‘A big anniversary and a St. John’s Day procession’

     

Williamsburg Lodge 6

Williamsburg Lodge 6 in Virginia has a great day planned to mark both St. John’s Day and the lodge’s semiquincentennial birthday. Next month, the brethren, bolstered by the presence of Grand Master Jack Lewis, will open a public meeting of the lodge before heading outdoors. From the publicity:

Williamsburg Lodge 6 AF&AM

233 East Francis Street

Williamsburg, Virginia

Saturday, June 22

Join us in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Williamsburg Lodge and St. John’s Day.

Most Worshipful Jack K. Lewis, Grand Master of Masons in Virginia, will be in attendance.

9 a.m. – coffee and fellowship

9:30 – open lodge (all are welcome) with presentation by RW Don Moro, Grand Organist

10:30 – procession to Bruton Parish Church led by fifes and drums

11 – church program, prayer, and presentation of an eighteenth century Masonic sermon

11:20 – recession to the lodge for lunch and open house

Formal dress for lodge officers with full Masonic regalia. Coat and tie for brethren.

I would love to get down there for one of these events. Can’t make this one, as I’ll be speaking at a Masonic luncheon in New Jersey. June 22 is St. Alban’s Day, which coincidentally will be my topic. Visiting Williamsburg 6 is on my list though!

      

‘Celebrate St. John Baptist Day!’

     

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial has something very special planned for us. From the publicity:

Wednesday, June 24 will mark the first Saint John’s Day since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Although we cannot gather in our lodges as preferred, we can enjoy an evening of high-toned fellowship and Masonic education. Brethren, prepare the libations of your choice for the ancient observance of Craft Freemasonry: the Feast Day of Saint John the Baptist!

To apply to be part of this event, take this survey, and then pay the $5 admission via PayPal when it comes in your email.

     

‘Increase and Decrease’

     
I wasn’t going to write anything about Saint John the Baptist Day, but inspiration—if that’s the right word—sometimes comes unexpectedly, and the Mad Men episode broadcast tonight, the finale of season six that ended just minutes ago, got me thinking.

It’s not the plot or the characters, but only the wardrobe that got me started. The suit and tie Don Draper wears while exiting (for the last time) Sterling Cooper & Partners reminded me of the promotional art that appeared on the web in the weeks before the start of the season three months ago. To wit:

Courtesy AMC

As advertising goes, this is an enigmatic message that, of course, suits the complexity of the program’s dramatics. Duality. Coming and going. Past versus future. Draper, briefcase in hand, walking away but to work; and Don walking toward the viewer, holding a woman’s hand. The two Dons are aware of each other, metaphysically interdependent even, but they cannot interact as though they occupy extremes in a cyclical motion.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John 3:30

In a darkly humorous scene in this episode that appears to draw from John 3, a minister accosts Don, absent from the office and drinking in a bar again, to deliver some helpful ministry, promising that Jesus can give not only eternal life, but relief from pain in this earthly existence. “I’m doing fine,” says Draper in dismissive retort. “Nixon is president. Everything is back where Jesus wants it.” The minister goads Don, provoking one of his kid-in-the-whorehouse flashbacks; he slugs the minster, and winds up in the Tombs to sleep it off. In the morning, he goes home to Megan and tells her he needs to get out of New York. He wants to go from East to West. To Los Angeles.

Courtesy Trevor Stewart

The Gospel of Saint John Chapter 3 is laden with dualities that echo the As Above, So Below foundation of the Western Mysteries. The verse quoted here can be interpreted as comment on the summer solstice, how the potency of one season surrenders to another. The two solstices are connected by their significances and their positions on the calendar. Significance: there are two Christian feast days that commemorate nativities – John the Baptist’s on June 24 and Jesus of Nazareth’s on December 25. (All other feasts mark deaths, if not martyrdoms.) Calendar dates: both of these feast days approximate the solstices. The summer solstice brings the peak of daylight embodied by the longest day; the winter solstice conversely is the shortest day that begins the lengthening of daylight hours for six months. Each solstice knowingly chases the other in perpetual increase-decrease. They cannot catch each other any more than the two parallel lines flanking the Point Within a Circle can connect.

The closing scene of this Mad Men episode shows Don, newly deposed from his agency and simultaneously acknowledging his alcoholism and looking for a new way forward, as he tries to connect for the first time with his three children, the oldest of whom, Sally, recently had complained about not knowing anything about him. Clearly, one of Don’s dual lives must increase, and the other must decrease, and not cyclically either, if he ever is to achieve harmony and peace in his earthly existence. He brings his daughter and sons to the closest thing he had to a childhood home, that whorehouse, which now in 1968 is a prominent part of the decay of what son Bobby calls “a bad neighborhood.” Don shoos them out of the Cadillac and onto the sidewalk, and explains this was where he grew up. Cue the music: Both Sides Now by Judy Collins.

Friends, the days will get shorter now. The days will be hotter for a while, but the daylight hours will diminish until the next solstice. Inevitable transition. Cyclical reversal. It is a great time to examine our own dualities, if necessary, to affect some adjustment. I know I need that. Or maybe just to resolve to gain the most light from the shortening daylight hour.

Have a wonderful summer. The Magpie Mason will be updated as news demands, but the time of (temperate) Refreshment is here.

     

‘Second Circle’s St. John’s Day’

    
The New Jersey Second Circle of The Masonic Society will host its Saint John’s Day Feast on Friday, June 24 in North Brunswick, New Jersey.

An evening of good company, good conversation, and good food, with the added attraction of a very special guest speaker, awaits you.

In honor of St. John’s Day, we will welcome to our podium the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, who will tell us about a fascinating gnostic religion that dates back to antiquity, yet still survives today.

Dr. Charles Haberl’s topic is the Mandaean faith, a tiny Abrahamic religion that upholds John the Baptist as its ultimate teacher. This religion exists in and around Iraq, but is almost on the verge of extinction. What he has to say about the Baptist in particular should intrigue every Freemason, and the plight they suffer today makes Dr. Haberl’s presentation even more compelling.

Dr. Haberl also is an Assistant Professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers. He has served as an Undergraduate Fulbright Faculty Advisor and as a member of the Advisory Committee for Study Abroad Programs in the Middle East at Rutgers, as well as a juror and panelist for the United States Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes. With James McGrath of Butler University, he received an NEH grant to translate the Mandaean Book of John in 2010. We are very fortunate to have him.

The Masonic Society’s St. John’s Day Feast

Friday, June 24 at 7 p.m.

Sir John’s Restaurant

230 Washington Place, North Brunswick

$50 per person. Reservations are required and can be made ONLY by sending your payment, via PayPal, to: masonicrsvp@gmail.com no later than Monday, June 20.

Great food: Unlimited hot hors d'oeuvres (served butler style), your choice of entree is Baked Stuffed Chicken or Roast Top Sirloin of Beef or Broiled Stuffed Filet of Flounder. Plus side dishes, salad, desserts with coffee etc., and unlimited soft drinks. (Cash bar only.)

NAME YOUR ENTREE when you transmit your payment.

It is NOT necessary to be a member of The Masonic Society to attend this special event. ALL Masons, their ladies, and friends are welcome to this fraternal and spiritual celebration of one of the Patrons of the Craft. Remember it was on June 24, 1717 when the Grand Lodge of England was formed, ushering in the age of modern Freemasonry as we know it.

Seating is limited, so no walk-ins can be accommodated. No reservations can be honored without advance payment via PayPal.
   

Haitian Masonry and Agape

   

W. Bro. David Lindez and three Masons from Haiti display the flag of Haiti.

Only at Alpha Lodge can the Master bring the brethren to Haiti without having to move the charter!

The journey through time and space took place Wednesday night, as the lodge catered to the five senses in recreating the Haitian Masonic experience, topped with the screening of a video documenting the St. John’s Day festivities held last June in Jacmel, Haiti.

We departed New Jersey upon entering the lodge room. The air was thick with incense of various aromas. The only illumination was the G and the collective glow of scores of candles: beeswax tapers about the altar; others in the South, West and East, and elsewhere about the lodge.

Do not adjust your monitor. This image captures the candle-lit, incense-laden atmosphere inside historic Alpha Lodge during its sojourn to Haiti.

W. Bro. David Lindez gave the brethren a history of Freemasonry in Haiti, a very colorful description that goes a long way toward explaining the highly esoteric nature of the fraternity there. It’s the story of Pasqually, Willermoz, Rectified Scottish Rite, Strict Observance, and Elu Cohens.

Then the brethren adjourned downstairs for the feast, a true Masonic Agape with exotic dishes (goat!) and other ethnic comestibles on the menu, all homemade right in the lodge’s kitchen by an experienced chef.

The Grand Orient d’Haiti dates to 1824. Its 6,000 brethren are at labor in 51 lodges found among numerous cities and towns. The lodge shown in the video is Parfaite Sincerite No. 4 in Jacmel.

This documentary shows the lodge’s annual public procession in celebration of St. John the Baptist Day 2008. Now it’s one thing to listen to Bro. Trevor Stewart discuss the Masonic processions of 18th century Britain, but it is quite something else to view the esoterica, solemnity, hierarchy and regalia of the Haitian brethren as they undertake their culturally significant ritual, enduring what looked like crippling heat, in a public square.

It is not easy to describe all that was captured by the camera, but it must be explained that the Freemasonry of this island nation is commingled with church, resulting in Masonic and ecclesiastic organizations running parallel, if not actually integrated. The hierarchy of those in the procession was evident. Those attired in regalia marked with Templar crosses comprise the inner ring of a huge throng of circumambulating Masons encircling the altar. A pyre actually, built of specially chosen woods with sacramental elements liberally splashed upon it and prayers inscribed on paper ritually placed within it. The next ring of celebrants is attired in what Scottish Rite Masons would recognize as Rose Croix regalia. Look closely! There’s Bro. David from All Seeing Eye Lodge in New York! Still others display the Triple Tau. The Master Masons, easily identified by their aprons, form the outermost ring of Masons; those outside of that are family and friends of the brethren. All carry candles to illumine the massive procession, except those bearing the banners of their respective Orders, plus one brother with a Flaming Sword. All are barefoot, for they know the ground where they walk is sacred.

The small group of men at the very center, those applying the sea salt, holy water and other elements to the ritual pyre, are not adorned with special symbols. Simple white. Everyone knows who they are.

And this procession is not mere marching. On the stone pavement about the altar is drawn a circular map of spiritual progression revealing the first 24 names of the Shemhamphorasch. (One must be very careful here. This is not for the casual, kidding himself Kabbalist. These divine signs often are exploited by hard-hearted manipulators of hedonists and other weaklings.) The brethren here affect ritual steps, just as one would upon entering or leaving the lodge, signifying their conformity with one another and with deity.

It is a dizzying demonstration. The heat of the pyre warms your face, and the humidity in the air hugs the body. The juxtaposition of familiar symbols with foreign rites renders the whole scene dreamlike and cinematic, and yet nothing to these Masons is more real and immediate than this ritual. The power of the union achieved by the brethren is palpable.

The film ends. The lights come up. We are returned from Haiti.