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Naturally stained wood pedestals
of Golden Assembly #43
Photo courtesy Elizabeth Taschler Amodeo |
Through the years I have seen some really neat bow pedestals. One year, our GWA here in Oregon had an African theme and her family made a set of tribal-themed pedestals which were given to her assembly after Grand Assembly. Those were some of the most beautiful ones I've seen but New Jersey might take the trophy for the most unique jurisdictional tradition with respect to assembly pedestals.
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Wicker basket pedestal
Photo courtesy of
Elizabeth Taschler Amodeo |
Sometime back in the 1960s, several New Jersey assemblies were informed they could no longer use their wicker basket pedestals. Now, not all of the assemblies had these type of pedestals but the outcome of this decision was that every single assembly in New Jersey switched to a single, uniform pedestal style with the only variation being whether the pedestals were naturally stained or painted white. What makes these pedestals even better is that they are lighted!
I'm sure that many, loyal blog readers are thinking, "Well, what's so special about that? Lots of assemblies have lighted pedestals." Fair point. But I was a sad, little Rainbow Girl who never belonged to an assembly with lighted pedestals. And, even when I did visit an assembly that was lucky enough to have lighted pedestals, California's rules stated the pedestals were to be lit before the meeting began or not at all. And thus, we arrive at what, to this sad, little California Rainbow Girl, what makes New Jersey's lighted pedestals so special and interesting.
During assembly meetings, the room's lights are dimmed and the pedestals are lit as Hope approaches the Altar during opening, from Love to Service. The Altar light is the last to illuminate the Assembly room. This is reversed during closing.
How neat is that? I imagine that this makes this part of opening and closing only more impressive and solemn, and a very visible reminder of our Rainbow lessons. And so, I say, good job New Jersey Rainbow!
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Bow pedestals on display at the NJ Masonic Museum
Photo from Karyn Visscher |
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And for those curious about the tribal mask bow pedestals I mentioned in the first paragraph... Here's the best photo I can find at the moment.
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Oregon Grand Assembly 2009
Photo courtesy Scott Malmquist |
they were lit one at a time , only as the bible was being opened . the room lights were dimmed for this and the altar light was turned on when the rainbow emblem was placed on the corner of the bible then the room lights were brought back up , and they were turned off in correlation with the bible closing . This did require some practice to get the rhythm of it all during rehearsal nights which our assembly had on the weeks in between meeting nights , timing was everything with this particular part of the meeting
ReplyDeleteI think those wicker basket pedestals are pretty cool! Why did they outlaw them and who did the outlawing? Was it NJ's supreme officer?
ReplyDeleteI believe that it was something that came from Supreme, not NJ's Supreme Officer, per some of the conversations I've had with New Jersey folks. Something to ask them, to be certain!
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