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.

Ban the Letter F Before Its Too Late

The symbol and its language are powerful. Far more powerful than words. This is why Masonry and the world should unite against the letter “F”. It has become a symbol of failure. It destroys the self esteem of young academics and causes a desire for unhealthy competition and improvement for its own sake. The federal government needs to protect us from us and me before it is too late.

Yes, if you have not noticed from the first blog, humor and sarcasm are the preferred weapons of this self proclaimed soldier against ignorance. When I am really fired up I like to break out the nuclear equivalent of plutonium on these intellectual front lines of the war…Logic!

I listened to CNN this morning and the words “moral responsibility” popped out of someone’s mouth (I couldn’t see as I was combing the golden mane) and what scared me is that it had been proceeded by the words “Federal Government.” Holy honey bear I thought. Take cover Brothers. Whenever the government inflicts a moral responsibility upon you, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has little to do with morality, responsibility, or common sense.

This particular story was in regards to the Jenna Six story and the noose as a symbol of hate. For sure, the noose can be a symbol of hate. The problem with this logic (note sarcasm here as it will help in your understanding) is that there is a presupposition that is completely false. That is the belief that banning the symbol of something will ban the belief behind it.

Don’t waste time banning a symbol. Utilize the philosophies of the Craft…educate and inform people so that they can form their own opinions without relying on the opinions of others. Combat ignorance with logic. The government is an entity. It does not posses a conscience and does not have a “moral” anything. Anytime the government inflicts its morality, I find myself at the wrong end of some special interest group who drive an idea that started out fine and mutate it to a shadow of its normal self. The government won’t need to inflict its moral responsibility upon me if we learn to take responsibility for ourselves. Control yourself and change your community.

Sugar and Fundamentalism

In a world of immediate gratification, war, famine, and refined sugar...Masonry has never been more relevant. We all have our battles, some large and some small, but for the soldier the battlefield is what it is. I was watching a popular news show espousing the danger of refined sugar and the immediately visible and immensely dangerous effects of over indulgence. The finger was pointed squarely at that precious ointment upon the beard after eating a nice round jelly doughnut, refined sugar. The evils of it, the dangers of it, the flocks of obese Americans destined for cancer, cavities, and other terrible ailments. We all have a battles and I guess sugar is a good one. The sweet crystalline substance becoming from every kind of food source, going by more names than an undercover operative during the cold war. She is a sly one, she is.

We all pick are battles and I am announcing mine for today, as one never knows what tomorrow might hold. I pick fundamentalism. The terrible plague of the zealot that permeates Christianity, Islam, and every religion and religious system that closes minds and hardens hearts.

Don't misunderstand me. I can respect the path of any man and I am not here to proselytize my personal path. I am hear to declare fundamentalism incompatible with religion, although it appears that the two have become inseparable.

When one takes the time to pick up the Christian Bible he finds tales of goodness and wisdom through the whole work. It tells of forgiving hearts and cheeks turned and turned again. The central figure of the Gospels, the Nazarene, seeks out, recruits, eats, sits, sleeps, loves, and prays with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors and other less desirables. Yet in today's churches we find condemnation and division. Everyone seems more concerned with who holds the keys to heaven and just who is going on the fast track to warmer temps on the final days that we speak little of reason, logic, forgiveness, open minds and open hearts.

Fundamentalism is viral. It convinces us that truth, reason, science and logic are the boogyman and that an uninformed or ill informed faith is the strong and biblical faith of our Creator.

Fundamentalism is its own creature. It leads to brutal wars as evidenced by every news channel everyday.

It is not religious, it is not good, it is not welcome in the mind of the thinking man and it is an enemy of free will, free thought, and free conscience.

I have never known the gentle science to curb sugar except to recommend that all things (to include our diets I guess) should be balanced. I do believe that its philosophies have a cure for fundamentalism. They promote freedom and free exercise of thought and reason. It cultivates logic and wisdom.

Fundamentalist groups like Hammas share with many fundamentalist Christian movements, a declaration that Masonry is incompatible with their faith. I say bologna. It is fundamentalism that is incompatible with freedom, the foundation of the free thinker and the Craft.