Amaranth is Not Just a Type of Wheat

This past weekend, a person very dear to me had a reception in his honor because he has become a very important officer in a different Masonic related body, the Order of the Amarath. Amaranth, like my Order, the Order of the Eastern Star, allows both men who are Masons and ladies with certain relationships to join as members. There are about twelve Amaranth Courts in California, I am told, in various parts of the state. Throughout all the Amaranth Courts in the world, the organization raises money for diabetes research and I understand that they donated over $450,000 last year. I thought that was great. But I have to admit that the event was a little long for me. I have trouble sitting for two hours and this thing, all in and all done, went about four hours. Luckily, the first half hour or so and the last half hour or so was standing up, for hors d'ouvres first and for some social time at the end, but three hours was a long tour of duty for me. It was helped a lot by being broken up by the serving of the meal and by a lovely entertainer who did songs from the fifties and sixties and did encourage some dancing so there was a break to get out of the chair for a bit, but the rest of the time was speeches and introductions. I realize that this is a different organization and I do not know their traditions at all, so I am not trying to judge what they do and don't do, but I can say that it was hard sit still and to watch. Maybe it would have been easier if I knew more. But I am pretty sure that every single person at the head table (there were ten or twelve of them) plus three or four people who weren't sitting up there were invited to the mike to made some remarks, some shorter and some longer. And all but one of them started their speech with a litany of titles to acknowledge all the dignitaries in the room. I understand why acknowledgement of these special guests, many of whom have traveled great distances, is important, but after the second or third time, it gets really boring, to be honest about it. So after the first time, is it really necessary? I know that there may have been a time that we did that same thing in Eastern Star, but for a long time we've had the rule that only the first speaker gives all the titles and after that you only thank the person who has invited you to the mike and now I totally and completely understand why. I am told as well that my friend the honoree may have broken with tradition a tad on the dress for the event. The dress code was Hawaiian or California summer casual and I wore my Hawaiian print dress (thank you Hilo Hattie's in Kona) and fit in just fine. I was still a bit warm, since it was nasty hot in the LA basin this past weekend, but manageable. However, I hear that these events are often held in formal wear and we would have just melted. I was in formal wear at a reception on Sunday, in fact, and I was worried that I was going to get heat stroke, because I have no heat tolerance at all and in a heavy dress with a full petticoat, all in nylon and polyester that does not breathe at all and sticks to you when you sweat, I was ready to keel over just to get somewhere that wasn't so hot. So seeing the event was great for two reasons. First, I was thrilled to be able to be there to honor my dear friend, who deserves every honor and opportunity. And second because it really gave me some good perspective on my own Order and perhaps some direction for the future. Eastern Star, in my view, does a better job about limiting the speakers and keeping some things a bit shorter, but we may be able to improve on that. And I have now seen just how off-putting it can be to sit and sit and sit. I confess that for Amaranth, about which I am almost entirely ignorant, meetings may be entirely different than receptions and probably are, and while their fund raisers and activities are certainly raising money for a great cause, that is near and dear to me because my father was diabetic, the length of the reception and the number of speeches and the repetitious title recitations did not excite me to join the Order even if I wasn't already busier than any three people ought to be. So I think that this experience has given me a very valuable perspective from which to think of things that Eastern Star can do to see to it that events that bring outsiders to us inspire those outsiders to join us. When non-members come to our social events and receptions, they are just as ignorant of our Order as I was about Amaranth and maybe we need to look at these sorts of events as not just being what they are, but also at least a little bit as membership opportunities. Even if the guests that come do not themselves join, it is a chance to put a few more people out in the world who know about our Order with a hopefully positive perspective. It will be interesting to see what we can do to make the most of those opportunities. Next weekend, I will be in Riverside, Ontario and San Diego.