Equality, Harmony, and other False God's

I had been channel surfing the other day when I came upon a gem of a show. It was called Taboo. It was aired on the National Geographic Channel or NGEO as it shows up on the T.V. Guide channel. The show covers different acts or actions that are considered quite normal in some places or communities, but generally considered unthinkable in another. This particular episode talked of the public killing of animals. The section of the show that caught my attention was a small goat having its throat cut across as its blood was spilled in sacrifice to the god Kali.

Long lines of devotees lined up behind a blood soaked shrine with all sorts of different treasures for sacrifice to Kali. Chickens, ducks, and goats seemed the most common sacrifice for the day and I caught myself wondering if Kali ever wished for a more diverse diet.

The show progressed to the annual killing of a load of pilot whales off the coast of a small island nation near Iceland and Norway likely settled by the Vikings. The whole town would drive a herd or pod of whales to the shore using their boats in unison and then slaughter the whales. The town, in turn, all gets a free share of whale meat in a place where natural resources are hard to come by.

The point of the story has nothing to do with the killing of animals publically for a god or otherwise. As I watched entranced in the story a college professor was interviewed just following the whales. Multiple interviews of people on both sides of the “issue” of the killing of animals were interviewed. This particular professor caught my attention for a twofold reason. One, because the majority of the “anti-killing” side of the argument were claiming or spoke around the issue that this act or these collect acts disturb the universal BALANCE of things. Second, this particular professor said that one of our biggest problems as a human race is that we are SPECIST. This is defined as a person who practices “speciesism,” which is defined as assigning different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership.

I decided to address this because it is idiotic and ignorant. It is a ridiculous premise and it scares me that a man educating our populous can so easily espouse this.

The idea is that, in this particular instance, we, as a race of humans, believe the whales as less than equal to us and this allows us to justify doing harm to the whales such as killing and eating them.

The professor said that until we can overcome this deficit and treat all animals as equals, we will suffer these wrongs to the planet.

This is where Masonry enters into the picture. It will take me a minute to get there, but let’s talk about the relevance of our philosophies in the presence of pure stupidity.

Many of the ancient mystical traditions, modern psychology, and some religions teach balance as a philosophy by which person can and should lead their lives. In the more ancient and more Gnostic traditions, this balance creates a unity with G-d, in Jungian terms it allows a glimpse at the collective conscious; all of which are laudable pursuits. The mental, spiritual, and physical benefits of a balanced life are even being recognized the staunch materialist who have difficulty refuting the medical evidence just by itself.

Regardless of the benefits, the antiquity of the teachings, and the number of groups teaching this path, it must be completely misunderstood for an idea such as speciesism to take hold.

Balanced does not mean equal. Let me type that again because it bears repeating, balanced does not mean equal.

I wish there was a way for me to express the long pause in writing, that I would have taken in a room full of college coeds and academic fundamentalist now screaming in pain and calling me everything but a person.

Let’s address the ignorance of the statement from a couple of levels because it so clearly illustrates the misunderstanding concerning a balanced life. First, we classify things as species because this is a way of recognizing DIFFERENCES. Yes, there are differences in things, people, places, and life. DIFFERENCES are not bad and recognizing that there are differences is not bad. We scientifically classed “species” so that we could quickly identify differences and similarities. Being balanced does NOT mean being the SAME.

Second, to be equal we must hold all other species to our standards or allow ourselves to degrade to theirs. So, the eagle of the air and the alligator of the swamp should be tried for their crimes of murder should they kill to eat if we believe the killing of anything is equal to the killing of a human and vice versa. Since it is clearly unrealistic to hold the beast of a field, air, or swamp to a human standard and condition, we, as recognized equals, should hold ourselves no higher than they and revert to their system as equals. We can not declare the beast an equal, allow for a violation of the law on an unequal basis because this is a distinct recognition of inequality.

Yet, it could be argued that we learn much from the natural BALANCE from observing nature. The predator is necessary for population control, the leaf necessary for soil and food for other species. All things are clearly connected, but not all things are equal.

This can be seen in simple action. The man seeking to live a balanced life does not seek an equal amount of evil to goodness, for every good deed he does not immediately seek to commit a wrong against his brother.

Today’s world stage seeks balance through equalization. There are a number of reasons for this, but some of those reasons include cowardice and laziness. To claim nothing is every truly right or wrong, to claim that morality is always relative, to claim that any definition of good, right, and god is a correct definition so as not to disparage any belief system, and to claim that equality is the same as balance are all children of the desire for harmony at the cost of Truth. It is easier not to offend than to take a stand. So, we like to convince ourselves that the truth can never be defined and that all things are equal, when in fact, they are not. The carbohydrate is not the equal to the protein in building muscle, yet both are necessary in a balanced diet. Harmony is not the equal to courage in the journey to the truth.

Courage is not absent from a Masonic journey to balance for reason. You do not stand the test of an instrument of torture for petty reasons, you do not journey from darkness to light without cause, and you do not put your trust in God without it being a necessity. The Truth is offensive to some. It always has been. It is why it has gone underground and is treated as a special treasure, an arc of our covenant.

The terrible thing about the aforementioned theories is they seem decent, likable, loving even. They are quieter than fundamentalism so they seem more socially acceptable. They do not hate so they seem passive. This isn’t so, they destroy. Courage, trust, faith, secrecy, and real balance are destroyed in their wake. Reason, logic, and philosophy are laid at the feet of false security and the god of false harmony.

Masonry remains a guidepost along this path. Real balance will always require discernment, courage, and the ability to declare something false, wrong, and maybe even destructive.

Box Makers Unite...We are at War!

The conundrum of the Freethinker is a difficult one. They run around with ideas and opinions, with logic and reason, and often cause the box makers and label makers a problem. A real problem and I am tired of it.

In order to make the world an easier place the box makers of the world have created a nice little series of boxes that everyone is supposed to fit into. Right now on the world stage the political collection of boxes are on display. We have the liberal box, the conservative box, and in America, we have two smaller boxes we throw into them to help us out labeled Democrat and Republic. It makes the whole political process nice and tidy without a lot of real choices…nice and easy, Ranch or Italian. (You know, I have been throwing out a lot of food allegories lately, that dang low carb diet must be getting to me).

There are other popular box collections, all fitting within one another. The Christian box, which was not nearly small enough for most, so a bunch of other boxes need to be made to into the Christian box. For instances, we have the Catholic box, the Protestant box, the Latter Day Saints box, etc. Then the Protestants found the title of Protestant far too broad and we went ahead and developed some other boxes and labeled them Denominations. It is at this point boys and girls you will want to stop reading and purchase yourselves some stock in the box company because they are doing well. The denominations were simply not limited and tidy enough, so….in come the box makers to help us define ourselves because, apparently, we can’t be trusted to do this, and the evangelical, fundamentalist, and literalist boxes were created. Take a breath folks, boxing up the average day conservative, Republican, Lutheran, Missouri Synod, literalist, fundamentalist will take some time, but its worth it. Once your done with all your boxing, no room for free thought or thinking outside of such a nice tidy little box. And, holy cow, if some outside the box thinking really happens, it is captured by one of the several outer boxes and is pretty safe inside the box thinking anyway. Oh, and don’t let the aforementioned box know that his box is right next to the Southern, Democrat, Baptist, Evangelical, literalist box or we are going to end up with another dang box!

The nice thing about boxes is they are small, they limit the content by their size, and they come with labels. We don’t have to think for ourselves and the CEO of Narrow Minds, Inc., the leader in box manufacturing in the entire world, prefers in that way.

Enter the FREETHINKER and boom, the whole system comes crashing in. He would like to stand with his left foot in one box, right in the other, dabble and pick out of some other boxes with his left and right had. Some of those crazy b*s**ds like Newton, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Bacon, and others didn’t think we needed boxes! Of all the cheese in Wisconsin (another food blurb), what would the world come to if we defined ourselves. What if we used reason and logic to govern our own actions and concerned ourselves primarily with this activity instead of worrying about how to define and control others? I don’t even want to think about it.

Another irritating thing about these guys is there distaste for labels. Just when the label makers, working in close conjunction with the box makers, have printed off a nicely defined label and adhere it to a box, these guys promote ideas and espouse logic. This is something that doesn’t fit within the narrow margins of the box or label. What gives?

Let’s discuss Freemasonry, the current number one enemy on the FBI’s most wanted list. Oh, and let me clarify, the FBI is not the same one that jumped into your thoughts right away. I am referring to Fundamentalism, Bureaucracy, and Ignorance (FBI), the World’s watch dogs on free expression and free conscious. On a side note, they dropped their guard once and a group of these runaway thinkers tore up a bunch of boxes and started this completely insane experiment called the United States of America. Don’t worry though, the FBI have been working diligently ever since behind the scenes to makes sure this doesn’t happen again and to change America to a nicely dogmatic society of uniformed folks that are “too busy” and to ignorant really, to have a valuable voice in their government. This way, the vocal minority, made up of intelligently planted box makers, can dictate the sway of the government and speak for all the boxes…err um, I mean people.

Freemasonry with its heretical anti-box tendencies has the audacity, in a modernized and nicely stacked system of boxes, to claim that society should be free to govern itself, that we can put aside religious differences and come together in conscious decision making and rational thought. If that were not off its rocker enough for ya, sit down in your box because this one is going to knock for a loop, they teach that you can learn to respect one another’s religions because, and this is really why they are dangerous, get this, they claim “GOD DOESN’T FIT IN ONE OF OUR BOXES!” Yep, can you even fathom the thought of a G-d that isn’t easily defined by human thought. A God that has room for everyone under his canopy of creation and love. A God that loves all his children and promotes the idea that all of God’s children should and could love one another. A God that does not divide, argue, and dictate petty divisions among his people. For some of the Christian fundamentalist box collection, this idea of a truly universal Deity this is hard to stomach, because the Masons even let a group of men in who worship a god that prayed with prostitutes and recruited tax collectors. Clearly not a universal god.

---The Relevant Mason

God is a Twinkie and I Need a Tan

Twinkies, lushes sweet Twinkies. Faith, Deity, G-d, all tend to be a lot like a Twinkie in our lives. We learn of the Twinkie when we are young. It brings a smile to our faces and they are bountiful. We eat them as they come in large quantity. They are golden on the outside and filled with a precious mystical substance on the inside. Most importantly, however, is the shelf life of the Twinkie. We can buy into the Twinkie when we are six years old. At 21 when we go to the closet to grab another Twinkie, it looks, feels, and taste the same as when we left it. The older we get, the less and less of the Twinkie we see. But, on Christmas or the holidays, when we are ready, there is the lushes golden cake waiting for us, constant and without change.

Faith, spirituality, G-d is treated much the same way. We embrace Deity as children. What’s not to love? Then age, demands, life, job, family, all get in the way of Deity. They all come between the altar and Master of the Lodge. Deity waits, unchanged, ready to be the G-d of our youth and childhood, filled with love and patience. We, of course, see the Twinkie a little differently now as well. It is fattening, doesn’t always fill you up, taste good for minute and then comes with guilt. The Twinkie hasn’t changed folks. The part that changed was that as you grew in height, you shrank in wisdom. The adult in you has traded faith for Dogma and the Twinkie doesn’t taste the same.

This got me thinking about Freemasonry and role it plays in my life and the role it could or should play. Let me be the first to say that I think a relationship with Deity is instrumental in approaching the philosophies of Masonry. This is why we must ascertain that a person has faith in Deity before entering the lodge. This is major psychological work and must not be down without the wisdom and communication of inner awareness that faith provide.

So the first step to having a fulfilling experience in the Craft is to eat your Twinkies.

I have found word pictures are valuable in my journey so I will share another with you here. You can’t get a tan by lying out in the sun for one hour in a month. Nor can you can’t get a tan by lying out in the sun 20 hours a month with your clothes on! We seem to approach the Craft in two ways hoping or expecting fulfillment. First, we go to lodge once or twice a month, do not do much beyond that, and forget about it when we leave. We recognize that reading the minutes and doing little in the way of study is not improving us, but do nothing to improve the situation. Or, we over extend and join so many appendant bodies and groups we are always in the sun, but never take our clothes off to get the tan. We miss the point running round over worked and under appreciated and frustrated with Masonry.

In comes the membership committee to give us the one hour tan! Let us spray you with this goo and in one hour you look tan. Not really. You look orange and everyone knows the minute they see you that it is not a real tan. You have not felt the warmth of the sun sinking down to your bones and warming you from the inside out, the cool breeze of the beach on your brow, and the meditation of simply lying under symbol of the Wisdom. That’s the sun for you non esoteric types.
Either way, you were doomed from the start because you showed up devoid of Twinkies in your life. So, with your Twinkies lingering in the closet you show up for your one hour tan, and then wonder why you are stressed and unfulfilled.

Brothers, practice Masonry in your life, eat your Twinkies, lay out in the sun, and you will find that time management, education, philosophy, and fulfillment are yours. The gentle science has a solution for the post Modern hyperactive schedule. It teaches that a helicopter ride to the top of the mountain is no good for teaching someone how to climb.

Masonry is relevant.