This website has nothing to do with the above image but is offered here as a play on words for the web address.
The image was found at https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/03/02/folk-wisdom/
For those looking for A Concord of Sweet Sounds it is found below. It was performed by Alan Maggs at the Brighton Hall in 2018 before demolition. The music copyrights are preserved as outlined in the printed booklet by GL Holdings ACN 007143151. This recording was engineered and produced by The Mansion of Tyabb, Australia.
concord of sweet sounds 01 to 13
concord of sweet sounds 14 to 22
concord of sweet sounds 23 to 34
concord of sweet sounds 35 to 42
concord of sweet sounds 43 to 54
concord of sweet sounds 55 to 62
concord of sweet sounds 63 to 70
The deacons, the peacemakers and other roles within the lodge.
A short discussion starter by Bro Damon Craig, MM, JP, Esq.
I hope this note finds you well. I retired from full time work last year and luckily a Worshipful Brother invited me to help restore order to the chaos of the books stored by his lodge. It not only reignited my love of the craft but got me thinking through the fabric of the rich fraternal tapestry. This is the first in a hopefully long series of discussion starters. It will hopefully get you thinking and maybe not agreeing; I look forward to polite intellectual discussion around this and many topics.
PART ONE – THE ROLE OF THE DEACONS
At my initiation I was taught many things. The first and most lasting lesson was to hold on to the hand of the brother Deacon and not let go. It was going to have to steadily persevere along the wild ride through the ceremony but I had a firm yet humble confidence that the Deacon was my best hope of getting through it in one piece. This short work will explore why that was such a safe assumption to make.
Another book I found in the cache entitled “Freemasonry; A journey through Ritual and Symbol by W.K. MacNulty (1991)” will no doubt be mentioned in other works had this simply fantastic diagram of the psyche of the Masonic mind as referenced to the layout of the lodge and officer bearers. I haven’t got the space here to detail it, but I will another time the short version is that is discusses that the deacons actually represent our mood, feelings and a level of awakening. Now that is a very fine role, but I note here that the badge of the deacon is not a clear link to our mind, but is a dove with an olive branch and a reference is made in the installation that the deacon could perform some mediation if needed; he is after all the only person inside the lodge carrying a large stick! I don’t here mean to seriously imply it is a weapon, but carrying a rod or staff is always seen as a multicultural emblem of order. I know that the church deacons retain this emblem with universities, councils, parliaments and even J.R.R. Tolkien resting on it. Again, this is a very constabulary role but still not the point of my note.
Actually, let me pick up the stick concept and perambulate with it for a moment. It would be remiss of me not to consult the World Wide Web for some casual research and I found that there was not clear understanding of the badge of the Deacons. In fact website “www.masonicDictionary.com” gave me a much better badge to link to the role of the Deacon being the Messenger of the Gods known as Mercury or Hermes. This is a wonderful literal link and usually they are depicted with a staff made from an Olive tree. The staff was usually given swept ribbons that later became serpents and the wings to imply some speed with messages. Early email server depicted wings for emails in transit as a lovely nod to this character. “Wikipedia” does give a lot of text on this staff and although perhaps erroneously used by the medical fraternity, the Caduseus is more a symbol of crossing over perhaps between living and dead rather than it is related to medicine.
The staff of another character has a single serpent around the rod and is undisputedly connected to the healing professions but by today’s lens looks more like an unregulated gang or cult graphic than one of a Hippocratic medical professional. Slowly, the ancient depiction of Mercury fell out of favour with main stream religion “Masonic Degrees Handbook by J.S.M Ward” and was replaced by a Dove with the smaller olive branch. There is not clear agreement as to this being a link to the Noah’s Arc story or a convenient use of graphics to retain the wings and olive branch. Sadly, the role of messenger is now lost as doves were rarely associated with this role compared to the larger pigeons that were (and remain) quite good at this role. So in modern imagery, the deacon is very much the peacemaker over the messaging role once held.
With the effective erasure of the Caduseus and replacement by a small branch of the olive tree, we no longer has that staff inside the Lodge. Generally in European Lodges, there is a Director of Ceremonies. They are the chief of ritual work and given the constant changes to the team, they help train for and marshal the workings of the Lodge. They generally carry a short Staff, said to be a clear link to the Caduseus of Mercury with the Deacons holding much longer, thinner wands that enable for degree work to be supported. Some other constitutions do not have this extra position and the deacons fulfill this marshaling role and the Deacons remain in possession of the olive branch.
In actuality, the Deacons are primarily in a role as assistants to the Worshipful Master and Senior Warden who are ultimately in charge of the open Lodge. The Junior Warden inner and outer guards being responsible for the outer works of the Lodge and admission of members and guests. The open Lodge is a very serious place, work is to be done, progress in the craft made and topics debated to resolution. This cannot be a simple process. Messages are carried around the lodge, candidates and awardees are escorted and most significantly ballots are to be taken. If we again lean on the Lodge as a picture of the mind, these are the internal thought struggles that we each go through; pros and cons are shuffled around our brain until a result is achieved and those messages need to be carried. The job is done by the deacons and they maintain good conduct both in the real lodge and in the psyche the lodge being our orders thoughts. They bring clarity and help us to maintain a peaceful status once the decision is made. Sure some decisions have a residual awkwardness and like in our mind, the deacons can carry those messages around to bring containment. If that fails, they extend the olive branch as a sign of intended peace. OK I might have lost a few, but what if I stated for discussion purposes that the Deacon was just an usher? If we take away the rod, the dove and the olive branch. That is a very fine situation but who then regulated the flow of theses votes and messages. Well, we have two options being the Tyler or the Master. This again leans of the psyche of the lodge concept so if there is a problem coming to the lodge workings that might be upsetting we either let the outset guard handle it and prevent the topic from entering the real or psychological lodge. Or we let it come right on in for the Worshipful Master to decide on without any discussion among the other parts of the lodge or psyche. It is vastly obvious that either of these can’t be realistic in a functioning lodge and certainly in the human psyche an avoidance or totalitarian model is not very useful. So somewhere in the middle is best. So now hopefully you are starting to see that the messages need to be regulated and like the perfectly structured ramble this is, I may have just proved my point.
So, whilst others are charged with the well ruling of the lodge and to superintend the works. We need the deacons to regulate, usher and transport people and information around the Lodge. We say in the installation that should a problem arise the deacons will step in, but hopefully is all the ballots and work is done well, there should be no dissension. Maybe in a modern sense the deacons could have traffic lights, mail boxes or an Apple atop the wands to represent our modern world. These would certainly not be as pretty as the doves are; I have a small collection in the museum of the deacons collar jewels and they are most certainly some of the prettiest jewels made. Most other ranks other than stewards are rather operative and not as artistic but hey isn’t that the true nature of the craft being a study on the liberal arts and science. or maybe a strong combination of some wise and beautiful columns…
with that hint of my next essay I sign off for now…
PART TWO – ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE
I hope this note finds you well. I continue to help restore order to the chaos of the books stored by a friend’s lodge. It not only reignited my love of the craft but got me thinking through the fabric of the rich fraternal tapestry. This is the next part in a series of discussion starters. It will hopefully get you thinking and maybe not agreeing; I look forward to polite intellectual discussion around this and many topics.
Any casual glance out the outside of most traditional Freemasons Buildings, Halls and Temples will reveal a porch way or entrance with two large pillars. I little further digging will often give them name and when conjoined they represent strength for it is said that is how one would build a house to stand firm forever.
These two pillars feature a little more in the Masonic adventure but are most commonly given a rather operative and functional treatment by most orators. Once you venture inside the building, there is three smaller pillars that usually have only an aesthetic use without any functional load to bear. They feature in many parts of our story be it in degree ceremony, installation or the common workings of the find Lodge. It is rare for any visitor to not notice they are of distinct difference. The first is of the Corinthian Order representational of Beauty and is placed near the Junior Warden. The second is of the Ionic Order representational of Strength and is placed near the senior Warden. The final is placed near the Worshipful Master and both in style and meaning is a conjoined hybrid off the previous two stations.
Now I mentioned in my last notation that there is a most wonderful book called “Freemasonry; A journey through Ritual and Symbol by W.K. MacNulty (1991)” and talks of the psyche of the mind in reference to the Officers of the Lodge. It is a most profound read and very worthy concept of discussion. I’ll mention it in another essay but for now please check the reference or place in me your temporary trust that that concept is solid.
So we talked about the messages running around the mind and how they are moved in an operative sense by the Deacons. So this talk is going to postulate further on the columns. We accept that Freemasonry is a very old institution. Some books put it around 2000 years old “Hiram Key by Knight and Lomas” and some a little earlier such as is reference in our 21st Century Ritual. For my discussion of columns I really only need to go back a few hundred years to around the times of the noble orders of architecture. There is very little disagreement on the existence of artistic and trades guilds. They would have had some system of ranking by skill and formed up very similar to a freemason’s lodge or early trade union or operative trade’s persons. These unions would have existed in many trades and academic areas. They would have also existed in the artistic endeavors such as theatre and circus troupes. I could wander down a fecund garden path and discuss the existence of a lodge like structure in the medical field and sciences but that will have to wait.
It is very simple for our ritual to hang on these three pillars. the reason for the inclusion makes sense, the pillars look nice and they draw a lovely connection to the operative masons who we have concrete proof of. What though would our lodge look like and how would the ritual sit if we gave the columns a significant step to the right and time warp our understanding. Perhaps we could modernise the columns to say the last 70 or 80 years (an arbitrary point I have chosen to be the longest masonic career I have seen in my time in the craft). This gives us a choice of some very noticeable periods of art like surrealism, cubism, pop art, Art Deco and Retro. I once was posted to a military base that was full of wonderful Art Deco and Retro building fronts. As columns these have stunning long rectangles and sharp edges, moving to deliberate curves often still found in the automotive trade. But we grew tired of these lines and again needed to modernise our schools we had wonderful but short periods of surrealism that mixed and matched imagery and meaning, played with textures that molded and melted things that were once fixed. These could give us columns that could only hold imaginary loads or perhaps hold multiple sources of light. Cubism took this and made some strong lines and has seen a massive resurgence in the Minecraft alternate reality making it easy to formulate sources of illumination even on the move. Most of us will be familiar with Andy Warhol and his pioneering of the pop art field; we will be able to recollect his works but I think struggle to view a stack of Campbell’s soup tins as legitimate source of light for Masons.
So I still have a new lodge without pillars and must choose three. I would be able to easily argue that given his charge at the installation, the Pop art column would sit perfectly well beside the Junior Warden when he superintends the refreshments. In my modern lodge floor I choose to have the surrealist column for the Senior Warden. There may have some embedded controversy with this but it clearly states that you can tackle a wide variety of topics with some rules of the order. I have also loosely called these columns form and function and allocated them as such. I could easily be convinced the swap the warden new columns over, but this is in the margins, the main point is to offer new artistic orders that can be understood and when conjoined support a third school of design. Then to maintain good order of the lodges overall work I choose the cubist column for the Master as it is the blend of the previous two columns. There, fixed; now I just need to find a way to actually get these columns made.
I thank you again for your support of my notes. I look forward to discussions around the craft and will slowly start to lay lines and design for my new work. Maybe like the good Brother Tyler I’ll scatter swath on the floor and etch my idea and ensure brothers share food and wine after the labour and assure nothing else remains of the design…
PART THREE – THE INNER GUARD AND TYLER.
I hope this note finds you well. I continue to help restore order to the chaos of the books stored by a friend’s lodge. This is the next part in a series of discussion starters. It will hopefully get you thinking and maybe not agreeing; I look forward to polite intellectual discussion around this and many topics.
I really need to read more and more books, but again come back to a small but significant section of the book “Freemasonry; A journey through Ritual and Symbol by W.K. MacNulty (1991)” It does a lovely treatment of the several liberal arts and sciences and links them clearly to the structured roles within the Lodge. The Outer Guard or Tyler is associated with Grammar and has a strict set of rules for communication with the outside or physical world. He is the guard that protects our inner being and Psyche from being overwhelmed by Stimuli. In the Lodge setting he is the primary regulator for anyone to enter the Lodge and assembles visitors to arrive in an orderly fashion to best support appropriate reception.
There is often a blanket thrown over the two roles of Outer Guard and Tyler but they are very different in reality. Even today, when we have a Tyler employed by the Lodge they assist in the setup of the room and also to disassemble afterwards. Perhaps the reason they Tyler Toast was so late in the evening was that they were still busy locking away and hiding the workings of the night. Once the Lodge begins it’s work this same Brother takes on the role of the Outer Guard to work in conjunction with the Inner Guard. It is usual that this member is a Past Master as given the role of the Tyler in setting up the Lodge, it is essential that they knew all the degree work in order to correctly Tyle (or Tile) the Lodge
The Inner Guard is associated with Logic. Passing simple clear messages to and from the Outer Guard and reporting as needed to the Officers Inside the Lodge. Still though being a guard, he represents our inner Ego and works with the Grammatical Guard to prevent the approach of every unworthy thought.
Freemasonry being a progressive study a brother would normally progress through each of the stations of the Lodge. When I was on the team, I noticed that I always reported to someone who held a position 3 years ahead of me. That being the Inner Guard report to the Junior Deacon, the Junior Deacon reporting to the Senior Warden and the Senior Deacon linked to the Worshipful Master. I could extend this paired relationship the Immediate Past Master was supervising the Outer Guard or perhaps also performing the role of the Master of Ceremonies. I put this down to when you work in a purely hierarchical organisation, you can experience communication blocks if al messages must go to the persons adjacent you in the team given the agenda they have. Lodges get around this problem given that most messages are communicated across an open room to a brother displaced int he chain of command. whilst unusual, other stations could object to the contents of the messages, given our theme of the lodge and the psyche; This is our innate ability for higher levels of our consciousness to override lower level decisions such as ‘should i eat more cake?’
So I am nearly at the end of the third section in this open lecture series designed to stimulate discussion and just have one last concept to treat. That being who sets out the lodge. Our 21st Century Ritual states that the tracing board is for the Master to lay lines and draw designs on. We accept that we now have three pre painted tracing boards to use, both as part of the work and as part of our progress. For many years though and in some of our modern degree work, this design needs to be transferred to the pavement. Perhaps this does not seem an issue in well rehearsed teams in known venues. But our ancient Brethren would have met in taverns and barns and would have to have needed to have the designer translated to the floor, it is obvious that this would have been the role of the paid Tyler. He also would have assembled the brethren at the end of the night to Marshall them home after seeing that no symbols were left behind. It was probably the last toast of the night to also assure none of the festive board had gone to waste.
Thanks and I hope all is well for you.
Fraternally and Bestest.
D.
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