DC Trip Day %

A Visit to the Freemason's Temple of the Scottish Rite

We made a friend outside Safeway.  His name was Dave.  He told us that if we headed just a few blocks over to this temple and mention that Dave sent me, we'd get a free tour. 

He was true to his promise.

Here it is. My first impression of this building was, "Oh great.  Another Neoclassical structure.  More columns.  More marble.  Big whoop."  But it turns out there's more to this building than meets the eye.  This is a temple for the Freemasons society, a service organization that dates back hundreds of years.  George Washington was a Freemason, along with the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith.  On this tour, I learned a lot about the values and truths that Freemasons hold dear, as well as some of the symbolism, practices, and history of the Freemasons. 

I was initially captivated by the Sphinxes outside the temple...

My brother, Nathan, getting a breather before we go back into the No Air Conditioning.

A candid shot of my other family members in the lobby.

Allen Pike was one of the founders of the Scottish Rite (I believe.  Either that or he instigated the construction of the temple).  I just really liked this quote.

This chair is very special.  I forget what the name of the person is called, but he sits here and guards outside the temple room.  Back in the day, Freemason rituals had to be guarded and protected from enemies.  This important guard role required a special sword, which is still implemented today (though more for traditional purposes than for actual protective use).  "Know thyself."  What an interesting thing to put on a guard's chair.

Inside the temple, there was very heavy decoration.  Rich purple curtains, gold statuaries, and an incredible organ. 

The two-headed eagle; a very powerful symbol in Freemason culture.  The number 33 is also important.  There are 33 rays of light surrounding this eagle.  There are in fact 33 columns surrounding the whole building.  In Freemason hierarchy, the highest degree a person can attain is 33.  It's the ultimate goal of a mason. 

A number of different religious canons sit in the middle of the room, representing the many faiths that are practiced by Freemasons.  The only real religious qualification you need to become a Freemason is a belief in a higher power, a creator and controller of the universe.  

Ellen, sitting in the throne.  

Nathan, next to a sweet organ!

Ionic columns at their finest. 

Remember that guardian sword I was talking about?  Here it is.  With a nifty little scepter. 

I love these tables.  They designed the legs specifically for the steps in this room.  Pretty sweet. 

The "Pillars of Light" chamber.  Anyone who has donated over a million dollars to the Freemasons' society gets a little column in one of the chamber slots.  There was a lot of phenomenal stained glass (as you can see) and I had to play around with my brother's "serious poses."

He's quite photogenic, you know. 

Ellen joins in on picture fun. 

I told him to point.  

Someone had a lot of time on their hands and collected coins from all the Freemason districts across the country and beyond.  They were donated to the temple and are now placed underneath the glass tops of seven or eight giant tables.

As before mentioned, George Washington was a Freemason.  Here, in this picture, he is erecting the cornerstone for the capital building in his traditional Masonic garb.  

Heads of the Masonic community get a lot of interesting gifts, and they are often displayed here at the temple for visitors.  There was a whole room devoted to American Historical artifacts. This one, to me, is especially precious.  It's a flag from the Korean war.  American soldiers stationed there used scraps of whatever they could find to construct for themselves the American colors.  This flag was saved from being burned after the war.  Despite its ragged looks, I think there is a lot of power in this flag.  It shows devotion and sacrifice.  I was happy it was kept alive.

Listening to:  TRYING to listen to Lady Gaga on Kat103
Things Going On Today:  First day back at work.
Blessings:  Fingers.
Learned:  My record number can be found on my temple recommend.

DC Part $

McDonalds:  The Johnson Family Refuge

Blessings:  $1 Smoothies all Week

(Go mango pineapple!)

Things Going On:  good teachers

DC Part #

The Mall at Night

My Dad at the Old National Treasury

Haus of White

At Night

Ionic columns of the Treasury

Washington Monument

Mom at the White House

Lost on Bikeshare

Listening to:  Lady Gaga AMP Radio
Blessings:  Notebooks, my body.
Things Going On:  Wrote a letter.
Learned:  Lady Gaga's new concept for "You and I"

DC Part @

City Streets...

Note the Honda Fit.  My dream car.

Mahatma Ghandi

1869 - 1948

"My Life is my Message."

Listening to:  Lady Gaga on Amp Radio

Things going on:  Finally got all my pictures from DC organized.  Missing Thor

Blessings:  Guitar.

Learned:  When Ghandi was born.  

DC Part !

Alright. So I've been in DC...  And I have a TON of things that I want to show you.  I'm really going to need to hunker down and start posting to get through it all.

I guess I'll start with Part 1...

First Class Blues

My Femme Fatale

Airline Family

Sweat, Blood, and Boycuts:  DuPont Circle, 2011

DC HOUR 1

Listening to:  Lady Gaga on Carson Daily
Things Going On:  Institute, Shower, Skip out on Work Today
Blessings:  No work.  Roommates.
Learned:  Josh loves Flirting with Alicia.  (Still)

Midler/Gaga Drama

Here's what I have to say about Bette Midler's recent tweet addressed to Lady Gaga concerning her Sydney Monster Hall...



The whole show looked great, but skip to 1:40 for the mermaid look.


Here's Bette Midler's response on twitter:

I'm not sure @ladygaga knows that I've performed my mermaid in a wheelchair for millions of people -- and many of them are still alive..... Dear@ladygaga if you think a mermaid in a wheelchair seems familiar-it's because it is!You can see it on youtube 24/7-with ME performing it
Ive been doing singing mermaid in a wheelchair since 1980-You can keep the meat dress and the firecracker tits-mermaid's mine.

It's true!  Bette Midler did do a show back in the '80s that was entirely based around a singing, dancing mermaid in a wheelchair.  Check this out... 

I definitely think the Midler version was a lot more complete.  Gaga has yet to expound on the significance of Yuyi the mermaid, though she has made some tweets of late alluding to Yuyi in the next music video.  (I predict the single is going to be "You and I")  So in a way, her performance in Sydney really was really spontaneous and many on the outside could see that as a copy of Bette Midler's work.

However, looking back on the history of Gaga, you will see that both wheelchairs and mermaids have been repeated elements in Gaga's work.  You've got the wheelchair theme in Paparazzi, and Yuyi the mermaid has showed up (sans wheelchair) in her performance at Le Grand Journal.  So it would only make sense for them to be put together.

Gaga responded to Bette Midler's remarks very professionally.  It turns out she had no idea that Midler even HAD a mermaid act.  "I had no idea that she did that, and I'm a huge Bette Midler fan...  It wasn't [originally a tribute to Midler] cuz I didn't know that she'd done it, but I do now, and I think it's great...  Maybe we're just cut from the same cloth.  I obtusely admire her."  (See the whole interview about Midler here.)

Crisis has been averted.  Bette Midler's most recent tweet was as follows...

 @ladygaga, let's drink this over at the Emmys in September. Fabulous mermaids can coexist!

I think they're both "fin-tastic" performers!!

Listening to:  "New York, New York" as sung by Delores DeLago
Things Going On:  I go to Jensen's with a friend, last day in Minnesota
Blessings:  The internet.  My hair.
Learned:  Lady Gaga's grandmother only had intimate relationships with one man:  Her Husband.

Date

Paid.


Planned for.


Paired off.




Listening to:  Lady Gaga Billy Bush interview
Things going on today:  See above.
Blessings:  One more day.  Air conditioning.
Learned:  What it takes to fix an automatic garage door.

Service Story

Yesterday at about ten o'clock in the morning, my house gets a call from an 801-number.  When I answer the phone, I hear a young man's nervous voice on the other end saying, "Hey, is this Bishop Johnson's residence?  Your church meets at one o'clock, right?"  I answer in the affirmative, and then he says, "Well, I'm at the Mall of America, visiting for the day.  Do you know the best way to get down to your chapel from here?"
By then I hand my mom the phone, knowing nothing about Minnesota transportation myself.  Mom didn't have much more to say either.  "That's far beyond our ward boundaries.  I don't think there's anyone who could give you a ride.  I'm sorry."
Later, after attending a stunning sacrament meeting, I walked into my Sunday School room and sat next to a boy I did not recognize. Sister Duncan, our Sunday School teacher, walked up and introduced herself to him, as she does with all the visitors.  He said his name was Brett, and he's visiting from Orem on a band trip.
"Are you the guy who called us this morning?" My mom turned and intruded on their introductions.
"Yeah," he said.  "Sorry about that..."
"No, it's fine."  She continued, "How did you get here??"
"Took a taxi."
A taxi?  Wow.  This guy really wanted to get to church.  For some reason, I recognized him.  I didn't know why.  But I had seen him somewhere before.  Right before the lesson started, I asked where he went to school.  He said BYU.  Then, without asking him anything, I just assumed he was a music ed major.  I don't know what planted that idea into my head.  Maybe I had seen him at the HFAC preparing for a choral conducting test.  Or maybe it was just the way he carried himself.  Or maybe I just made a wild guess.  But for some reason or another, I knew that he and I had the same major.  So later, when I had the chance, I asked him what he was studying.  "Music education, instrumental emphasis."  It cheered me to hear this.

Well my mom, being the bishop's wife, of course invited him and his younger brother over for dinner.  I was willing to drive them out to the Mall of America, since I had to visit a friend out in Mendota Heights anyway.  They played our piano and sang with us, and we had spirited conversation at the dinner table.  Within a few hours, we already seemed like good friends.  I promised I'd try to find Brett somewhere when I went back out to BYU, and when he went on his mission, I'd keep in touch.  He's a nice guy.

But the punch line here is that they paid 30 dollars -- THIRTY. DOLLARS. -- to pay for a taxi ride down to the Burnsville meetinghouse.  Thirty dollars just to go to church.  Man alive.  That's some serious commitment.  But with that thirty dollars, they also got a free home-cooked meal and they made some new friends, thanks to my mother.  Moral of the story:  Keep your eye open for people like Brett and his brother.  Often you will have more in common than you think.  Never skip out on a service opportunity.  It's a chance to make a friend.

Listening to:  Nothing
Things Going On Today:  Not sure.  It's Monday. I have two days left in Minnesota.  I probably should start gathering up my clothes and stuff...
Blessings:  A mom who cooks.  Old friends.
Learned:  There are four instances mentioned in the New Testament of Jesus visiting his disciples after his resurrection.

And now for a stupid marriage-related pun...

I couldn't find a way to put this into my last post, but I just had to share this stupid play on words that I created while thinking about marriage...


Don't make being a BRIDE AND GROOM all about PRIDE AND GLOOM!!


Pahahahahahahahahahaha!  Get it??

Kay, I'm done.  

The Bona Fide Bride Guide

Breaking News...

My roommate got engaged this week.
And then another friend of mine got married yesterday.
A lot of people in my life are finding their soul mates these days...

My soon-to-be-roommate Courtney claims to have a curse put on her where all of her friends get married within months of knowing her.  I've seen evidence of this. Within a few short weeks of knowing my roommate Chantelle, Courtney was witness to her engagement and was even present at their recent sealing.  Courtney has countless other stories that follow a similar vein.  While BYU is already a hot place for many to find a spouse, Courtney seems particularly prone to falling into peoples' lives at the cusp of their matrimonial fulfillment.  It's odd.

Despite her curse, I have yet to find myself a suitable match for marriage since I have known Courtney, and it's been almost a year.  This fact leads me to believe that I have successfully avoided the marriage curse.  However, in circumventing the eminent engagement that should have happened due to the curse, I'm afraid I picked up the curse myself.  Now it seems like everyone I know is getting married.

Or at least getting boyfriends.  My roommate Sammie is a prime example.  She found her boyfriend behind the counter at Taco Bell.  We -- that is, Courtney, Sammie and I -- went on a spontaneous adventure to that haven of precious non-wheat goodness (Courtney's top restaurant criteria) and Sammie was drawn to the friendliness of the boy behind the counter, whose plastic nametag donned the title ANDREW.  After a brief exchange while waiting for our nachos to be prepared, Sammie decided she'd give him her number and ask him out sometime.  As we left the Taco Bell, she lingered behind to talk to Andrew and... Welp.  The rest is history.  This guy behind Taco Bell happened to be exactly what Sammie wanted.  Wouldn't be surprised if they got hitched someday.

Then there's my former roommate Amoray, who was engaged already when I moved in to Omni 172 with her.  She had a splendid reception last month, and is now a happy newlywed with her spouse Nathan.  My final roommate, Alicia, was the one who just got engaged this week to her boyfriend Josh.  And then there's Esther and HER Nathan, due to get married at the end of August.  (YIKES that's not that far away....)  And my friend Jason just tied the knot.  And my coworker, Jen, should be engaged any day now, I think.  All over the place, new connections have been formed between people I've known for years, but never imagined that they'd one day find each other and decide to spend the rest of their lives with each other.  It's a little cray-cray.

Of course, Courtney also has pretty decent contact with most of the people I know at BYU, so maybe she is the one responsible for all the marriages and I'm just a victim by association.  But maybe that's just the way BYU is wherever you go.  Curse or no curse, people get married all the time.  It's a fact of life.

Time has played a nasty trick on me.  One minute, I'm in High School and marriage is this dim light in the distance within a dark tunnel.  Suddenly now it's this freak show of neon and sparkles that's RIGHT ON TOP OF ME and I feel like at a marriage-rave or something.  And I, of course, feel pressured to join in this drug-trip that's called love and find myself a dance partner who is equally high on the idea of eternal companionship.  And I know that one day the climax of this trip will be fully realized in a white dress and lots of flowers.

But the catch is that all this crazy love-drug stuff I see now is gonna change again someday into this glowing candle flame that -- while useful, beautiful, and powerful -- needs to be protected and fueled by hard work and patience. Marriage, contrary to popular (Mormon) belief, isn't the answer to all of life's problems.  It's not just a day-long thing. It's forever.  Or at least a lifetime. I need to be careful not to get too carried away with all the schmaltz and glamour of weddings.

Yeah, I dream.  I literally have dreamed about my proposal hundreds of times.  In my dreams, it's taken place everywhere from a romantic garden, to a stage in front of thousands of people, to my bathroom.  Yes, I do wonder what my dress is gonna be like and what my colors are gonna be and who's all going to be there and where it's gonna take place.  Amoray has told me that it's never too early to start preparing, and I agree.  Discovering your options isn't a bad thing. Asking for feedback and exploring what's out there is definitely good.  But what I must keep in mind is the fact that marriage -- eternal marriage, especially -- is not about the wedding day, but about the years, decades, centuries, millenia that come afterwards.

Moral of the story:  There's no hurry into eternity.  It's better to wait and buy yourself a lasting, durable survival candle than a dinky multi-colored kid's flashlight -- even when it is on sale at the front of the store for a buck-and-a-half.  For marriage, it's better to get the 100-watt, long-lasting bulb than one of them flashy disco lights with all the spinning colors.  Those things last like five minutes, and you can't even see what you're doing in the meantime!  Forgive all these stupid luminescent analogies, but marriage needs to provide the light that makes things clearer, not more confusing.  So don't jump to grab the first shiny thing you see.  Don't marry for the sake of marriage.  Marry because you love someone, and he loves you back.

I congratulate all of my married/engaged friends who have recently found new lights for their lives. I don't mind the Courtney Curse.  I like watching people I love find happiness in their lives through the greatest form of companionship. I'm sure they have made good decisions and have been guided by the Spirit of the Lord -- that ultimate source of light -- that the decision they are making is the right one.  They have a wonderful time ahead of them.  Marriage is great.  It's my ultimate goal.  But while they have been offered that wonderful blessing, I haven't yet.  I haven't found that special someone to share my life with.  I've had opportunities, but the Spirit hasn't given me the go-ahead yet.  But I really don't adopt that always-the-bridesmaid attitude some single girls embrace. Being single doesn't mean God loves me less.  It just means I need more time to learn some things about life and about myself.  Young single life is a great opportunity and, let's be honest, it doesn't last forever.  So in the meantime, I'll reap the benefits of my curse by attending lots of receptions and eating lots of cake.  Being single never tasted so sweet.


Listening to:  "Sweet Spirit" from the Sons of Provo Soundtrack.  (Trust me, I'm not listening to this song for any particular reason related to the topic of marriage. It just happens to be on my Sunday playlist and it just came on...)
Things Going on Today:  I visit Polly, my last Sunday here in Minnesota for a long time, I reckon.
Blessings:  Marriage, wedding receptions, old friends.
Today I learned:  Well it's morning, so I'll tell you what I learned yesterday...  The songs "Tonight Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae and "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus have the same chord progressions.