The Most Important Thing: SHAKESPEARE IN RITUAL by Bro Chad Koelling, D.D.G.M., 20th District

To be certain, the title of this musing was carefully chosen to hopefully attract the reader’s attention to this article. Hopefully, if one has continued reading it this far, it has worked and one will keep reading to the end. After all, it is the most important thing. What am I talking about? Ritual of course. It is what we do to raise Master Mason, Enter Apprentices and Pass Fellows after all. That does not exactly do much to satisfy the curiosity though, so let us get to the point.

If someone were to ask, “What is the most important thing in the entire ritual,” what kind of answers would one expect to hear? I can think of many that have probably popped into the minds of those Brothers who may have made it this far. Take a second and repeat the question, “What is the most important thing in the entire ritual?” Truly ponder the answer. Many of my lodge Brothers have already heard me speak on this point, but hopefully, they too will continue reading. Is it the obligation? Certainly that is the most important thing. After all, the obligation is what we claim makes us who we are, but is it the most important thing? Is the explanation of certain signs or grips? Those are important because without them we may not travel very far, but is it the most important thing?

Perhaps it is one of the many myriad lectures given throughout the beautifully illustrated degree work we pass from candidate to candidate. After all, we are moral builders. The lectures are where we have placed our moral teachings. Without those, we could no longer claim to be moral and beneficient builders spreading light and knowledge, but again I ask is it the most important thing?

All of the above is certainly important, and to many of the faithful craftsmen these, or other things they may come with, are certainly the most important thing to them. None of the answers are wrong. Keep in mind that this is an opinion article and I would be free to sit with anyone and

philosophize about many of the wonderful topics that are available to peruse in our libraries. I personally believe the one most important thing is not to be found any of our books, ciphers, or monitors but still presents itself as the most important thing we (fail) to do, and as a former District Grand Lecturer and current District Deputy Grand Master, I have traveled to many degrees and found this one thing to be lacking in just about all places. Before I get into

Shakespeare, I would like to point out a few things about Louisiana’s Handbook of Masonic Law. In the Digest of Edicts under “Dues cards and Life Membership Cards,” we find the entry for the minimum costs to be paid for the three degrees. At the time of this writing, the minimum that can be charged is “$90... and in addition thereto the funds for Masonic Charities and the Grand Lodge Special Purposes Fund assessments where applicable (Grand Lodge of Louisiana F & A M, 2018).”

In the Model Form of By-Laws, we find that “each candidate before he shall receive the Entered Apprentice degree shall make a donation of five dollars for Masonic Charities...and five dollars donation to the George Washington National Memorial at Alexandria, Virginia.” At this point, we’ve asked the candidate for $100. We still have to conduct a background check, which costs an additional fee, and we demand the candidate subject himself to an intrusion of his home by the investigation committee. No sweat. We have all gone through it, and here we are.

Now for the most important thing. Was Shakespeare a Master Mason? I do not know nor do I know that is the most important thing in this article. If one believes that’s where I am going he has not been paying attention. So that I may get to the point, I would like to turn to perhaps the most famous of his works in Scene 2 of Act 2 that contains the most famous line, “Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo (Shakespeare, n.d.)?” I shall not start there, however. Our star shall remain the same though. A few lines later, she says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.”

That is very much true. Calling something by some other name does not change that thing. Why just today I was talking with Brother Young who said, “If I call my toes fingers how many fingers would I have?” The answer? Ten. He would still only have 10 fingers regardless of what name we project onto his toes because the name does not change the substance.

Perhaps, you have guessed by now that I am referring to a name. More particularly what I am referring to is the name of the candidate. I travel to far too many degrees where the

degree team does not know the candidate’s name. Many times slips of paper are passed out, but no one knows how to pronounce it, or worse they make it up as they go. Let me reiterate this is just my own opinion, based on my own observations. However, how can we keep people around if after at a minimum of 28 days, one home invasion, one privacy intrusion, and at least $100 of the candidate’s income that he could have spent on anything else in the world if we won’t even bother to learn their name? We seem to have lost the personal experience that Masonry once had, and we are telling the candidate, “Your name is not important to us.”

Truth is he does not know many of our names either, but we are trying to attract him and build him up, not the other way around. Most lodges have practice nights. Someone at the lodge has made contact with him at some point. There has to be at least one person that has asked, “How do you pronounce your name?” If there isn’t, why not? A minimum of five Master Masons has been in contact with the candidate, and no one has bothered to learn it. But, we “investigated” him, we insured the money was available, and did all of the other things we have to do, but without learning his name, the first impression presented to him was that we do not care who you are.

You may now think this is silly, or that I am overreacting, but seriously consider it for one moment. If you’ve been through any of our initiations or degrees, how much did you remember when you left that night? Probably not a lot. Your mentor called you, you followed his lead and you learned the catechism. If you were like me you might not have even been sure what was being taught in the catechism was in the degree, but you knew you had to learn it. I can tell you what did stick with me. No one knew my name. We say it far too many times in the conferring of the degrees to not get it right.

Outside of lodge in our country, we build walls, monuments, and testimonies to the men and women who have died fighting for this country. Many of them contain names, and nothing more, so they are not forgotten. If a telemarketer calls our phones and mispronounces our names what is our response? Mine usually is to hang up because I know if

they don’t know my name they don’t know me. Sometimes if it’s an important call I correct them because my name is important to me. Grand Sessions everywhere spend hours each year just introducing people from other Grand Jurisdictions and Appendant Organizations; by name.

My dog of eleven years passed recently, and a friend passed on his sympathies, even calling my dog by his name. That was a small measure but it made me feel well to know that my friend knew his name. He cared enough about my dog to learn that. We all know names are important. Not that candidate’s name though? We are told that “Masonry is dying”, that “we need more bodies”, but Masonry was never meant to be something done in weeks or days. Masonry of old was a very personal time of getting to know each other from mouth to ear. It was a time for us to get to know one another. Mentors would start even before the first degree. Somewhere along the way, we have lost that.

To emphasize my point I would like to devote this paragraph to Dale Carnegie. He said, “Using a person’s name is crucial, especially when meeting those we don’t see very often. Respect and acceptance stem from simple acts such as remembering a person’s name and using it whenever appropriate. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language(Carnegie, 1936).” In the same respect, a name said consistently incorrectly over the course of a couple of hours, in a room where all you can do is hear what is going on, must have quite the opposite effect. If we fail to learn to say his name we are sending a clear message to him. Learn his name...it is only three more words.

How do I close this work? I am sure that there are some who will read this who disagree or think this was all unimportant; whatever their names are. We as Masons cannot recruit, but how can we retain if we will not even take the time to know who is in our midst? Learning the work, lectures, and all that goes with it is certainly important. The candidate will not memorize anything from the night of his degree, but if a lodge cannot learn his name he will remember how it was mispronounced. How should we then expect him to ever return?

Now that this is complete I have one final evidence. I never mentioned the name of a play, nor the protagonist of whom I quoted in this paper. However, the reader surely knows not only who was speaking, but also the name of the work. Let us labor to bring back the personal experiences Freemasonry once had. Our candidates deserve if and it is one step closer on the path to return the fraternity to its former glory where fellowship abounded, brother love flourished, and members knew the names, not only of the members, but of their families and pets.

Bibliography: Carnegie, D. (1936). How to Win Friends and Influence People. New York: Simon and Schuster. Grand Lodge of Louisiana F & A M. (2018). Digest of Edicts/Handbook of Masonic Law (p. 80). Alexandria, LA. Shakespeare, W. Romeo & Juliet, My Shakespeare: myshakespeare.com/romeo-and-juliet/act-2-scene-2