaker: or out of place in our
• 8:49
  Speaker: fraternity.
• 8:50
  Speaker: And hopefully we'll discuss a
• 8:52
  Speaker: little bit about separating
• 8:54
  Speaker: those which support our brand
• 8:57
  Speaker: compared to those that quietly
• 9:00
  Speaker: hurt us.
• 9:02
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 9:03
  Speaker: Or not so quiet.
• 9:04
  Speaker: A little different from where I was going with it.
• 9:06
  Speaker: Okay.
• 9:08
  Speaker: What were you going to go with that?
• 9:11
  Speaker: Things that we do in Freemasonry
• 9:13
  Speaker: that are anachronistic in
• 9:17
  Speaker: today's world.
• 9:18
  Speaker: Right.
• 9:19
  Speaker: Today's age.
• 9:20
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 9:22
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 9:23
  Speaker: All right.
• 9:24
  Speaker: Um, so we could do this a couple different ways.
• 9:26
  Speaker: We could just do, just start
• 9:27
  Speaker: walking through and do kind of
• 9:29
  Speaker: the pros and cons of each of
• 9:30
  Speaker: those.
• 9:30
  Speaker: Probably the easiest, um, we could do all pros and cons, but
• 9:34
  Speaker: let's just, let's just start, uh, going one at a time and
• 9:39
  Speaker: we'll have a little short discussion on each of those
• 9:41
  Speaker: things And by the end, the final question, because I'm going to
• 9:46
  Speaker: give it to you early tonight.
• 9:48
  Speaker: What?
• 9:49
  Speaker: I'm gonna give it to you now.
• 9:50
  Speaker: So there's no excuses.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Oh, to name an anachronism, you would fight to keep and, and or
• 9:56
  Speaker: an anachronism, you would happily retire immediately.
• 10:01
  Speaker: So there you go.
• 10:02
  Speaker: Don't say I didn't give you anything.
• 10:04
  Speaker: Let's start with.
• 10:06
  Speaker: I'll start.
• 10:07
  Speaker: Um, this one's kind of easy.
• 10:10
  Speaker: Candlelight.
• 10:13
  Speaker: Many lodges and and or
• 10:15
  Speaker: jurisdictions allow for, but not
• 10:18
  Speaker: necessarily prescribe the use of
• 10:20
  Speaker: candlelight as an, a part of the
• 10:25
  Speaker: degree or ritual setting,
• 10:28
  Speaker: sometimes even business meetings
• 10:29
  Speaker: so that, um, you can illuminate
• 10:34
  Speaker: certain parts of, of the lodge
• 10:35
  Speaker: experience.
• 10:36
  Speaker: Now we have light bulbs, we have
• 10:38
  Speaker: had light bulbs for over one
• 10:39
  Speaker: hundred years.
• 10:41
  Speaker: Why do we choose candles?
• 10:45
  Speaker: Because they're more esoteric.
• 10:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:48
  Speaker: It's assisting in the in.
• 10:49
  Speaker: You guys have talked about this quite a bit, right?
• 10:51
  Speaker: With like different types of spaces.
• 10:54
  Speaker: And I feel like it just creates that liminal space, right?
• 10:57
  Speaker: It assists in the production of something completely different
• 11:01
  Speaker: that takes you out of the world that you're in.
• 11:04
  Speaker: Um, and brings you back to not
• 11:07
  Speaker: necessarily something that I
• 11:08
  Speaker: think is antiquated or not
• 11:10
  Speaker: necessarily anachronistic, but
• 11:12
  Speaker: something that is intentional
• 11:14
  Speaker: and foundationally simple,
• 11:18
  Speaker: right?
• 11:19
  Speaker: You don't have to make it doesn't have to be switches and
• 11:23
  Speaker: lights and all of these things that can go wrong.
• 11:26
  Speaker: It's as simple as wax wick and fire.
• 11:30
  Speaker: Right.
• 11:31
  Speaker: And that's it.
• 11:32
  Speaker: And I think just the simplicity in that, like, as we start to
• 11:37
  Speaker: remove things, causes people to have less and less distraction.
• 11:43
  Speaker: Even though we live in a day to day world where like the lights
• 11:46
  Speaker: are on in a room isn't necessarily a distraction.
• 11:48
  Speaker: You're completely, uh, that's that's not even on your radar.
• 11:55
  Speaker: You're like, of course the lights are on, but, you know, in
• 11:59
  Speaker: the most foundational sense that those are things that your
• 12:02
  Speaker: subconscious all measures.
• 12:03
  Speaker: And when you remove those, I think, you know, by doing
• 12:06
  Speaker: something like candle, no, it takes you back.
• 12:10
  Speaker: I think to your point, um,
• 12:13
  Speaker: candlelight is provides
• 12:15
  Speaker: intention, right?
• 12:16
  Speaker: Like, so to your point, instead
• 12:17
  Speaker: of flipping a switch, you're
• 12:19
  Speaker: lighting a candle or three, um,
• 12:21
  Speaker: you know, and I was, I was half
• 12:23
  Speaker: a little bit joking when I was
• 12:24
  Speaker: saying it's more esoteric, but
• 12:25
  Speaker: you, you kind of hit it on the
• 12:26
  Speaker: head.
• 12:26
  Speaker: Like we, we claim over and over, or at least, you know, the weird
• 12:30
  Speaker: Masons do that.
• 12:31
  Speaker: We're trying to create a space
• 12:34
  Speaker: that is different than the
• 12:36
  Speaker: outside world, than the everyday
• 12:37
  Speaker: world.
• 12:38
  Speaker: And I think using candles is a great example of that.
• 12:41
  Speaker: You know, so to your point,
• 12:42
  Speaker: yeah, it is absolutely, um,
• 12:45
  Speaker: anachronistic.
• 12:46
  Speaker: I mean, there's, there's lodges that still don't meet in the
• 12:51
  Speaker: winter, you know, um, going back to the days of they didn't have,
• 12:55
  Speaker: you know, heat and, you know, stuff like that.
• 12:57
  Speaker: So yeah, it is, but I think that one, that one has intention to
• 13:02
  Speaker: it, you know, it's not just a throwback to the past.
• 13:04
  Speaker: It, it does provide an intent to it I think.
• 13:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:11
  Speaker: It's also instantaneous, right?
• 13:14
  Speaker: Like think about modern day and when you do anything, it's
• 13:19
  Speaker: almost synonymous with a slowdown and an intentionality
• 13:23
  Speaker: about anything you're doing, whether it's a date and it's a
• 13:26
  Speaker: candlelight dinner, right?
• 13:28
  Speaker: It's intimate.
• 13:30
  Speaker: Uh, and that intimacy doesn't
• 13:31
  Speaker: always have to be romantic,
• 13:32
  Speaker: right?
• 13:33
  Speaker: Like it, it transcends all the way down to the the space you're
• 13:36
  Speaker: trying to cultivate.
• 13:37
  Speaker: So man, John, what a good one to start with.
• 13:41
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 13:41
  Speaker: Um, by design.
• 13:43
  Speaker: Right.
• 13:44
  Speaker: We choose to use candles as a way to separate ourselves from
• 13:50
  Speaker: the mundane world.
• 13:53
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 13:55
  Speaker: All right.
• 13:56
  Speaker: Who wants to pick one to go next?
• 14:02
  Speaker: I'll pick one that I don't that I don't necessarily love, but I
• 14:07
  Speaker: think it's awesome.
• 14:09
  Speaker: Um, the mouth to ear
• 14:11
  Speaker: memorization and sort of the
• 14:14
  Speaker: antiquated language.
• 14:16
  Speaker: Um, I think while anachronistic.
• 14:20
  Speaker: Right.
• 14:20
  Speaker: I think um.
• 14:24
  Speaker: It's not something that can just be skimmed.
• 14:25
  Speaker: You can't just put it on your phone.
• 14:29
  Speaker: Uh, because there's sort of an intent there that, um, the
• 14:34
  Speaker: phrasing really forces us to.
• 14:38
  Speaker: Slow down and and, and I don't know, like, chew on every single
• 14:45
  Speaker: word before you spit it out.
• 14:48
  Speaker: And even so, you might make a mistake or whatever.
• 14:50
  Speaker: But after a number of repetitions in understanding,
• 14:55
  Speaker: you know, of reciting it, you start to understand what it is.
• 14:59
  Speaker: Um, and that because you're memorizing it, even mouth to
• 15:05
  Speaker: ear, you're hearing it and you're going to memorize it and
• 15:09
  Speaker: repeat it back.
• 15:11
  Speaker: Um, even in some jurisdictions that also have a sort of printed
• 15:15
  Speaker: cipher that goes along with it.
• 15:16
  Speaker: So you're reading it by yourself, you're reciting it.
• 15:19
  Speaker: Hopefully you're working with a
• 15:20
  Speaker: mentor in that mouth to ear sort
• 15:22
  Speaker: of setting.
• 15:23
  Speaker: Um, that it like in an era where you could just pull it up on
• 15:28
  Speaker: your phone and recite it off your phone because why not?
• 15:34
  Speaker: I'm not sure that the intent of
• 15:38
  Speaker: having it just on your phone and
• 15:41
  Speaker: reciting it that way has the
• 15:43
  Speaker: same impact internally on a
• 15:48
  Speaker: candidate, right?
• 15:49
  Speaker: I think about oftentimes, um, we
• 15:53
  Speaker: have whole conversations with
• 15:55
  Speaker: our friends in nothing but movie
• 15:58
  Speaker: quotes.
• 15:59
  Speaker: And that's because the movie quote, uh, had an emotional,
• 16:05
  Speaker: whether you want to think about it this or not.
• 16:07
  Speaker: I mean, it had an emotional sort of impact on you.
• 16:10
  Speaker: Uh, the way you understood it in that context.
• 16:13
  Speaker: And so just before the show today, we were talking about
• 16:18
  Speaker: Taco Bell and I made some stupid reference about Demolition Man
• 16:20
  Speaker: and the franchise wars.
• 16:22
  Speaker: Like instantaneously, the guys
• 16:25
  Speaker: in the green room all knew
• 16:26
  Speaker: exactly my sort of
• 16:27
  Speaker: disappointment that was
• 16:29
  Speaker: happening.
• 16:31
  Speaker: It was an intrinsic sort of, you know, they knew.
• 16:34
  Speaker: And in that same way, we
• 16:37
  Speaker: internalized this ritual in that
• 16:39
  Speaker: same fashion.
• 16:40
  Speaker: When we repeat it over and over
• 16:41
  Speaker: again and we get to know it and
• 16:43
  Speaker: live it.
• 16:44
  Speaker: Um, I think many times, uh, just in your day to day, I don't know
• 16:49
  Speaker: about you guys, but I can't tell you how many times I want to
• 16:52
  Speaker: like, I want to okay.
• 16:55
  Speaker: Boomer myself, right?
• 16:57
  Speaker: Because somebody will say
• 16:58
  Speaker: something and I'll go, it's the
• 17:00
  Speaker: internal.
• 17:02
  Speaker: You know what?
• 17:03
  Speaker: Some stupid thing from the ritual.
• 17:05
  Speaker: Not that it's all stupid or anything, but but it worked.
• 17:08
  Speaker: But but it worked some, some thing in my brain.
• 17:11
  Speaker: Uh, one that always sticks out is like, uh, just when we're
• 17:15
  Speaker: aspiring to greatness, right?
• 17:18
  Speaker: The cold, uh, kills, the kills the shoot, right?
• 17:22
  Speaker: Like the, the idea of like death coming at any moment.
• 17:25
  Speaker: Um, things like that.
• 17:27
  Speaker: Stick with me.
• 17:29
  Speaker: In that same way, just like an emotional attachment.
• 17:31
  Speaker: And I think that that would not happen if it was just like every
• 17:35
  Speaker: time I needed it, I whipped out my phone to recite it.
• 17:39
  Speaker: That's just, that's just I have no, there's no benefit to
• 17:45
  Speaker: memorizing because it's right there, you know?
• 17:47
  Speaker: See, I, I, I actually enjoy the olden language.
• 17:51
  Speaker: Um, not because I get to say words that I don't get to use,
• 17:54
  Speaker: you know, for Monday to Friday.
• 17:56
  Speaker: But to your point, I think
• 17:59
  Speaker: memorizing it and internalizing
• 18:00
  Speaker: it and then being able to not
• 18:03
  Speaker: just recite it, but espouse it,
• 18:05
  Speaker: you know, I think it gives it
• 18:06
  Speaker: gravitas and it gives it
• 18:08
  Speaker: intention.
• 18:08
  Speaker: And it, I'm probably, we're probably going to say intention
• 18:10
  Speaker: forty five times tonight, um, that using everyday parlance
• 18:16
  Speaker: now, especially the haka that comes out of my kids mouths and
• 18:20
  Speaker: people their age, you know, six, seven ah, yes.
• 18:24
  Speaker: I don't think it would have the same meaning and intention.
• 18:28
  Speaker: Uh, sorry for saying it again.
• 18:30
  Speaker: Are we conflating two things?
• 18:31
  Speaker: Uh, just to be quick, because, like, there's the memory work
• 18:34
  Speaker: and memorizing, and then there's memorizing archaic language.
• 18:40
  Speaker: Well, he said, he said the old language.
• 18:42
  Speaker: So that's why.
• 18:43
  Speaker: And then he and then he started talking all about specifically
• 18:45
  Speaker: the memorization part.
• 18:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:46
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:47
  Speaker: Well, I, so I think there's, there's benefit in both of those
• 18:49
  Speaker: things, but I really do like the language of the time.
• 18:53
  Speaker: A just it's poetic and beautiful.
• 18:57
  Speaker: B it does force us.
• 18:59
  Speaker: Well, it forces some of us to sort of look at what those words
• 19:05
  Speaker: meant when they were written.
• 19:07
  Speaker: And you understand that you have
• 19:10
  Speaker: learned almost a third of a new
• 19:13
  Speaker: language.
• 19:14
  Speaker: Um, and in that, uh, I don't know, we, we kind of hang on
• 19:20
  Speaker: that stuff a little bit, which I think is, is not a bad thing.
• 19:25
  Speaker: Well, I say vicissitudes and conflagration all the time.
• 19:28
  Speaker: Um, I just, you know, at dinner
• 19:30
  Speaker: at the Taco, at Taco Bell, at
• 19:33
  Speaker: Taco Bell.
• 19:34
  Speaker: Don't forget inundation.
• 19:36
  Speaker: That also happens in Taco Bell.
• 19:38
  Speaker: Yup.
• 19:38
  Speaker: Yeah, indeed.
• 19:41
  Speaker: Actually, the inundation happens
• 19:42
  Speaker: in the bathroom after the Taco
• 19:44
  Speaker: Bell.
• 19:45
  Speaker: After the conflagration.
• 19:47
  Speaker: Yeah, it's the conflagration.
• 19:49
  Speaker: The what?
• 19:50
  Speaker: The inundation.
• 19:52
  Speaker: The the hottest sauce that they have at Taco Bell.
• 19:54
  Speaker: What's it called again?
• 19:55
  Speaker: Diablo.
• 19:56
  Speaker: Diablo.
• 19:57
  Speaker: Diablo.
• 19:57
  Speaker: Thank you.
• 19:58
  Speaker: The the the the the pillars made of.
• 20:04
  Speaker: All right.
• 20:06
  Speaker: Um, so I have a story like
• 20:08
  Speaker: because I think it can both hurt
• 20:09
  Speaker: and help.
• 20:11
  Speaker: And you hit a little bit on it, but I have a story.
• 20:13
  Speaker: Uh, so there was a friend of a friend who I became his
• 20:17
  Speaker: catechism coach, busy young guy had a, had literally had a
• 20:21
  Speaker: newborn at home.
• 20:23
  Speaker: And we worked and worked.
• 20:24
  Speaker: And I don't know if it was the
• 20:26
  Speaker: memorization part or it was the
• 20:29
  Speaker: language specifically.
• 20:30
  Speaker: He could just not go through it.
• 20:33
  Speaker: Um, he slogged through it.
• 20:35
  Speaker: He gave it his best and he was like, I'm sorry, I gotta, I
• 20:39
  Speaker: gotta pull out.
• 20:40
  Speaker: Like, I'm not, I'm not getting it.
• 20:42
  Speaker: And I got, I got other stuff to do.
• 20:45
  Speaker: And so we lost a good brother that way.
• 20:49
  Speaker: And it wasn't for me, like lack of me trying.
• 20:53
  Speaker: But what I guess I'm trying to
• 20:55
  Speaker: get to is think about where a
• 20:57
  Speaker: lot of our ritual, uh,
• 20:59
  Speaker: catechisms came from were in an
• 21:02
  Speaker: era of education where rote
• 21:05
  Speaker: memorization, repeating question
• 21:08
  Speaker: and answer was the style of
• 21:10
  Speaker: memorization.
• 21:11
  Speaker: Right?
• 21:12
  Speaker: Twenty twenty six now we have all sorts of, uh, pedagogical,
• 21:16
  Speaker: uh, techniques to learn things.
• 21:19
  Speaker: And so like, if we were to hit
• 21:21
  Speaker: the reset button and create
• 21:22
  Speaker: masonry.
• 21:23
  Speaker: Today, rote memorization may not be the single best way to
• 21:30
  Speaker: communicate thoughts, meanings, words, and symbolism.
• 21:35
  Speaker: So, um, yeah, so I think yes, I
• 21:39
  Speaker: like it because I have learned,
• 21:41
  Speaker: I have added words to my
• 21:43
  Speaker: vocabulary.
• 21:44
  Speaker: Yes, I have, uh, as you said, Robert.
• 21:49
  Speaker: Uh, and by the way, I used to
• 21:50
  Speaker: hate ritual, but, uh, but
• 21:53
  Speaker: actually memorizing it helps you
• 21:55
  Speaker: like dive off from that and jump
• 21:57
  Speaker: and just be able to pull that up
• 21:58
  Speaker: and then keep now go into
• 22:00
  Speaker: further discussion.
• 22:01
  Speaker: Um, and so that's been helpful.
• 22:05
  Speaker: And I still think that, um,
• 22:08
  Speaker: pedagogically, there's probably
• 22:10
  Speaker: better ways of teaching men
• 22:12
  Speaker: moral instruction and that, you
• 22:15
  Speaker: know, that might be something
• 22:16
  Speaker: that we could worth revisiting
• 22:18
  Speaker: if we were ever to innovate
• 22:19
  Speaker: masonry.
• 22:21
  Speaker: I think there's something to that.
• 22:22
  Speaker: You can tie to something else that's pretty anachronistic,
• 22:24
  Speaker: which is like minutes being read aloud in the seventeen nineties.
• 22:29
  Speaker: Uh, we could think about that and, and, and maybe you don't,
• 22:33
  Speaker: maybe people aren't going to make this, this, this leap that
• 22:37
  Speaker: I'll make here.
• 22:38
  Speaker: I've tried fitting some of those old words into daily.
• 22:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:42
  Speaker: Uh, Bill, let me know the weird looks people gave you.
• 22:46
  Speaker: Uh, it happens to all of us.
• 22:47
  Speaker: Um, so if you if you're reading minutes line by line, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker: that made sense back in the day because printing is expensive
• 22:56
  Speaker: mail traveled by horseback.
• 22:58
  Speaker: And let's not forget, most
• 23:00
  Speaker: people were functionally
• 23:02
  Speaker: illiterate.
• 23:04
  Speaker: Which brings us to the idea of mouth to ear memorization.
• 23:10
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 23:11
  Speaker: Uh, like they're solving for the
• 23:16
  Speaker: problem of functional illiteracy
• 23:18
  Speaker: became an anachronistic value
• 23:23
  Speaker: prop.
• 23:24
  Speaker: You know, it's one thing that
• 23:25
  Speaker: allows us to be more
• 23:27
  Speaker: intentional.
• 23:27
  Speaker: It adds friction to our, uh, you know what we say.
• 23:32
  Speaker: It adds friction.
• 23:32
  Speaker: But but everything that is uncomfortable makes you grow.
• 23:38
  Speaker: I mean, a lot of.
• 23:38
  Speaker: Have you been on social media?
• 23:40
  Speaker: A lot of people today are functionally illiterate.
• 23:42
  Speaker: So maybe we should not get rid of that form of learning.
• 23:47
  Speaker: Um, I mean, we are in.
• 23:48
  Speaker: All right, let's start reading the minutes.
• 23:49
  Speaker: We gotta read the minutes.
• 23:52
  Speaker: Yeah, we gotta read the minutes.
• 23:55
  Speaker: Yeah, but even even outside of the.
• 23:56
  Speaker: Everybody here knows my thoughts on on reading the minutes and,
• 23:59
  Speaker: and the archaic nature of that.
• 24:01
  Speaker: But, you know, in all
• 24:02
  Speaker: seriousness, we don't consume
• 24:04
  Speaker: information the same way that
• 24:06
  Speaker: they did.
• 24:06
  Speaker: Back to John's point, you know,
• 24:07
  Speaker: three hundred years ago, um, um,
• 24:10
  Speaker: everything we consume is online
• 24:12
  Speaker: or it's in our email or
• 24:13
  Speaker: somewhere.
• 24:14
  Speaker: So that's not that big of a leap, you know what I mean?
• 24:17
  Speaker: Hey, we're just going to email
• 24:19
  Speaker: if you see something, say
• 24:20
  Speaker: something.
• 24:20
  Speaker: You know, everything on earth that you use has comments and
• 24:24
  Speaker: tracks changes to it.
• 24:25
  Speaker: You know, it's probably a well go ahead.
• 24:27
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 24:28
  Speaker: Well, let's shift into that.
• 24:29
  Speaker: Let's that's the next topic is the business meeting.
• 24:32
  Speaker: Like the the reading of the
• 24:34
  Speaker: minutes, the way minutes are
• 24:35
  Speaker: sent out, the the format of the
• 24:38
  Speaker: business order, like could that
• 24:43
  Speaker: be improved?
• 24:43
  Speaker: Would a, would a normal, you
• 24:46
  Speaker: know, business today operate the
• 24:47
  Speaker: same way?
• 24:48
  Speaker: Joe.
• 24:49
  Speaker: Yes.
• 24:49
  Speaker: So cool.
• 24:51
  Speaker: I'm glad you made this its own,
• 24:52
  Speaker: its own little thing because no,
• 24:54
  Speaker: I think good business meetings
• 24:58
  Speaker: from the thirties, the forties
• 25:00
  Speaker: and the fifties are run
• 25:01
  Speaker: completely differently than they
• 25:03
  Speaker: are today.
• 25:04
  Speaker: You know, no matter what type of business you're in, we conduct
• 25:08
  Speaker: meetings completely differently than they did sixty, seventy,
• 25:11
  Speaker: eighty years ago or even, you know, further back.
• 25:14
  Speaker: Um, and I was almost going to bring up, uh, as its own thing,
• 25:18
  Speaker: like nineteen fifties masonry or practicing nineteen fifties
• 25:21
  Speaker: masonry is an anachronism to the way it gets practiced today.
• 25:25
  Speaker: Right.
• 25:25
  Speaker: But I know we were talking about
• 25:27
  Speaker: bigger and broader things, but
• 25:29
  Speaker: we don't conduct business that
• 25:31
  Speaker: way.
• 25:31
  Speaker: Whether you're a mom and pop organization, you're a sole
• 25:34
  Speaker: proprietor, or you work for a fortune five hundred company,
• 25:38
  Speaker: they don't have meetings the same way that they did back
• 25:40
  Speaker: then, you know, and we still we still clamor against change when
• 25:46
  Speaker: it comes to conducting business in a Masonic setting.
• 25:50
  Speaker: And the only reason I can think
• 25:51
  Speaker: of is nostalgia, you know what I
• 25:53
  Speaker: mean?
• 25:54
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 25:54
  Speaker: That's the only driving point.
• 25:55
  Speaker: There's no good business reason.
• 25:58
  Speaker: There's no business reason to do some of the things we do in a
• 26:00
  Speaker: Masonic lodge during a meeting today any longer.
• 26:04
  Speaker: Freemasonry is not a business, Joe.
• 26:08
  Speaker: So this thank God for that.
• 26:11
  Speaker: Jason.
• 26:11
  Speaker: That's like, that's almost like a full like statement period.
• 26:17
  Speaker: Like we treat it like a business.
• 26:18
  Speaker: I mean, and then we run it like an eighteen forties business.
• 26:23
  Speaker: Well, right.
• 26:25
  Speaker: You could make the case, you could make the case, right?
• 26:28
  Speaker: That administration of this
• 26:30
  Speaker: fraternity is the greatest, the
• 26:33
  Speaker: greatest opiate of the modern
• 26:36
  Speaker: Masonic experience.
• 26:38
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 26:38
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 26:39
  Speaker: Uh, we we think we're building King Solomon's temple, but we
• 26:46
  Speaker: balance the checkbook.
• 26:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 26:48
  Speaker: Like the green beans, the real
• 26:52
  Speaker: the real work of masonry isn't
• 26:54
  Speaker: in in this administrative garble
• 26:57
  Speaker: gobbledygook, right?
• 26:58
  Speaker: Like, it's what we decide.
• 27:00
  Speaker: It's the thing we've been talking about for, you know,
• 27:03
  Speaker: five hundred episodes.
• 27:05
  Speaker: It's this educational experience.
• 27:08
  Speaker: Um, I think Joe and Jason could probably speak to this better,
• 27:13
  Speaker: but one thing that comes to mind is like is, uh, like this the
• 27:18
  Speaker: second Rome, right?
• 27:20
  Speaker: Um, they make Christianity the state religion, this, this
• 27:25
  Speaker: deeply spiritual thing.
• 27:27
  Speaker: Um, and then it gets smothered
• 27:30
  Speaker: by politics and property and
• 27:34
  Speaker: paperwork.
• 27:35
  Speaker: Um, and then everybody who was
• 27:38
  Speaker: like a serious seeker heads off,
• 27:41
  Speaker: you know, out into the desert
• 27:42
  Speaker: just to get away from this
• 27:43
  Speaker: machine.
• 27:45
  Speaker: And I think masonry today is not any different.
• 27:48
  Speaker: We took something that was like,
• 27:49
  Speaker: so, uh, meant internally, uh,
• 27:54
  Speaker: to, to make somebody better,
• 27:55
  Speaker: spiritually better, all of these
• 27:57
  Speaker: things.
• 27:58
  Speaker: And then they just get trapped in a glorified HOA and nice
• 28:04
  Speaker: comparing the lodge to an HOA.
• 28:06
  Speaker: That's, that's, that's, that just blew my mind.
• 28:09
  Speaker: I think I had like mini strokes
• 28:10
  Speaker: as soon as Robert said that, I'm
• 28:12
  Speaker: like, oh my God, that is so
• 28:13
  Speaker: true.
• 28:14
  Speaker: That's a winner.
• 28:15
  Speaker: I'm floored.
• 28:16
  Speaker: I mean, you like Jason.
• 28:17
  Speaker: I mean, so but like we've had
• 28:18
  Speaker: this argument, like, we know
• 28:19
  Speaker: that there's a right way to run
• 28:21
  Speaker: a lodge, which is like a, like a
• 28:23
  Speaker: business, right?
• 28:23
  Speaker: But we can't get caught there.
• 28:27
  Speaker: And that's just, man, we all get caught there.
• 28:30
  Speaker: And I think this is where like the downhill, where education
• 28:34
  Speaker: just like lost out everybody.
• 28:36
  Speaker: I, I almost want to disagree
• 28:38
  Speaker: with you as much as I hate doing
• 28:40
  Speaker: that, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker: Like I, I don't, so we have to
• 28:43
  Speaker: break it up into two separate
• 28:44
  Speaker: chunks, right?
• 28:45
  Speaker: There's, there's two hats to masonry, there's the
• 28:48
  Speaker: administration H oh, a lodge number one, I am dead.
• 28:52
  Speaker: Um, there's the administrivia
• 28:54
  Speaker: part of it where it absolutely
• 28:56
  Speaker: does need to be run like a
• 28:57
  Speaker: business.
• 28:58
  Speaker: Right?
• 28:58
  Speaker: Then you have the, then you have the candidate aspect.
• 29:02
  Speaker: The problem is ninety nine
• 29:05
  Speaker: percent of the time, the
• 29:07
  Speaker: educational or candidate or
• 29:09
  Speaker: initiator aspect gets run like
• 29:11
  Speaker: the administration part of the
• 29:12
  Speaker: business, right?
• 29:13
  Speaker: So there is no separation between the two.
• 29:16
  Speaker: And as a result, you get soggy,
• 29:19
  Speaker: watered down green bean flavored
• 29:21
  Speaker: masonry, right?
• 29:22
  Speaker: That, that, that to your point, those that administer it don't
• 29:28
  Speaker: want to change it, right?
• 29:29
  Speaker: They don't want to change it because that's the masonry that
• 29:31
  Speaker: they grew up with.
• 29:33
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:33
  Speaker: But times have changed and
• 29:35
  Speaker: people have changed and change
• 29:37
  Speaker: is coming whether we like it or
• 29:38
  Speaker: not, as much as we joke about
• 29:40
  Speaker: it.
• 29:40
  Speaker: So yeah, and it's coming from people that we don't even know.
• 29:44
  Speaker: Yep.
• 29:45
  Speaker: All right.
• 29:46
  Speaker: Do we, do we, uh, want to move on?
• 29:49
  Speaker: Pick another one.
• 29:50
  Speaker: Another one.
• 29:50
  Speaker: Who's got another good one?
• 29:53
  Speaker: Green beans.
• 29:54
  Speaker: So, uh, we have a, uh, we have somebody who guards the door
• 30:02
  Speaker: with a sword.
• 30:04
  Speaker: You mean like a padlock?
• 30:06
  Speaker: Wouldn't that be a lot easier?
• 30:07
  Speaker: We just deadbolted the door.
• 30:10
  Speaker: Or rifle?
• 30:11
  Speaker: Two factor authentication.
• 30:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Speaker: So, yeah.
• 30:17
  Speaker: Why do we have a Tyler?
• 30:19
  Speaker: They invented locks, like, just last year.
• 30:22
  Speaker: Just put those on the door
• 30:24
  Speaker: because people want to get into
• 30:26
  Speaker: our meetings.
• 30:28
  Speaker: We're not Freemasons.
• 30:29
  Speaker: We have to not only fight them off, we have to fight them off
• 30:32
  Speaker: with weapons, with a stick.
• 30:36
  Speaker: No weapons.
• 30:37
  Speaker: We put the oldest scrawniest gentleman to sit outside and
• 30:42
  Speaker: guard the door.
• 30:44
  Speaker: Except in the case of Manasseh.
• 30:48
  Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty wild.
• 30:51
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker: Swords aren't even usually sharp.
• 30:54
  Speaker: It's symbolic.
• 30:55
  Speaker: John.
• 30:56
  Speaker: They're ceremonial swords.
• 30:58
  Speaker: Gotcha.
• 31:00
  Speaker: Which, by the way, aren't even any kind of real battle ready
• 31:06
  Speaker: thing at all.
• 31:07
  Speaker: They're leftover chivalric, militaristic gobbledygook.
• 31:13
  Speaker: And for those counting, I've said that twice tonight.
• 31:18
  Speaker: We weren't so worth keeping.
• 31:22
  Speaker: Play rejects.
• 31:24
  Speaker: Just play rejects.
• 31:26
  Speaker: Just buy a ring.
• 31:28
  Speaker: Buy a ring and lock the door.
• 31:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:31
  Speaker: Oh, like the ring doorbell.
• 31:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:34
  Speaker: Yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 31:34
  Speaker: Can you, like, name it, though?
• 31:36
  Speaker: So you could.
• 31:37
  Speaker: So it could be like Brother Tyler.
• 31:38
  Speaker: And you could, you could tell the Alexa that, you know.
• 31:41
  Speaker: Hey, brother Tyler, guard the door.
• 31:43
  Speaker: We are back to update my nest doorbell.
• 31:45
  Speaker: You know what?
• 31:46
  Speaker: We can put a smart.
• 31:47
  Speaker: We can put a smart lock on it and then tell Alexa to tell
• 31:51
  Speaker: Brother Tyler to lock the door.
• 31:52
  Speaker: And you'll just hear, go click, click.
• 31:55
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:55
  Speaker: There you go.
• 31:56
  Speaker: Bazinga!
• 31:57
  Speaker: Brother.
• 31:57
  Speaker: Brother.
• 31:58
  Speaker: Junior.
• 31:58
  Speaker: Warden.
• 32:00
  Speaker: Um, you could, you could change the ringtone to, to be, you
• 32:06
  Speaker: know, knock knock knock.
• 32:11
  Speaker: There is an alarm at the door.
• 32:13
  Speaker: I don't know why, but just like as you are talking about this,
• 32:17
  Speaker: all I can think about is like a Futurama style microwave oven.
• 32:21
  Speaker: That is the brother junior warden, you know, six thousand.
• 32:26
  Speaker: Junior warden, six thousand.
• 32:27
  Speaker: Hope you guys like baked potatoes.
• 32:32
  Speaker: Oh. Does this taste like hot dog water to you?
• 32:37
  Speaker: Oh oh oh for the knights and squires.
• 32:40
  Speaker: I'm going to put it in the chat and put it in the group.
• 32:43
  Speaker: Okay.
• 32:43
  Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to give
• 32:44
  Speaker: you a picture of the gnarliest
• 32:46
  Speaker: hot dog hot dog water thing
• 32:47
  Speaker: you've ever seen at a Masonic
• 32:49
  Speaker: event.
• 32:50
  Speaker: It was so good.
• 32:51
  Speaker: I took a picture.
• 32:52
  Speaker: It's coming.
• 32:53
  Speaker: That's a reason to be a patron.
• 32:55
  Speaker: I don't want to see just that hot dog water.
• 32:59
  Speaker: Brother Bill says his sword deals plus ten tetanus.
• 33:03
  Speaker: Ooh!
• 33:08
  Speaker: Excellent.
• 33:09
  Speaker: Okay, sword.
• 33:10
  Speaker: Next.
• 33:10
  Speaker: Next topic.
• 33:11
  Speaker: What's another anachronism in masonry?
• 33:13
  Speaker: Ooh.
• 33:17
  Speaker: I got one.
• 33:18
  Speaker: Oh. Go ahead.
• 33:20
  Speaker: I was going to say the ancient landmarks of Freemasonry, the
• 33:25
  Speaker: immovable landmarks or the.
• 33:28
  Speaker: The ancient ineffable.
• 33:30
  Speaker: They're not ineffable.
• 33:31
  Speaker: Um, the enumerated but not enumerated.
• 33:34
  Speaker: Ancient and immovable landmarks
• 33:36
  Speaker: that are neither ancient nor
• 33:38
  Speaker: unchanging.
• 33:40
  Speaker: Yes, those.
• 33:41
  Speaker: Say more.
• 33:42
  Speaker: Why?
• 33:42
  Speaker: Why do we have these ancient landmarks, Joe?
• 33:44
  Speaker: Well, we have these ancient landmarks because our dear, dear
• 33:49
  Speaker: brother Albert Mackey, decided to publish twenty five of them,
• 33:52
  Speaker: I believe it was somewhere in the eighteen fifties.
• 33:55
  Speaker: And that was the first time they
• 33:56
  Speaker: had ever been committed to
• 33:57
  Speaker: writing and known as the
• 33:59
  Speaker: landmarks.
• 34:00
  Speaker: Um, but for some reason we ascribe them to our favorite
• 34:05
  Speaker: saying as Masons.
• 34:06
  Speaker: They go back to time immemorial.
• 34:08
  Speaker: Right?
• 34:10
  Speaker: So before the written word,
• 34:11
  Speaker: before the cuneiform, um, they
• 34:14
  Speaker: have existed just like Masons
• 34:15
  Speaker: have existed since the time of
• 34:17
  Speaker: Adam.
• 34:18
  Speaker: So yeah, that whole ancient landmark thing.
• 34:22
  Speaker: I know it's romantic.
• 34:24
  Speaker: Um, and we love romanticism in
• 34:26
  Speaker: masonry, or at least a lot of us
• 34:27
  Speaker: do.
• 34:28
  Speaker: Um, but I think that it does a disservice when we try to, to
• 34:33
  Speaker: your point, innovate or change or modernize or do anything.
• 34:37
  Speaker: You know, we, we pulled that
• 34:39
  Speaker: back out of our pockets and say,
• 34:40
  Speaker: well, the ancient landmarks say
• 34:41
  Speaker: this.
• 34:42
  Speaker: Well, that's cool.
• 34:42
  Speaker: They've only been around for,
• 34:43
  Speaker: you know, half the time that
• 34:45
  Speaker: speculative masonry has been
• 34:46
  Speaker: around.
• 34:47
  Speaker: I don't I don't need logical answers.
• 34:49
  Speaker: Mute him.
• 34:53
  Speaker: Oh, Adam was a mason.
• 34:55
  Speaker: Oh, Adam.
• 34:56
  Speaker: Adam was a mason.
• 34:58
  Speaker: Uh, yeah, it is really interesting.
• 35:02
  Speaker: Um. So we have this law, right?
• 35:08
  Speaker: I mean, because that's, that's basically what it is.
• 35:10
  Speaker: You know, the kids talk about, you know, movies and video games
• 35:12
  Speaker: have have their law.
• 35:14
  Speaker: That's all we have, right?
• 35:15
  Speaker: We have you talk about cosplaying, right?
• 35:17
  Speaker: We have we have our own law as well.
• 35:19
  Speaker: Because these landmarks, like you said, were documented while
• 35:23
  Speaker: we were around for over a hundred years, like, oh crap, I
• 35:26
  Speaker: guess we need to write some law.
• 35:28
  Speaker: And, and, and Adam was a mason too.
• 35:30
  Speaker: And we go way back to the, to the pyramids.
• 35:32
  Speaker: Right?
• 35:33
  Speaker: Oh, and his sons were masons and his sons were masons.
• 35:36
  Speaker: True.
• 35:36
  Speaker: So like that.
• 35:39
  Speaker: That alone has some mystery to it, but can also harm as well.
• 35:45
  Speaker: Like like you said, Jason, it does handcuff us into.
• 35:49
  Speaker: Well, if you deviate from that, you're now breaking tradition.
• 35:53
  Speaker: And we had a whole episode about tradition.
• 35:55
  Speaker: So I think something that and this is a hot take.
• 35:59
  Speaker: You can email me later.
• 36:01
  Speaker: Whatever, uh, throw some shade
• 36:02
  Speaker: however you want to do it, I
• 36:03
  Speaker: don't care.
• 36:04
  Speaker: Uh, but I think maybe this ties
• 36:07
  Speaker: into a little bit into maybe
• 36:09
  Speaker: Jason's original thoughts on and
• 36:13
  Speaker: you could tell me if I'm not
• 36:13
  Speaker: right here on anachronisms in
• 36:16
  Speaker: masonry is there is sort of a
• 36:22
  Speaker: old boys club to, to the
• 36:25
  Speaker: fraternity.
• 36:26
  Speaker: Uh, and if that's not where
• 36:29
  Speaker: you're going at all, that's
• 36:30
  Speaker: okay.
• 36:30
  Speaker: I'm going to make a separate point and say that when I think
• 36:34
  Speaker: about the landmarks, and if you read those and you look at the
• 36:39
  Speaker: time they're written, it's really like controlling about
• 36:45
  Speaker: who can be a mason, um, through a set of rules that are.
• 36:54
  Speaker: Secularly ambiguous enough, but still controlled by a group of
• 37:00
  Speaker: people that likely uphold a sort of stringent version of what
• 37:08
  Speaker: those landmarks mean.
• 37:10
  Speaker: And I, you know, it's about control.
• 37:14
  Speaker: I mean, it's, it's not any
• 37:16
  Speaker: different than a lot of the
• 37:17
  Speaker: things that happened in the, you
• 37:18
  Speaker: know, the, the three fifths
• 37:20
  Speaker: compromise in seventeen eighty
• 37:22
  Speaker: seven.
• 37:23
  Speaker: Right.
• 37:23
  Speaker: Like you're controlling who can
• 37:26
  Speaker: be a mason, how they can be a
• 37:28
  Speaker: Mason.
• 37:29
  Speaker: Um, that's just, that's, that's
• 37:32
  Speaker: the raw, uh, sort of put it out
• 37:38
  Speaker: there.
• 37:39
  Speaker: You know, it's the reason why those landmarks are put out
• 37:41
  Speaker: there like that.
• 37:42
  Speaker: Um, there's, there's no logical reason for any of those
• 37:46
  Speaker: landmarks in today's world.
• 37:49
  Speaker: And when I say logical, I mean there's no reason why, you know,
• 37:53
  Speaker: could could you say that there are only Masons?
• 37:58
  Speaker: There are only lessons in Freemasonry that apply only to a
• 38:01
  Speaker: specific group of people.
• 38:03
  Speaker: Probably not.
• 38:06
  Speaker: Yep.
• 38:08
  Speaker: Good point.
• 38:10
  Speaker: Um, I'm going to move on and bring up one that I thought I
• 38:13
  Speaker: heard you sneak in there, Robert, before Joe cut you off.
• 38:17
  Speaker: You said Joe off you paper dues cards.
• 38:20
  Speaker: I'm going to say paper anything anymore.
• 38:23
  Speaker: So says Google, man.
• 38:25
  Speaker: Yes.
• 38:26
  Speaker: Uh, dues cards, trestle boards that are still being sent by
• 38:30
  Speaker: mail, paper minutes, paper petitions, wet signatures.
• 38:38
  Speaker: Is is that a vestige of the past or is it checks?
• 38:45
  Speaker: Paper checks.
• 38:47
  Speaker: If your grand.
• 38:49
  Speaker: If your grand secretary uses an auto pen, they're not valid.
• 38:56
  Speaker: Checks.
• 38:57
  Speaker: Paper checks.
• 38:57
  Speaker: We, um, we need to get rid of those.
• 39:02
  Speaker: How about all checks?
• 39:03
  Speaker: I mean, Ikea doesn't take checks anymore.
• 39:05
  Speaker: Ikea.
• 39:06
  Speaker: A place where you could spend thousands of dollars in one go.
• 39:09
  Speaker: They don't take checks.
• 39:13
  Speaker: Nobody takes checks.
• 39:14
  Speaker: Yeah, I was on mute.
• 39:15
  Speaker: I literally looked at my
• 39:18
  Speaker: checkbook, and half the time I
• 39:20
  Speaker: never even wrote in the the
• 39:21
  Speaker: ledger.
• 39:22
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 39:22
  Speaker: It's like, check.
• 39:23
  Speaker: Who cares?
• 39:23
  Speaker: It shows up online and, you know, once it's cashed the last
• 39:28
  Speaker: ten checks I wrote, I write maybe one or two checks a year.
• 39:31
  Speaker: So five years at least have only
• 39:33
  Speaker: been for Masonic things and
• 39:35
  Speaker: nothing else.
• 39:36
  Speaker: Nothing.
• 39:40
  Speaker: The end.
• 39:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:42
  Speaker: Well, think about like when I said paper deuce cards, like the
• 39:45
  Speaker: thing that I was thinking of immediately shout out to Barnes,
• 39:48
  Speaker: right, is like Amity with a Live Dues card thing where it pings
• 39:53
  Speaker: Grandview or pings to real time updates, real time updates.
• 39:58
  Speaker: So you can't say, oh, well, you know, you get your dues card in
• 40:02
  Speaker: January and you're expelled by February, but that card still
• 40:04
  Speaker: says twenty twenty six on it for the rest of the year, you know?
• 40:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker: And think about the headache that that a lot of people get
• 40:11
  Speaker: all the time, like back in the day, I'm sure when I saw
• 40:14
  Speaker: somebody who had a permanent lifetime membership dues card,
• 40:17
  Speaker: it was plastic.
• 40:18
  Speaker: I was like, is this real?
• 40:20
  Speaker: Because I know masonry.
• 40:22
  Speaker: That sounds crazy.
• 40:23
  Speaker: They spent more than two cents on it.
• 40:26
  Speaker: No. And I was just about to say that the few times.
• 40:29
  Speaker: So I have a life membership card.
• 40:30
  Speaker: It's plastic.
• 40:30
  Speaker: I haven't gotten a real dues card in ten years.
• 40:33
  Speaker: You know, an updated dues card.
• 40:35
  Speaker: What's to stop me from going to a lodge and showing that it
• 40:38
  Speaker: doesn't have a date of expiration on it?
• 40:40
  Speaker: And a couple of times I've, you know, I've visited lodges and
• 40:43
  Speaker: they're like, oh, we, we need to talk to somebody about this and
• 40:46
  Speaker: then somebody walk by.
• 40:47
  Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, he's from Virginia.
• 40:48
  Speaker: It's a life member card.
• 40:49
  Speaker: He's good.
• 40:50
  Speaker: Um, but it's a weird thing now.
• 40:52
  Speaker: You ever been, you ever shown
• 40:53
  Speaker: like your amity status and
• 40:55
  Speaker: they're like, oh, no. And I'm
• 40:57
  Speaker: like, but it's real time to my
• 40:58
  Speaker: grand lodge.
• 41:00
  Speaker: I, I've had it on my phone since it came out.
• 41:02
  Speaker: I've never used it in a lodge
• 41:04
  Speaker: setting because I, I have used
• 41:06
  Speaker: it two or three times and it's,
• 41:08
  Speaker: it's come in handy two of those
• 41:09
  Speaker: times.
• 41:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:10
  Speaker: I've used it as a last resort.
• 41:11
  Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:12
  Speaker: We're like, Holy crap, I forgot my card.
• 41:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:17
  Speaker: I don't even bring a dues card anymore.
• 41:20
  Speaker: You just give him a lecture?
• 41:22
  Speaker: No, it's just here.
• 41:25
  Speaker: Grand Grand view virtual dues card.
• 41:27
  Speaker: Let me in.
• 41:28
  Speaker: Oh, there you go.
• 41:29
  Speaker: That makes sense.
• 41:30
  Speaker: Yep.
• 41:31
  Speaker: That's what's up.
• 41:33
  Speaker: All right.
• 41:33
  Speaker: Let's do at least two more.
• 41:35
  Speaker: Two more topics.
• 41:36
  Speaker: Um, get any off the top of your head, Jason.
• 41:41
  Speaker: Um. The sword was my big one.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Sword was your big.
• 41:54
  Speaker: You have a big sword.
• 41:55
  Speaker: Uh, how about the ballot box?
• 41:57
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 41:58
  Speaker: The way we actually vote.
• 42:02
  Speaker: Oh my gosh.
• 42:04
  Speaker: Uh, but you can go on eBay and find, like, the oldest wooden
• 42:08
  Speaker: ballot box from seventeen hundreds, and it's probably
• 42:13
  Speaker: still would still fit in any lodge in your jurisdiction.
• 42:22
  Speaker: What, you know, on that topic, it's, it's interesting because
• 42:26
  Speaker: from the lodge level, at a lodge level, I, it feels ceremonial.
• 42:32
  Speaker: It's, it seems antiquated, but it also seems sort of
• 42:35
  Speaker: ritualistic in a sense.
• 42:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 42:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:38
  Speaker: Um, I the way you ballot too.
• 42:41
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 42:41
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:42
  Speaker: Because you are bringing somebody into the fold of an
• 42:45
  Speaker: initiatory order that will change them forever.
• 42:50
  Speaker: Um, but also in masonry, we have like when you go to, say, Grand
• 42:54
  Speaker: Lodge annual communications or sessions, um, I'm part of a
• 42:58
  Speaker: jurisdiction that still hands out paper slips with like things
• 43:03
  Speaker: you rip off if they come down to a write in.
• 43:05
  Speaker: Oh. And so it's like a two
• 43:07
  Speaker: thirds and they just like call
• 43:08
  Speaker: it.
• 43:09
  Speaker: And if there's somebody wants to vote, you gotta write it down.
• 43:11
  Speaker: Pass it down.
• 43:12
  Speaker: DM's collect them all.
• 43:13
  Speaker: Then they give us the result at some point during the day after
• 43:16
  Speaker: they've collected them.
• 43:18
  Speaker: Recently, actually on a Facebook group that may or may not be
• 43:22
  Speaker: associated with a Grand lodge I'm affiliated with, asked
• 43:26
  Speaker: something about how many people bring a smartphone to the Grand
• 43:33
  Speaker: Lodge, and, um, my thought immediately went to like, hey,
• 43:38
  Speaker: yeah, why don't we use our phones to vote?
• 43:40
  Speaker: And I just, I just kind of said
• 43:41
  Speaker: like, oh man, how cool would
• 43:42
  Speaker: that be?
• 43:43
  Speaker: Instantaneous voting results.
• 43:44
  Speaker: I just like jumped the gun.
• 43:46
  Speaker: That's not what this guy, this,
• 43:47
  Speaker: that's not what this Grand Lodge
• 43:48
  Speaker: officer was, was trying to, you
• 43:51
  Speaker: know, start a conversation
• 43:52
  Speaker: about.
• 43:52
  Speaker: I think he was just getting some general information.
• 43:54
  Speaker: And, um, that's where my brain went immediately.
• 43:57
  Speaker: And then I immediately had, I
• 44:00
  Speaker: had one guy agree with me and
• 44:03
  Speaker: about ten guys said, nope, if
• 44:06
  Speaker: you can have election fraud
• 44:07
  Speaker: today in the United States,
• 44:09
  Speaker: then, um, you can't secure those
• 44:13
  Speaker: votes.
• 44:13
  Speaker: And it wouldn't be, you know, secure or whatever.
• 44:17
  Speaker: And I just, I couldn't disagree more, but I, I didn't, I didn't
• 44:23
  Speaker: want to start an argument, but like, yeah, man, like the
• 44:27
  Speaker: ballot, especially on some of those large administrative
• 44:31
  Speaker: meetings where you're counting hundreds of votes Papers.
• 44:38
  Speaker: Gotta go.
• 44:41
  Speaker: All I thought of was just a big cahoot and or a menti poll.
• 44:47
  Speaker: And you put it on and you just see it.
• 44:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Speaker: Yep.
• 44:52
  Speaker: Real time.
• 44:53
  Speaker: You don't have to waste any time counting.
• 44:57
  Speaker: You don't have to have.
• 44:58
  Speaker: You don't have to worry about somebody like fixing it.
• 45:04
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:05
  Speaker: We have the technology.
• 45:06
  Speaker: But I do like your point of
• 45:09
  Speaker: ceremonially, it actually can
• 45:13
  Speaker: bring yourself in the right
• 45:15
  Speaker: mindset, uh, for, again, uh,
• 45:19
  Speaker: balloting someone to join the
• 45:21
  Speaker: fraternity.
• 45:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 45:23
  Speaker: Um, making sure everyone's accountable.
• 45:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:25
  Speaker: So that's.
• 45:26
  Speaker: Well, okay, like, like a remarkable tablet or those new
• 45:31
  Speaker: fancy, fancy or non fancy dumb phones or typewriters that do
• 45:37
  Speaker: nothing but capture your thoughts right in the middle
• 45:41
  Speaker: there with no other distraction.
• 45:45
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:46
  Speaker: Like you are present in your thought.
• 45:50
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:51
  Speaker: You know, you're not going to go to vote and have to swipe away.
• 45:54
  Speaker: Three notifications.
• 45:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 45:59
  Speaker: Well, I mean, some some grand jurisdictions are evolved.
• 46:02
  Speaker: Um, what is it?
• 46:03
  Speaker: Uh, Texas, where they get a clicker, right.
• 46:06
  Speaker: And that big ass room of Masons are all sitting there and they
• 46:09
  Speaker: click in real time and, you know, the right people got the
• 46:12
  Speaker: buttons and stuff.
• 46:13
  Speaker: So I mean, it is possible.
• 46:15
  Speaker: But yeah, I mean, I, I, I think to your point, yes, for
• 46:19
  Speaker: balloting on things like membership, I, I do love the,
• 46:23
  Speaker: the ceremonial nature of, of the ballot box, but to your point
• 46:26
  Speaker: for, you know, I can't, I'm having PTSD flashbacks of being
• 46:31
  Speaker: in Grand Lodge and, you know, holding up my card.
• 46:34
  Speaker: All damn day long and nobody's counting.
• 46:37
  Speaker: Oh, like.
• 46:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:40
  Speaker: I'm like, what's FOB people are
• 46:42
  Speaker: saying Georgia and Florida use
• 46:44
  Speaker: the fobs.
• 46:45
  Speaker: What is that?
• 46:46
  Speaker: Yes.
• 46:47
  Speaker: Someone tell us.
• 46:49
  Speaker: Oh, fobs.
• 46:50
  Speaker: Yes.
• 46:50
  Speaker: Like, oh, like like a key fob.
• 46:53
  Speaker: Like a clicker.
• 46:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:54
  Speaker: Okay.
• 46:56
  Speaker: Okay.
• 46:56
  Speaker: You can register your vote.
• 46:57
  Speaker: A physical device, though.
• 46:59
  Speaker: Not not an app, but a physical device.
• 47:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 47:02
  Speaker: Okay.
• 47:02
  Speaker: You push the green button for yes.
• 47:04
  Speaker: And red button for no. Mhm.
• 47:05
  Speaker: Okay.
• 47:06
  Speaker: Yeah, that eliminates confusion.
• 47:07
  Speaker: Yep.
• 47:09
  Speaker: Um. Problem solved.
• 47:12
  Speaker: Nice.
• 47:15
  Speaker: All right.
• 47:16
  Speaker: Uh, last one, and then we'll get to the final question.
• 47:18
  Speaker: So how about the regalia?
• 47:24
  Speaker: HMM.
• 47:26
  Speaker: Seems a little out of place in modern society.
• 47:29
  Speaker: Well, you know, it's the internal and not the external.
• 47:31
  Speaker: job.
• 47:34
  Speaker: He said the thing.
• 47:35
  Speaker: Tell that.
• 47:36
  Speaker: Tell that to my growing stash of lapel pins, buddy.
• 47:41
  Speaker: Where I wear seventy of them to lodge in one night.
• 47:46
  Speaker: Ah. It's a really good one.
• 47:48
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 47:50
  Speaker: Because I. I want to.
• 47:53
  Speaker: I like the idea of putting on a suit to go to lodge.
• 48:00
  Speaker: Right.
• 48:01
  Speaker: As do I. I don't I don't know if I. I don't know if I'm, like in
• 48:06
  Speaker: touch with my feelings enough to, like, debate myself on
• 48:10
  Speaker: whether I like it because I think it's professional in a
• 48:13
  Speaker: respect to the craft or I just want to feel like I'm more
• 48:15
  Speaker: important than I am.
• 48:18
  Speaker: No, but that's fair.
• 48:20
  Speaker: No, that's that's a fair point.
• 48:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 48:22
  Speaker: It's like, are we just cosplaying?
• 48:24
  Speaker: You know, I think about all of the people I know in the world
• 48:28
  Speaker: today and, and so many of them don't own a suit and they don't
• 48:31
  Speaker: have a need to.
• 48:33
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 48:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 48:34
  Speaker: I told you my dad, um, um, just joined masonry a couple years
• 48:38
  Speaker: ago, and he had to go out and go buy a suit and a tux.
• 48:42
  Speaker: So he's like, I haven't had a
• 48:44
  Speaker: need for one in, in thirty
• 48:45
  Speaker: years.
• 48:46
  Speaker: The talks, I mean, most people
• 48:49
  Speaker: rent their first tux for some
• 48:52
  Speaker: high school or, you know,
• 48:53
  Speaker: function of graduation or prom,
• 48:56
  Speaker: and then maybe they get their
• 48:59
  Speaker: wedding.
• 49:01
  Speaker: Uh, and I still remember, like, I went to my uncle's wedding in
• 49:05
  Speaker: two thousand and five six, something like that.
• 49:09
  Speaker: I remember his vest.
• 49:11
  Speaker: It's just a half vest.
• 49:13
  Speaker: Like it's for looks.
• 49:14
  Speaker: It's like a Halloween costume.
• 49:17
  Speaker: And I just remember when, when I bought my first tux, like in two
• 49:21
  Speaker: thousand and nine, it was, you know, it was a full a full vest.
• 49:26
  Speaker: I was like, oh, like they do still make this stuff, you know?
• 49:32
  Speaker: And then I learned way more.
• 49:34
  Speaker: I learned too much about, you
• 49:35
  Speaker: know, men's suit, fashion and
• 49:37
  Speaker: things than I think any of us
• 49:38
  Speaker: needed to.
• 49:39
  Speaker: Thanks to the Fraternal Review, but.
• 49:43
  Speaker: Nice.
• 49:45
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 49:46
  Speaker: Well, we're at that time.
• 49:50
  Speaker: Let's go to the final question, which, as I reminded you in the
• 49:55
  Speaker: beginning, is out of that list of things we covered tonight,
• 49:58
  Speaker: I'll do a quick refresh.
• 50:00
  Speaker: We've talked about candlelight.
• 50:02
  Speaker: We've talked about memory work.
• 50:03
  Speaker: We've talked about archaic language.
• 50:05
  Speaker: We've talked about regalia,
• 50:07
  Speaker: paper, everything, including
• 50:09
  Speaker: checks, the ballot box, the
• 50:12
  Speaker: landmarks, uh, membership
• 50:14
  Speaker: requirements, reading bills, and
• 50:17
  Speaker: approving of the minutes and
• 50:20
  Speaker: swords.
• 50:21
  Speaker: I'm sure I missed one or two, but that's the majority.
• 50:24
  Speaker: Swords s words.
• 50:26
  Speaker: Name one anachronism that you would fight to keep and why.
• 50:32
  Speaker: Or name one you would happily get rid of today?
• 50:43
  Speaker: Well, Joe.
• 50:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Speaker: Um, I was going to say so you said.
• 50:51
  Speaker: All right, so just pick one.
• 50:52
  Speaker: So I would have to say I want to
• 50:55
  Speaker: keep I want to keep the the
• 50:57
  Speaker: candlelight.
• 50:58
  Speaker: I want to keep the mystery.
• 50:59
  Speaker: I want to keep the intention, um, to create a place that is
• 51:05
  Speaker: separate from the outside world.
• 51:07
  Speaker: Um, you know, I, I would even say, let's get rid of the really
• 51:11
  Speaker: ridiculous square and compass light bulbs, you know, with the
• 51:14
  Speaker: little G's in them.
• 51:16
  Speaker: Um, that you can't, um, because those just offend me to no end.
• 51:19
  Speaker: But yeah, I think where we started candlelight.
• 51:22
  Speaker: Um, I, I'm lucky that I'm in a
• 51:25
  Speaker: jurisdiction that says it's
• 51:27
  Speaker: okay.
• 51:27
  Speaker: And, you know, we've had candles there since forever.
• 51:30
  Speaker: Um, but I think it really sets
• 51:33
  Speaker: the, I guess the ambiance of, of
• 51:36
  Speaker: the room for the evening and,
• 51:38
  Speaker: and you light them with
• 51:39
  Speaker: intention.
• 51:39
  Speaker: It's not just some dude walking up with a cigarette lighter and
• 51:42
  Speaker: lighting the candles.
• 51:43
  Speaker: Um, there's ritual to it and
• 51:46
  Speaker: there's meaning to it and it
• 51:49
  Speaker: centers you on the, the, the
• 51:52
  Speaker: thing that's going on that
• 51:53
  Speaker: night.
• 51:53
  Speaker: So I would say those types of things we should keep, um, not
• 51:58
  Speaker: for nostalgia, but because they, they force us to do things with
• 52:03
  Speaker: intention, things that we may not need to do anymore.
• 52:07
  Speaker: Um, wow.
• 52:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:09
  Speaker: All right, right on.
• 52:10
  Speaker: Um, but yeah, no, I think that's a keeper.
• 52:12
  Speaker: Um, anything paper.
• 52:14
  Speaker: Go. Bye bye.
• 52:16
  Speaker: Nice.
• 52:17
  Speaker: All right.
• 52:17
  Speaker: Thank you Joe.
• 52:19
  Speaker: Jason.
• 52:21
  Speaker: What would you keep or what would you get rid of?
• 52:26
  Speaker: Get rid of the Tyler.
• 52:29
  Speaker: Go to an encrypted passkey or multifactor authentication and
• 52:39
  Speaker: just lock the fucking door.
• 52:46
  Speaker: Yep.
• 52:47
  Speaker: We bring him.
• 52:47
  Speaker: We bring him in at the door.
• 52:48
  Speaker: The door half the time anyway.
• 52:50
  Speaker: So tile from without?
• 52:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 52:54
  Speaker: That's true.
• 52:56
  Speaker: Good point.
• 52:57
  Speaker: All right.
• 52:58
  Speaker: Robert.
• 53:00
  Speaker: Man, it's.
• 53:03
  Speaker: There's so much you know.
• 53:04
  Speaker: Good.
• 53:06
  Speaker: And there's so much, uh, excess.
• 53:09
  Speaker: Um, it's really hard to pin down.
• 53:11
  Speaker: And I think we had a, we had a
• 53:13
  Speaker: good conversation about, about
• 53:14
  Speaker: those things that, that add
• 53:16
  Speaker: value.
• 53:17
  Speaker: And I think that's, it's kind of what it comes down to is, Um.
• 53:24
  Speaker: We, I think Freemasonry's
• 53:26
  Speaker: greatest selling point is that
• 53:28
  Speaker: we do slow down is that we do
• 53:31
  Speaker: things.
• 53:32
  Speaker: Joe made a joke earlier.
• 53:34
  Speaker: How many times we're going to say intentional or intent.
• 53:37
  Speaker: And I think that is so important.
• 53:41
  Speaker: Like if, if the thing we're doing doesn't boil down to
• 53:45
  Speaker: intentional use of whatever it is to make somebody better, then
• 53:53
  Speaker: it's probably a waste.
• 53:56
  Speaker: Sorry about the dogs.
• 53:57
  Speaker: You know, it's kind of there's a quote that I found it said the
• 54:00
  Speaker: moment a spiritual tradition.
• 54:02
  Speaker: This is just off some blog.
• 54:04
  Speaker: The moment a spiritual tradition
• 54:06
  Speaker: spends more time consulting its
• 54:08
  Speaker: rulebook than examining its
• 54:11
  Speaker: conscience.
• 54:12
  Speaker: The countdown to collapse has already begun.
• 54:17
  Speaker: And I immediately thought about your end date.
• 54:20
  Speaker: Uh, John and your, your, your thought, because certainly you
• 54:25
  Speaker: could make a case to say that we became so engrossed in the, uh,
• 54:31
  Speaker: modern administration of the craft in a point where that was
• 54:35
  Speaker: necessary because of the monumental numbers coming in
• 54:41
  Speaker: that that became, you know, we're just examining the rules
• 54:47
  Speaker: and the numbers and the books.
• 54:48
  Speaker: We're not we're not paying attention to the lessons.
• 54:50
  Speaker: So I, I just think, yeah, if, if the only thing in the minute
• 54:56
  Speaker: book is the checks we wrote, we didn't do any masonry that day.
• 55:00
  Speaker: So those things that aren't
• 55:03
  Speaker: those, those, those
• 55:04
  Speaker: administrative things, those are
• 55:06
  Speaker: the anachronisms, however old or
• 55:08
  Speaker: whatever, as long as they're
• 55:09
  Speaker: intentional, they slow us down
• 55:11
  Speaker: and we can assign some value to
• 55:13
  Speaker: them.
• 55:14
  Speaker: I think that's good.
• 55:16
  Speaker: Um. yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't grab it
• 55:21
  Speaker: down to one thing.
• 55:22
  Speaker: Right.
• 55:23
  Speaker: It's just too big.
• 55:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker: And again, there's nuance to everything.
• 55:27
  Speaker: I think you guys are capturing that really well.
• 55:30
  Speaker: Right?
• 55:30
  Speaker: Um, deliberately choose why you
• 55:33
  Speaker: want to do something a little
• 55:36
  Speaker: bit different for the
• 55:38
  Speaker: experience.
• 55:40
  Speaker: Yep.
• 55:40
  Speaker: So, uh, let's see.
• 55:42
  Speaker: Over for me, the, I guess it would really be the, the paper
• 55:47
  Speaker: oriented way we do business.
• 55:49
  Speaker: Um, and that even starts with a petition.
• 55:52
  Speaker: When I apply for jobs, it's all online now, right?
• 55:54
  Speaker: Um, there is some beauty in, uh,
• 55:58
  Speaker: I think I told the story once
• 55:59
  Speaker: where I traveled to Saint Louis
• 56:01
  Speaker: Lodge, and one of the past
• 56:04
  Speaker: masters reached out to the back
• 56:06
  Speaker: and grabbed Charles Lindbergh's
• 56:08
  Speaker: petition.
• 56:08
  Speaker: And I held Charles Lindbergh petition in my hand, which is
• 56:12
  Speaker: cool, but it's cool.
• 56:14
  Speaker: Like, it's it's not a necessary requirement.
• 56:17
  Speaker: It was it was there for nostalgia reasons.
• 56:20
  Speaker: And so you held a murderers.
• 56:23
  Speaker: Well, yeah, but it was kind of it was under like this much.
• 56:26
  Speaker: I'm just I'm just throwing.
• 56:27
  Speaker: I know, I know you were.
• 56:28
  Speaker: Um, but that's a cool factor to it.
• 56:31
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 56:32
  Speaker: So if you want to be a lodge
• 56:34
  Speaker: like a traditional observance
• 56:35
  Speaker: lodge and you want to do that,
• 56:37
  Speaker: do everything with, you know,
• 56:39
  Speaker: uh, handwritten, not typed
• 56:42
  Speaker: paper, fine.
• 56:44
  Speaker: You know, uh, uh, fine.
• 56:47
  Speaker: Calligraphy and stationery.
• 56:49
  Speaker: Cool.
• 56:49
  Speaker: You're doing that for a purpose.
• 56:51
  Speaker: But if it's just because, well, that's the way our our
• 56:55
  Speaker: secretaries always done it.
• 56:56
  Speaker: That's not a good excuse.
• 56:58
  Speaker: Right?
• 56:58
  Speaker: Um, so that's, that's where I
• 57:00
  Speaker: would change things to more
• 57:01
  Speaker: because, um, going digital
• 57:06
  Speaker: actually enables you to rethink
• 57:08
  Speaker: the processes that you have,
• 57:10
  Speaker: right?
• 57:11
  Speaker: Just like we talked about amity, right?
• 57:13
  Speaker: is, well, if I forget my, uh, paper card.
• 57:17
  Speaker: Well, now I don't need to update a paper card once a year.
• 57:20
  Speaker: I can have real time updates in an app that just completely
• 57:24
  Speaker: changes the game on recognition and everything else.
• 57:27
  Speaker: So, um, by us limiting ourselves
• 57:31
  Speaker: to the linear paper processes
• 57:34
  Speaker: that we have today from an
• 57:36
  Speaker: administrative perspective that
• 57:38
  Speaker: does limit the craft and could
• 57:40
  Speaker: possibly turn some brothers
• 57:41
  Speaker: away, especially when you read
• 57:43
  Speaker: the minutes.
• 57:43
  Speaker: So. Be more digital.
• 57:47
  Speaker: Keep listening to the Masonic Roundtable.
• 57:49
  Speaker: I want to thank you all very much for watching.
• 57:52
  Speaker: I keep searching for more light.
• 57:53
  Speaker: Have a good night.
• 57:54
  Speaker: Wow.
• 57:55
  Speaker: Be the change.