Jim Tresner, 33°, Grand Cross
P.O. Box 70, Guthrie, Oklahoma 73044-0070

The Degrees of Masonry are like symphonies, each note dependent upon the ones before to create an intellectual and emotional context in which insight can occur.

I 'm watching the death with sadness. Certain phrases which I used to hear often in my youth have all but disappeared, used now only by the elderly. I suspect they always were regional, indigenous to the South and to the West, and to that strange and rich combination of South and West, which is Oklahoma. Today, their substitutes usually involve vulgarity or profanity, but these folk expressions were attempts to avoid those two extremes.

Most of them were expressions of surprise or amazement such as "I do declare!" "Rain and snow in Beulah Land!" "My sainted aunt!" "I'll be hornswoggled!" (meaning bamboozled, tricked). "Well I swan!" (swan being a substitute for swear, something the user would never do). "I swan to Josephus!" "Great day in the morning!" "Well crown me with glory!" "Heavens above!" And my personal favorite, "Well fan my brow and call me Moses!" There is no doubt these phrases fall strangely on the modern ear. But they have a richness and texture I miss.

As Masons, we are the inheritors of some astonishingly beautiful language. It was crafted, rather than written, at a time when the sound of a phrase was considered as important as the information it communicated. It is important not to lose sight of that beauty. Listening to the words of the ritual, delivered by someone who understands what he is saying and is willing to let the words sing, is like listening-sometimes with the sound of a vast organ and sometimes with the sound of a harp-to a chorus of the great men who have gone before us. It is the sound of our legacy, echoing in the corridors of time.

The rituals of Masonry are not "how-to" manuals. They are not designed primarily to convey information, especially not in the telegraphic fashion popular today. They are intended to produce insight, and insight does not come by following a set of instructions. The Degrees of Masonry are like symphonies, each note dependent upon the ones before to create an intellectual and emotional context in which insight can occur. You can force yourself to learn, but you cannot force yourself to understand. Understanding comes when it comes, not when it is demanded. The Degrees of Masonry create a context in which understanding can occur. They are not a factory into which you can put raw materials and from which comes a predictable, designed-to-specifications product.

The following are passages from various Masonic rituals. They are not esoteric in the Oklahoma work, and I offer apologies to any Brother whose work regards them as esoteric. Read them aloud, slowly. Let the words trickle through your mind like the drops of a warm spring rain. Bathe in the glory of the language.

"You have this evening, my Brother, pressed beneath your feet, transmounted and transcended all the powers and passions of the senses and sciences of man."

"But is this the end of man and the aspiring hopes of all good Masons? No, blessed be God, we pause not at our first or second steps, but, true to our principles, look forward for further light. As the embers of mortality are feebly glimmering in the sockets of existence, the Holy Bible removes the dark shroud, draws aside the sable curtain of the tomb, and bids hope and joy to arouse us. It cheers our drooping spirits and points beyond the bounds of time to the breaking light of a resurrection morn, and bids us turn our eyes of hope and confidence to the opening scenes of eternity."

"It was our mother's evening hymn that lulled us to sleep in infancy; and the mellowing tides of old cathedral airs, vibrating through aisles and arches, have stilled the ruffled spirit and, sweeping away the discordant passions of men, have borne them along its resistless current, until their united voices have joined in sounding aloud the chorus of the heaven-born anthem, 'Peace on earth, good will toward men;' but it never sounds with such seraphic harmony as when employed in singing hymns of gratitude to the Creator of the universe."

And from the memorial service, consider the following: "Soft and safe to you, my Brother, be this earthly bed; bright and glorious be your rising from it. Fragrant be the acacia's bloom which here shall flourish. May the earliest buds of spring unfold their beauties o'er your resting place, and here may the fragrance of the summer's last rose linger longest. Though the cold blasts of autumn may lay them in the dust, and for a time destroy the loveliness of their existence, yet the destruction is not final, and in the springtime they shall bloom again. So, in the bright morning of the world's resurrection, may your mortal frame, now laid low in the dust by the chilling blasts of death, spring again into newness of life and unfold in immortal beauty in realms beyond the skies. Until then, dear Brother, fare thee well. Fare thee well."

There is more, much more, but the point is clear-those who approach the Degrees of Masonry as they would a cookbook or the instructions on an IRS form will be frustrated and disappointed. Those who approach the Degrees of Masonry as they would a work of art, with open mind and heart ready to be moved and made glad, will find the reward they seek.

And, who knows, when that moment of insight and understanding strikes, they may even be motivated to say, "Well, fan my brow and call me Moses!"

Jim Tresner is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of The Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Ill. Bro. Tresner is also a volunteer writer for The Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a Life Member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and Vested In Glory, The Regalia of the Scottish Rite. A member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's highest honor, during the Supreme Council's October 1997 Biennial Session.