CELESTIAL & TERRESTRIAL GLOBES
WHY do we make reference to Celestial & Terrestrial Globes on the Top of our Pillars when it is totally conceded that at the time of King Solomon the World was considered FLAT?
Atop many old pillars is found a terrestrial globe that may have been out there originally as the result of mistaking two bowls, one super-imposed on the other, for a globe. This mistake may originate from misleading “Woodcuts” in the Geneva Bible of 1560.
Albert Mackey suggests that the very chapiters themselves were the spheres or globes to which our lecture alludes. They are described in the Book of Kings: “ And upon the top of the pillars was lily work; so was the work on the pillars finished”
The plant called the lily in our ritual is really the LOTUS, or Egyptian water lily. To the Egyptians the lotus was a symbol of the Universe and hence, although we have changed the flower from the lotus to the lily, which crowned the chapiter and surmounted each pillar at the Porch, into a globe, the interpretation of universality has been retained. Thus the celestial & terrestrial globes are symbols of the universal extension of the Order and of Brotherly Love.
Another thought is that these Masonic symbols may have been derived from the Egyptian symbol of the winged globe. Common among the Egyptian monuments is a symbol of a globe supported on each side by a serpent and accompanied with wings extended wide beyond them. It is suggested that the round figure of the Egyptians is an EGG, figurative of the creation, and not at all a Symbol of the Form of the World.
Thus the Egyptian lotus OR lily, the globe OR egg, and the Masonic globes are all symbols of something universal, and the Masonic idea has only restricted, by a natural impulse, the idea of the Universality of the Order.
What a pity that our Modern Ritualists did not preserve the Egyptian and Scriptural symbol of the Lotus surrounded by a ball or sphere, and omit the more modern figure of the Celestial & Terrestrial globes.
Adapted from Albert Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.
SOME PIECES OF FINE ADVICE
- Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
- When you say “ I Love You” mean it.
- When you say “I’m Sorry” look the person in the eye.
- Never laugh at other’s dreams. People, who don’t have dreams, don’t have much.
- Remember the three “R’s” Respect for Self; Respect for Others; & Responsibility for all your Own actions.
- Don’t let a little dispute ruin a great friendship.
- Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
- When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, SMILE, and ask
“Why do you want to know”?
A THOUGHT TO PONDER
God gives us a new day each morning,
We can spend it in joy or in sorrow,
We can’t change what happened yesterday,
And we don’t know what’s coming tomorrow.
So as long as today is what we have,
It seems like a good thing to do
To make it as nice as a day can be
For ourselves and for others, too!