When I went through the degrees and Orders of the YR, I was hugely lucky because most of them were conferred on me individually. That is supremely rare, and it was even then. At the time, I felt that the Order of the Temple is the drop dead coolest degree in all of Masonry on a personal level, and I still feel that way all these years later. Then I went to the Commandery meetings, and they were the most contemptible things I ever endured. I hated the uniforms (we are grandfathered in as the oldest in Indiana to be allowed to wear the old, long, frock coat). I had zero interest in joining the drill team and marching in a parking lot at 7AM on a Sunday morning (I told them schedule it for 3AM Sunday morning down the street of the local bar and club neighborhood, and I'll be there). I was never in the military and had no desire to pretend to have been. And I sure as hell wasn't going to learn sword and formation tactics and stand inspection every year. I just felt it was such a waste of history and potential on something that had been frozen in time post-Civil War.
A couple of years later, a group of us were commiserating about it and hit on the idea of a period degree recreation team. Do the Order of the Temple in medieval helmets, chainmail, broadswords, the works. All of the state Grands refused to even discuss it, but several of us had become buddies with Billy Koon who was GM of the Grand Encampment at the time. He was excited about it and rolled over the state guys, and gave us national blessing to organize it essentially as nothing more complicated than a volunteer degree team who happened to work in costume (the GC had demanded that we be a new Commandery, buy standard uniforms, install officers, pass inspection, pay dues, yada yada. Billy said to hell with that crap, and we agreed.)
The result was Levant Preceptory, and we are still at it a decade later. What it did was keep a whole group of guys who are good ritualists but hate the attendant BS that goes with being an active Commandery officer and participant. It keeps us all paying dues every year, if only so we can do this maybe once a year. But most important, it usually does what we had hoped for, which is to make a more impressive and lasting impression on the candidate or candidates.
I guess I'm saying that Masonry has enough nooks and crannies and possibilities that if you have a serious interest in just about anything, you can find a Masonic outlet for it. Commandery is the same way. If you have a love/hate relationship with it, try to change it before giving up on it. We're all in this thing together.
