My Tribe is Mighty

Tonight I drove to Newton for the Hope Lodge Fund Raiser. They brought the Oklahoma Indian Degree Team up to put on a Third Degree. I have not seen that many Masons gathered together to witness a degree since I saw the Virginia Craftsmen about 30 years ago. This was much better. (Addendum - I am told there were about 170 in attendance)


These gentlemen drove up here and put the degree on in costume and it was a wonderful evening. I took about 87 pictures and they may be viewed at the on-line album by clicking here. A sampling of the pictures are in this post but I am not going to write much about the evening itself except to say that it was excellent ritual and I was very impressed.


The young man who was raised had the middle name Cole. Which just happens to be my middle name. The member of the team who say at my table at dinner was named Jay Craig (He is a member of the Comanche tribe.) My name is Jay and one of the Brothers and friends who rode down with me is Craig. (that is him on the right) all of which has nothing to do with anything but which I found interesting


That is him with Eric in this picture.

But what I wanted to write about was Tribes. I had been thinking about Tribes ever since I received a comment on an earlier post that someone had enjoyed reading about my "tribe" - I began to think about it and realized that I do belong to a tribe. Several of them in fact.

Wikipedia says:

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states, though some modern theorists hold that contemporary tribes can only be understood in terms of their relationship to states.
The term is often loosely used to refer to any non-Western or indigenous society. Many anthropologists use the term to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups (see clan and lineage)

Tribes use tokens to show that they "belong " to the tribe. This gentleman is selling some of them to raise money for the Team.

But I then thought of Joseph Fort Newton's Book "The Men's House in which he writes:

In primitive society there were four institutions, equally Divine, equally sacred, all tokens of the solidarity of aspiration and obligation, of need and destiny, which binds humanity together. (Home, Temple of Prayer, the State) But there was another institution, quite as old as the other three, equally sacred and hardly less important, to which we are more indebted than we realize. It was called the Men’s House, a secret lodge in which every young man, when he came to maturity, was initiated into the law legend and tradition of his people. ..it was really the center of early tribal life, council chamber, the guest house, the place of meeting for men, where laws were made and courts were held, and where the trophies of war were treasured” “It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of these secret lodges in the formative period of society in promoting that sense of kinship, sanctity, and loyalty which lies at the roots of law, order and religion.”

So this "Men's House" to which I belong is my Tribe. And it is a Mighty Tribe. It spans the globe. We cand find other members of our "tribe" almost wherever we go. Wherever there are men who have associated with one another and we have many of the same things associated with our "tribe" that Native Americans have with their tribes. We have Lodges where we meet and practice our rituals and as Bob Guthrie puts it "learn how to be men." We have our sacred items which we must have present at all of our meetings


We also have our Council of Elders (Not the Past Masters surely? ) and we have our warriors. I imagine that with a little imagination you can carry this anaolgy to the nth degree (or at least to the 33rd.)

There is a program for schools which I became aware of when I was a teacher called Tribes. It has as its goals:

Students

• feel included and appreciated by peers and teachers
• are respected for their different abilities, cultures, gender, interests and dreams
• are actively involved in their own learning
• have positive expectations from others that they will succeed.
  

The clear purpose of the Tribes process is to assure the healthy development of every child so that each one has the knowledge, skills and resiliency to be successful in a rapidly changing world.

I think that is what our "tribes" do.

We even have "tribes" within our TRIBE. Note the guys in the look-alike shirts. They all belong to M W Bud Erickson's Grand Family. A tribe within the tribe of Masonry if you will. They had their reunion (pow wow) today.






Make sure you look at this Brother's necklace. It is beautiful. You may want to click on the picture to embiggen it.









Craig and Jay Craig







The Tribes program I mentioned above works this way:

Tribes is a step-by-step process to achieve specific learning goals. Four agreements are honored:

attentive listening
appreciation/no put downs
mutual respect, and
the right to pass.

Students learn a set of collaborative skills so they can work well together in long-term groups (tribes). The focus is on how to:

help each other work on tasks
set goals and solve problems
monitor and assess progress
celebrate achievements.


Boy Howdy, if that isn't part of what we do in our mighty Tribe of Masonry I don't know what is.

The Lodge is a Tribe. The Local Lodge is one tribe and the Grand Lodge is yet another tribe.

We also have the York and Scottish Tribes and even some tribes who like to parade around wearing funny little red hats.


And we have our Mighty Chief. Unfortnately this year our Chief has almost finished his term. But he has been an excellent Chief and he has done the one thing a great chief should do. He has picked his successor to wear the chief's necklace and I think he will be a good one also,

So there you have it. We belong to a "tribe" and as such we sheild and protect each other and care for one another in brotherly love and truth. What more could you ask for?
Now for a few larger pictures and a little movie at the end of them singing thank-you to the ladies who served our wonderful Iowa Chop dinner.

Deputy Grand Master Jon Wagoner

One of the most impressive (to me) things about tonight's ceremony was the Indian Singing that
was done during the degree. It added a lot to the meaning. And the young man who was raised. Well he was number 957. That is the number of raisings the team has done in the last 50 years. They just returned from a trip overseas and part of their time they visited another of my "tribes" they were in Scotland. And Jay tells me he found out that there is nothing worn under a Scotsman's kilt except shoes and socks. But I already knew that. Click on the movie and enjoy it and as always, ARTYAL, answer your e-mail and give someone a great big Hug, jcs