I am just arriving home from the November Grand High Zeta meeting this weekend in Indianapolis. I have attended several of these over the last year and a half, and they always tend to leave me feeling energized about the issues facing our great Fraternity. However, that does not infer that they exclusively focus on positive and inspiring topics.

Grand High Zeta meetings often include discussions that expose Brothers’ true feelings on the Fraternity and can become heated at times. This is not unlike Chapter or Exec meetings at my Zeta, and likely the same way at any of our Chapters across the continent. Voting on Associate Members, elections of new officers, or decisions on new policies are just a few examples of times when level of emotion can be high. However, these discussions should always be conducted in the spirit of brotherly love — a concept that can be forgotten when in the midst of a difficult debate.

This morning, the last morning of our weekend retreat, I was surprised when Brother Grossnickle asked me a few minutes before our opening meeting if I would say the Invocation that traditionally precludes our business. I am not an expressly religious person in front of most people, and so I wondered why Brother Grand High Alpha had chosen me. I was also worried that I wouldn’t know what to say, and concerned that I wouldn’t set a good tone for the meeting. I got anxious as Brother Grossnickle called us to order, and then directed attention my way.

And then I started speaking… and all of the sudden the words just came to me. I spoke about how fortunate I felt to be with all my Brothers this weekend, how important I feel our responsibility is to the Fraternity, and my wishes for a strong conclusion to our weekend and a safe journey home to everyone gathered. I wasn’t hesitating or thinking through my comments, I was simply speaking what I felt.

I think our Chapters need to move back to this practice more often. An Associate Member asked me this semester why we only conducted Formal Chapter at certain points during the semester, and I answered that I felt it provided the proper framing for the particularly hard topics that were likely to be discussed during Chapter. He and I went over all the statements made during a Formal Chapter, and I seemed to only mention in passing the fact that the High Beta leads the Invocation and is encouraged to use his own words as desired. I have never seen the High Beta do so, and I assume that my Chapter is not the only one that consistently re-reads the Invocation as written in the Open Rituals.

Moving away from the standard Invocation is a great chance for a Brother to share what he feels while fulfilling the purpose of this portion of our formal business. I was honored by being selected to deliver the Invocation this morning, and I think more members should be called upon to do the same at the Chapter level. It is not an inherently religious statement but more a reaffirming of why we gather as Brothers. It is impromptu, thoughtful, and real. And ultimately, it helps to truly place into context the tough portions of a deliberation and highlight the reasons we are all Brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Chapter, Ritualism . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.