thats mah motto
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Thursday, October 21, 2004
NOT IN MY LODGE
I have been going to a masonic lodge here in SF for the last six months...the biggest reason why is RAW. I read the Illuminatus and then the Historical Illuminatus and got it in my head that I wanted to live in the Sigismundo Celine reality tunnel for while. So a week ago, after meeting the 1 year residency requirement here in CA, I cam early to lodge to turn in my application. I had let it be known that I had a few blemishes on my criminal record in the six months I had been coming to meetings and making friends. Namely 2 pot possession charges and a disorderly conduct charge for talking too loud in a public library(REALLY...check my website). NO convictions though and no felonies so was told that shouldn't be too big an issue. After all this is San Francisco, right? Anyway, by arriving early I knew I could have a few beers and help with dinner with all the officers of the lodge who always get there early. The conversation turned to politics even though you aren't supposed to discuss that in lodge...and I had been discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories with you guys all week...so I let it be known that I though Bush/Cheney had not only allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen...they ordered them. The six other men in the room were all over 50 and retired and did not like my 23 year old hot-headed attitude...The Worshipful master of another lodge was there and he happens to be Armenian...he said we should kill every vicious Islamist in the middle east and I said that was the most unmasonic thing I'd ever heard from a man who knew personally of the genocide perpetrated aginst his own people. I said a lot of other things and didn't give an inch...like if Bill O'Reilly or Rush got hit in the head and became just as big a liberal ASSHOLE. I also managed to turn in my app and a check for $300 and did all the dishes before I went home. While washing the pots I commented to the lodge Secretary who had signed my app that I had thrown out six months of ass-kissing in one night.
So when I go to lodge this week I was aware there could be problems...After the pre-dinner prayer while I was waiting in line for food, the secretary pulled me aside and into the temple. We sat down and he told me that after last week he had reservations about signing my app and had decided to take his signature off with White-Out. He mentioned that the six other officers felt similarly after last week and my nutty conspiracy theory with no evidence and said it was wrong not to support our president when we are at war with another country(I was about to ask which country that was...or if TERROR was even a country, but held my tongue) I asked what specifically gave him pause about recommending me since I had told him about my brushes with the law 5 months before and it hadn't seemed too grave an issue. I felt he was letting political difference define our relationship contrary to my understanding of masonry. He said he felt I might bring discord and conflict into the lodge when it is supposed to be harmonious and peaceful and that I didn't know when to quit and that I went for the jugular. I collected myself and argued that the qualities he questioned were the ones I had relied on to survive since running away from my mom's at 11 to losing my dad to Lou Gehrigs's disease at 17 to graduating a year early from high school to go to the Univ of Hawaii and then UNC before graduation at 20 and paying for it all myself. I've gone from a homeless, penniless student to a television producer in Nuevo Laredo,Mexico...A car salesman in Orlando, FL and now work for Dow Jones in Priavte Equity in SF...I was proud of being ruthless and never giving up and I told him my dad, the only judge I cared about would be proud of me. He told me my dad would say I had a lot of growing up to do and that got me in my heart. By this time two initiations were supposed to begin and he told me to go back up to lodge and see if someone else would sign for me. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to be in a lodge where all the officers didn't want me there. He said he wouldn't sign for me, but also would not speak against me when it came down to blackball time. I told him I needed a week to think on it and would be back to get another signature next week. He said this was a tough decision and whited out his name handed me the app and my check and I grabbed my backpack and walked out feeling like I might cry.
I compartmentalized my experience with one(or six masons) and my conception of masonry though reading and study...I still want to do more than read, though; I want to participate and overstand ritual and experience masonry firsthand. I could find another lodge, or go back and get another brother to sign at this one...but is this FREEMASONRY? If George Washington and T Jefferson had hesitated to question the King when he was at war with his own people, where would we be today? What about the brotherhood of all men regardless of race, color, creed, politics or religion? I was excited about this lodge after visiting one other because it was younger and more diverse and it's in SF...The Worshipful Master about to be installed is big on Masonic History and the Esoteric and mystical aspects of the craft which is where my own interests lie. I am not ready to give up but I am torn between my vision of masonry conceived through reading and without any ritual experience and another master mason's vision of what makes a good mason(or not a good one in my case)
This RAW quote from THE EARTH WILL SHAKE is what I am looking for...I'm not Christian, just Utopian and really tired of people telling me it's a windmill quest
Quote:
..."Every Christian, of every sect, prays in church on Sunday, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven." Not one in a thousand stops to think what these words mean; not one in ten thousand dares to imagine that they could mean exactly what they say...Speculative Masonry is the coherent will of all those committed to the Great Work of achieving the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, so that the mind of the Great Architect of the Universe will be manifest, not only in the marvelous harmony of the stars at night but in the daily lives of men and women everywhere- on earth as it is in heaven."
please tell me what yoiu think and don't spare my feelings...Rejection is my worst fear so I have no reason to be sacred now.
PS: The secretary asked me the last time I smoked marijuana...I considered my options rapidly and decided honesty is always the best policy...I STAY HIGH ALL THE TIME was my reply
So when I go to lodge this week I was aware there could be problems...After the pre-dinner prayer while I was waiting in line for food, the secretary pulled me aside and into the temple. We sat down and he told me that after last week he had reservations about signing my app and had decided to take his signature off with White-Out. He mentioned that the six other officers felt similarly after last week and my nutty conspiracy theory with no evidence and said it was wrong not to support our president when we are at war with another country(I was about to ask which country that was...or if TERROR was even a country, but held my tongue) I asked what specifically gave him pause about recommending me since I had told him about my brushes with the law 5 months before and it hadn't seemed too grave an issue. I felt he was letting political difference define our relationship contrary to my understanding of masonry. He said he felt I might bring discord and conflict into the lodge when it is supposed to be harmonious and peaceful and that I didn't know when to quit and that I went for the jugular. I collected myself and argued that the qualities he questioned were the ones I had relied on to survive since running away from my mom's at 11 to losing my dad to Lou Gehrigs's disease at 17 to graduating a year early from high school to go to the Univ of Hawaii and then UNC before graduation at 20 and paying for it all myself. I've gone from a homeless, penniless student to a television producer in Nuevo Laredo,Mexico...A car salesman in Orlando, FL and now work for Dow Jones in Priavte Equity in SF...I was proud of being ruthless and never giving up and I told him my dad, the only judge I cared about would be proud of me. He told me my dad would say I had a lot of growing up to do and that got me in my heart. By this time two initiations were supposed to begin and he told me to go back up to lodge and see if someone else would sign for me. I said I wasn't sure I wanted to be in a lodge where all the officers didn't want me there. He said he wouldn't sign for me, but also would not speak against me when it came down to blackball time. I told him I needed a week to think on it and would be back to get another signature next week. He said this was a tough decision and whited out his name handed me the app and my check and I grabbed my backpack and walked out feeling like I might cry.
I compartmentalized my experience with one(or six masons) and my conception of masonry though reading and study...I still want to do more than read, though; I want to participate and overstand ritual and experience masonry firsthand. I could find another lodge, or go back and get another brother to sign at this one...but is this FREEMASONRY? If George Washington and T Jefferson had hesitated to question the King when he was at war with his own people, where would we be today? What about the brotherhood of all men regardless of race, color, creed, politics or religion? I was excited about this lodge after visiting one other because it was younger and more diverse and it's in SF...The Worshipful Master about to be installed is big on Masonic History and the Esoteric and mystical aspects of the craft which is where my own interests lie. I am not ready to give up but I am torn between my vision of masonry conceived through reading and without any ritual experience and another master mason's vision of what makes a good mason(or not a good one in my case)
This RAW quote from THE EARTH WILL SHAKE is what I am looking for...I'm not Christian, just Utopian and really tired of people telling me it's a windmill quest
Quote:
..."Every Christian, of every sect, prays in church on Sunday, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven." Not one in a thousand stops to think what these words mean; not one in ten thousand dares to imagine that they could mean exactly what they say...Speculative Masonry is the coherent will of all those committed to the Great Work of achieving the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, so that the mind of the Great Architect of the Universe will be manifest, not only in the marvelous harmony of the stars at night but in the daily lives of men and women everywhere- on earth as it is in heaven."
please tell me what yoiu think and don't spare my feelings...Rejection is my worst fear so I have no reason to be sacred now.
PS: The secretary asked me the last time I smoked marijuana...I considered my options rapidly and decided honesty is always the best policy...I STAY HIGH ALL THE TIME was my reply
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