Almost eerie shadows bounced and danced their solemn dance to the candlelight casting its shadows and souls upon the walls of the lodge, the temple. The men moved in silence in a circumambulation around their altar. Dress in tailcoats, their hands gloved, the aprons of the finest lambskin.
The Brothers took their seats and the lodge was called to order, the ritual perfect and well practiced. The booming voice of the Worshipful Master and wraps of the gavel calling something forward from deep within everyone that the work at hand was important.
Classical music wafted through the air and hung heavy on the deeper notes, the vibration touching the very souls of the men who sat through it. The business of the night was a discussion of philosophy and it went well.
At the conclusion of lodge, the men retired to the dining room for a tradition Agape celebration with toast, fine food, and fine wine.
The taste of the foods blossomed well with the wine selected for that dinner and it was with bitter sweetness that the Brethren pulled their chairs from the table for the final toast of the evening.
Cigars and Scotch followed as the men discussed their views on religion, politics, and the fraternity well into the night.
The next morning the men headed off to work. Tradesmen of all types, policemen, military, Brothers from all walks of life headed out from their suburban homes to their cubicles, cop cars, and offices to earn a living.
I have the great fortune to belong the lodge described above and so does my Brother, friend, and neighbor.
We often sit together on my porch solving the world’s problems both with a glass of bourbon and I with a cigar. It was during one of these sessions my friend, who is a Fellow Craft, spoke his prophetic words of wisdom about lodge, specifically his lodge experience and one of the reasons Masonry is important to him and should be treated as such.
“You know,” he began with a tone in his voice echoing his contemplation, “my whole life is average, I live in an average home, I have an average job, and I shop at superstores for my average food, my average clothes, and my average television. I love that Masonry is not average. I love that once a month I get treat something special and that I feel special because of it. I’m glad we don’t experience Wal-Mart Masonry. I don’t want quicker, easier, or cheaper. I don’t need my Masonry in bulk with low quality materials. I don’t want Wal-Mart Masonry that one day of my month.”
He is new to Masonry and his lodge is “special” because we make it so. He does not come from the Masonic experiences most of had when we formed our lodge. He was initiated into our lodge and has “grown up” there. Nonetheless, he hit on something quite profound. How much of Masonry has suffered as we moved to Wal-Mart Masonry.
As tracing boards that were profoundly beautiful and steeped in artistic imagery moved to PowerPoint presentations, as quality wrought ritual moved to stuttered lines from a man moved into the progressive line to quickly, as Festive Boards moved to paper plates and plastic forks, as dressing for lodge meant no holes in your jeans—what disservice have we done to ourselves and to our Craft as we turned to the convenience and cost of Wal-Mart Masonry.
When there is little value placed in the trappings of the lodge, when there is little value placed on the experience itself, when there is more emphasis placed on completing things quickly and with little cost, how can we believe that men will find value in the thing itself, in the finished product?
We are often men of average means, of average lives. I am content to buy my food at the at largest store for the cheapest price. I am content to buy my clothes from the sales rack, but should I be content with generic low-cost Masonry?
If we are to believe our own brochures and websites we make good men better. How do we do this by treating everything like it should be quicker, cheaper, and in bulk? Do I really want my Masonry from the superstore with little thought given to its intrinsic and philosophical values? Do I want my morality in a low cost buy six and the seventh one is free?
If we practice our own philosophies then kneeling at the altar of Masonry should be more than a slight distraction before we head downstairs for a ham sandwich with generic mayonnaise and fruit punch because soda is cost prohibitive.
If we practice our own philosophies then changing a man’s life and actually improving him should be thought of as an experience worthy wearing socks that match and having on something more profound than a pair of blue jeans.
We are supposed to invoke the blessing of Deity before our undertakings and yet we approach our Creator with hurried expressions and a distain as we bicker about bills and provide little or no education.
The Craft turned into a superstore of membership at one time. We worshipped at the altar of large numbers so that we could keep our dues artificially low and provide some bang for the buck. Then, as the membership dwindled, the dollars stayed low, and the experience was hacked to bare minimum so that we didn’t “waste” our member’s time. Waste their time—with Masonry…..
The Fraternity can no longer afford Wal-Mart Masonry. To save Masonry we must change our thinking from quantity to quality. It is not about how many men are Masons, but how many men should be Masons. Masonry can no longer afford the quick sale, the PDF petition available for all who might want one.
The Fraternity must learn to value itself, so that others might see value within it. The tough thing about making Masonry valuable is that it takes effort. Meetings can’t be thrown to together, meals can’t be nuked, and Brothers can’t be raised in an afternoon with no memory work.
We love to hail Freemasonry as the home of our Founding Fathers….well, then work to make it the Masonry they would have revered and let’s leave our value meal days behind us.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Thoughts from a Slightly Older Masons
It was years ago, funny how time flies, that I had written a short paper called “Thoughts from a Young Mason.” I railed on the many programs that failed to recognize the need for a fulfilling Masonic experience that lacked educational aspects. I recommended several changes that would not be difficult or costly to implement.
The speech was intended as a parting speech, in that, I thought it would make me so unpopular I would be run out of the Fraternity for having the gall to go against, what was then, the status quo. As with many things in my life, I learned a lesson. I learned that age was not the divider I thought it was. I learned that Masons old, young, tall, thin, new, seasoned, and the like were, in the end, Masons. Many were unfulfilled by business meetings with little or no education, many felt that the degrees were extraordinary and deserved further study, many identified with the ideas presented and desired changes, progressions, and fulfillment.
The speech became a paper, the paper and article, and the article spread on the Internet to the degree it was e-mailed to me as a “MUST READ” and listed as having an “anonymous author.” I laughed.
The article still floats around the cyber Masonic world and even now, years later, I received an e-mail from a Brother thanking me and finishing with the question, “So how old are you?” He had not realized the article was written years ago and I responded as such and indicated my current age. The response, “Wow, the way you wrote that, I thought you were actually young.” Ahh, life lessons.
But my space is limited, and I should probably get to the point or, at least, identify the point and meander towards it.
Most will likely not remember this, but I wrote that article when a man several decades my senior began to lecture me on what young Masons want. It spurred me towards action, not that I was offended, but I realized there was a complete misunderstanding of what young men coming to the Craft and to the Scottish Rite were searching for and I wanted to set the record straight.
It amazes me how things come full circle and so the same Brother who, years ago, had spurred my writing frenzy has once again captured my attention and fired my passions. The other day he made the statement that Masonic education was a waste of time and hoped the “fad” that had been going on would die out soon; he continued then, that he hoped the “young guys” that had been “acting like they were running things” would learn a lesson. He didn’t elaborate on what the lesson might be.
This time, I must admit, my immediate response was anger. Why? Well after the first article things changed with my Masonic experience, not because the article per se, but because change was in the wind, and the collective voice of the unfilled Masons, young and old, had ushered in desperately needed changes. The Supreme Council started the Master Craftsman program which was a success by anyone’s standards. Blue Lodges around the States began shifting their focus to a fulfilling educational experience and my local Scottish Rite was excelling in every way. Meetings had become interesting; reunions were filled with debate, discussion, and study. Every aspect was progressing and growing our members. Members of the “last class” were jumping into things at the following meetings with both feet. All the way around, I had no complaints accept those brought on by my own lack of patience.
So, I had to wonder, what lesson would the “young” men learn? Why was Masonic education, to this Brother, a fad?
I was truly baffled until I had one of those small epiphanies. This brother was not angry, he was not ignorant, although his statements were, he was not a “bad” Brother. He was afraid.
The Masonry he recognized was passing away before him and he wished for a time, for men, for friends that were no longer there. Life has little stability, and with Masonry, at a minimum, the tradition, ever unchanging, offers a bit of safety net. A little cornerstone where even the rooms in which we meet have changed little for hundreds of years; it is traditional and it is safe.
This story is not new. There is a lodge in which the Past Masters all sit in the North and grumble. They are collectively referred to in a respectful, but humorous manner, as the Northern Lights.
The things is, we are all moving north, if you catch my “drift,” and yes, the pun was intended. There will be a time that the familiar will bring comfort and the desire will be to see the young “learn their lesson.”
BUT…
This division represents a failure on both sides of the issue so to speak. Education need not be lofty and difficult to understand. Sharing personal experiences, expounding on a symbol, discussing the inner meanings and life application of the degrees are valuable to all Masons in Masonry. Nor does education need be, nor should it be, a pursuit of the young. What lesson are we applying in Masonry when we believe we have learned all it has to offer?
We need to work to make education applicable, interesting, and valuable to all of our members. There are many aspects to Masonry and we cannot allow ourselves to focus the resources of our educational programs solely on singular object or particular personal interest. We need to fulfill our members and that means working hard to do so.
That being said Brothers, and this if for my scared friend, we cannot allow the fear of change to give birth to ignorance, disparagement and discontent. Time will temper our young friends, life will mature them and Masonry will improve them. Wishing upon them the negative or viewing education as adversarial is foolish, regardless of our age.
The sad lesson of the Northern Lights is the fact they have relegated themselves to irrelevancy through their negativity. Rather than becoming trusted mentors, they are viewed as humorous grumblers. If we react with anger, fear, or distain to all things that are unfamiliar because discomfort moves us to this, we will only isolate ourselves and remove our relevance and influence that our years and training could have provided.
If our voices are always angry and become nothing more than echoes from the dark part of the lodge, sitting alone and hoping a similar fate upon the happy and fulfilled members we have no influence, no say, and no personal growth.
Brethren, our numbers our stabilizing, our experiences are improving, and our knowledge of the Craft is growing. If just a few Brothers with an idea could form the great nation we know call home, imagine the force and impact our Fraternity could have on our individual communities if our members chose to work together.
The greatest thing that we can learn in Masonry is that we have more to learn. Let’s learn about one another, lets respect our various approaches to Masonry, lets end the ignorance, lets shed our fear, and lets change ourselves and maybe just the world.
The speech was intended as a parting speech, in that, I thought it would make me so unpopular I would be run out of the Fraternity for having the gall to go against, what was then, the status quo. As with many things in my life, I learned a lesson. I learned that age was not the divider I thought it was. I learned that Masons old, young, tall, thin, new, seasoned, and the like were, in the end, Masons. Many were unfulfilled by business meetings with little or no education, many felt that the degrees were extraordinary and deserved further study, many identified with the ideas presented and desired changes, progressions, and fulfillment.
The speech became a paper, the paper and article, and the article spread on the Internet to the degree it was e-mailed to me as a “MUST READ” and listed as having an “anonymous author.” I laughed.
The article still floats around the cyber Masonic world and even now, years later, I received an e-mail from a Brother thanking me and finishing with the question, “So how old are you?” He had not realized the article was written years ago and I responded as such and indicated my current age. The response, “Wow, the way you wrote that, I thought you were actually young.” Ahh, life lessons.
But my space is limited, and I should probably get to the point or, at least, identify the point and meander towards it.
Most will likely not remember this, but I wrote that article when a man several decades my senior began to lecture me on what young Masons want. It spurred me towards action, not that I was offended, but I realized there was a complete misunderstanding of what young men coming to the Craft and to the Scottish Rite were searching for and I wanted to set the record straight.
It amazes me how things come full circle and so the same Brother who, years ago, had spurred my writing frenzy has once again captured my attention and fired my passions. The other day he made the statement that Masonic education was a waste of time and hoped the “fad” that had been going on would die out soon; he continued then, that he hoped the “young guys” that had been “acting like they were running things” would learn a lesson. He didn’t elaborate on what the lesson might be.
This time, I must admit, my immediate response was anger. Why? Well after the first article things changed with my Masonic experience, not because the article per se, but because change was in the wind, and the collective voice of the unfilled Masons, young and old, had ushered in desperately needed changes. The Supreme Council started the Master Craftsman program which was a success by anyone’s standards. Blue Lodges around the States began shifting their focus to a fulfilling educational experience and my local Scottish Rite was excelling in every way. Meetings had become interesting; reunions were filled with debate, discussion, and study. Every aspect was progressing and growing our members. Members of the “last class” were jumping into things at the following meetings with both feet. All the way around, I had no complaints accept those brought on by my own lack of patience.
So, I had to wonder, what lesson would the “young” men learn? Why was Masonic education, to this Brother, a fad?
I was truly baffled until I had one of those small epiphanies. This brother was not angry, he was not ignorant, although his statements were, he was not a “bad” Brother. He was afraid.
The Masonry he recognized was passing away before him and he wished for a time, for men, for friends that were no longer there. Life has little stability, and with Masonry, at a minimum, the tradition, ever unchanging, offers a bit of safety net. A little cornerstone where even the rooms in which we meet have changed little for hundreds of years; it is traditional and it is safe.
This story is not new. There is a lodge in which the Past Masters all sit in the North and grumble. They are collectively referred to in a respectful, but humorous manner, as the Northern Lights.
The things is, we are all moving north, if you catch my “drift,” and yes, the pun was intended. There will be a time that the familiar will bring comfort and the desire will be to see the young “learn their lesson.”
BUT…
This division represents a failure on both sides of the issue so to speak. Education need not be lofty and difficult to understand. Sharing personal experiences, expounding on a symbol, discussing the inner meanings and life application of the degrees are valuable to all Masons in Masonry. Nor does education need be, nor should it be, a pursuit of the young. What lesson are we applying in Masonry when we believe we have learned all it has to offer?
We need to work to make education applicable, interesting, and valuable to all of our members. There are many aspects to Masonry and we cannot allow ourselves to focus the resources of our educational programs solely on singular object or particular personal interest. We need to fulfill our members and that means working hard to do so.
That being said Brothers, and this if for my scared friend, we cannot allow the fear of change to give birth to ignorance, disparagement and discontent. Time will temper our young friends, life will mature them and Masonry will improve them. Wishing upon them the negative or viewing education as adversarial is foolish, regardless of our age.
The sad lesson of the Northern Lights is the fact they have relegated themselves to irrelevancy through their negativity. Rather than becoming trusted mentors, they are viewed as humorous grumblers. If we react with anger, fear, or distain to all things that are unfamiliar because discomfort moves us to this, we will only isolate ourselves and remove our relevance and influence that our years and training could have provided.
If our voices are always angry and become nothing more than echoes from the dark part of the lodge, sitting alone and hoping a similar fate upon the happy and fulfilled members we have no influence, no say, and no personal growth.
Brethren, our numbers our stabilizing, our experiences are improving, and our knowledge of the Craft is growing. If just a few Brothers with an idea could form the great nation we know call home, imagine the force and impact our Fraternity could have on our individual communities if our members chose to work together.
The greatest thing that we can learn in Masonry is that we have more to learn. Let’s learn about one another, lets respect our various approaches to Masonry, lets end the ignorance, lets shed our fear, and lets change ourselves and maybe just the world.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Power, Truth and Symbol
The power of the symbol is unmistakable. We only need to drive a vehicle, holding it steady, to one side or another of a dotted line to recognize its power and hold over our psyche and our behavior. If it were not recognized as such a powerful tool it would be enough to train drivers to simply stay on one side of the road. Yet, we provide this symbol as a strong and powerful reminder of just where we are supposed to stay.
If this word picture is not compelling then I ask you to imagine a man going to a large evangelical church with a pentagram on his chest, exposed for all to see and the reaction that he might receive.
The symbol is so powerful that simply rotating it can change the psychological and physiological response to it. Take the same pentagram worn by our churchgoer and rotate it upside and it seems more ominous and evil than before. Let’s take the cross, widely accepted in today’s culture as the central symbol of the Christian faith, and turn it upside down; now it is a symbol of Satan and the dark arts. I find it amazing that a simple 180 degrees can change a symbol of hope and regeneration into a symbol of black magic, demons, and despair.
Allow me to digress for a moment in an attempt to illustrate a point. One morning I had listened to CNN and the words “moral responsibility” popped out of someone’s mouth and what riveted my attention afterward was that it had been preceded by the words “Federal Government.” History teaches that whenever the government begins to administer and inflict a moral responsibility upon you, you can be certain that it has little to do with morality, responsibility, or common sense; so I listened.
This particular story was in regards to the Jenna Six and the noose as a symbol of hate. The story continued that the symbol of the noose should be banned because of its attachment to the innocent killing of African Americans. There will be those, with whom I will lose a little ground because once such a symbol enters into the story, the emotion attached is so powerful that reasonable debate and articulated reason leave the room. Regardless, I will continue with the illustration as I think it is a good one and an important one.
Trying to ban the noose as a symbol is a failure in recognizing the true power of the symbol. The problem with the logic of banning a symbol is that it is based on a presupposition that is completely false. That presumption is that banning the symbol of will ban or remove the belief behind it. This does not eradicate the true power of the symbol which is the belief system they represent. You could ban the cross and there would still be Christians, you could ban the noose and there would still be hate and bigotry.
This story also illustrates the degradation of the symbol to the worship of the symbol itself. When faith is not reasoned, educated, or investigated it has the tendency to move toward the favorite religion of the ignorant and lazy, which is idolatry in its most base sense. What is meant is that the worship of symbols without truly understanding the stories, allegories, and belief systems behind them. This shallowness of believe manifest in religious wars, bigotry, and religious intolerance so prevalent in today’s world. The ease of allowing someone else to tell you what you believe is intoxicating in ways and leads to the ignorant obedience to the pulpit. Never having picked up and read their own holy books, these so called believers, these worshipers of the symbol itself, have the audacity to condemn others who actually read theirs, screaming aloud that they are heretics, sinners, and doomed to some fiery fate. For instance, this was the threat of the Gnostic current within Christianity and why it was so harshly stamped out by those who saw the church as a political foundation for power to administer on behalf of God, which of course, they do through degrading the tradition to an almost superstitious belief in the symbols themselves. All of a sudden the wine is literally blood, holy water can repel evil spirits and the like.
Why all this talk of religion, of current events, of hate, idolatry, bigotry even and what can it have to do with Freemasonry? In a word: Everything.
If Masonry has a religion it is the symbol. Not the ignorant worship of the symbol for the thing it represents, but for the devoted research, study, and inculcation of the meaning behind the symbol. The reality that the symbol, by itself, is a beautiful allegory of meaning when combined and mixed with the inquisitive mind and the working spirit that does not lay idle in hope that someone will tell it what to believe.
Understanding this truth, and the reality of the situation, is important to save Masonry from devolving into a system of ignorant tradition that becomes what it should vehemently labor against.
When, for the sake of harmony, for the sake of expediency, for the sake of laziness, we move quickly through the work, fail to uphold the highest standards, or fail to guard the West Gate against the ignorant and lazy Masonry is destined to the fate of foolish leadership or egomaniacal title collection that will bulldoze and destroy the philosophers of the Craft for fear that their own ignorance will be exposed and their titles recognized by others as ill received.
Allowing these men to lead results in a fundamentalism of sorts that holds highest the most ridiculous elements of the Craft while sacrificing its most sacrosanct to the fringe and barely tolerated. All of a sudden, and at once, the obligation becomes a gray area, we argue with anger, we guard foolish behaviors because we know no other behaviors, because we have opted for habit instead of devoted research, one being so much quicker and easier than the others.
We tell ourselves that someday we will study, that someday we will learn, but until then we spend our energies in Masonry climbing ladders and arguing against progression because we fear it for we have not studied it.
Preposterous statements that the Chamber of Reflection is a purely Christian Rite entitled to the Commandery are made by ignorant men whose only knowledge of the Chamber is their participation in it during a particular Christian Rite. Insufferable jewel collectors claim that Masonry is being wrongly crafted into the image of a few. They do this and claim this because a five minute Internet search is the pinnacle of their research and they fear discovery as a fraud armed with shallow philosophies if the true aim of Masonry is adhered to.
These men worship the symbol, dig no deeper than a facial examination of the lectures, and believe wrongly that some of the legend should be taken as literal history and that the discovery of alchemy and mysticism is a “stretch.”
These men commit the greatest of Masonic sins if such a thing exists because they allow the ritual and rites, without study, to become Masonry; the very thing Free Masonry should stamp out. The power of the symbol is the beliefs in the archetypal spirit of man that they tug at and represent. If Masonry is allowed to degrade into a set of working tools with elementary lectures explaining rudimentary moral concepts the Fraternity will die because its philosophies already have.
We must, within the Craft, utilize the philosophies of the Craft. We must educate and inform our Brothers so that they can form their own opinions without relying on the opinions of others. We must combat ignorance with logic. The brick of mortar of any institution is just that. It does not possess a conscience and does not have a “moral” anything. The minute we are put down, relegated, or denigrated for philosophies that stand behind the symbol and are told that there is nothing more to the symbol than a simple explanation or definition, or that the symbol is powerful for the symbol itself we should rise up, study, educate, and remember that if we put aside Masonic philosophies to fight on their behalf we have likewise been infected with the virus of ignorance and fundamentalism.
We must combat these things with Masonry, with philosophy, with open minds, loving hearts, and education.
What is the relevance of Masonry people wonder….well I wonder where in the world would a philosophy designed to unite and eradicate ignorance and laziness serve a great good. Then I wonder where in the world it would not.
If this word picture is not compelling then I ask you to imagine a man going to a large evangelical church with a pentagram on his chest, exposed for all to see and the reaction that he might receive.
The symbol is so powerful that simply rotating it can change the psychological and physiological response to it. Take the same pentagram worn by our churchgoer and rotate it upside and it seems more ominous and evil than before. Let’s take the cross, widely accepted in today’s culture as the central symbol of the Christian faith, and turn it upside down; now it is a symbol of Satan and the dark arts. I find it amazing that a simple 180 degrees can change a symbol of hope and regeneration into a symbol of black magic, demons, and despair.
Allow me to digress for a moment in an attempt to illustrate a point. One morning I had listened to CNN and the words “moral responsibility” popped out of someone’s mouth and what riveted my attention afterward was that it had been preceded by the words “Federal Government.” History teaches that whenever the government begins to administer and inflict a moral responsibility upon you, you can be certain that it has little to do with morality, responsibility, or common sense; so I listened.
This particular story was in regards to the Jenna Six and the noose as a symbol of hate. The story continued that the symbol of the noose should be banned because of its attachment to the innocent killing of African Americans. There will be those, with whom I will lose a little ground because once such a symbol enters into the story, the emotion attached is so powerful that reasonable debate and articulated reason leave the room. Regardless, I will continue with the illustration as I think it is a good one and an important one.
Trying to ban the noose as a symbol is a failure in recognizing the true power of the symbol. The problem with the logic of banning a symbol is that it is based on a presupposition that is completely false. That presumption is that banning the symbol of will ban or remove the belief behind it. This does not eradicate the true power of the symbol which is the belief system they represent. You could ban the cross and there would still be Christians, you could ban the noose and there would still be hate and bigotry.
This story also illustrates the degradation of the symbol to the worship of the symbol itself. When faith is not reasoned, educated, or investigated it has the tendency to move toward the favorite religion of the ignorant and lazy, which is idolatry in its most base sense. What is meant is that the worship of symbols without truly understanding the stories, allegories, and belief systems behind them. This shallowness of believe manifest in religious wars, bigotry, and religious intolerance so prevalent in today’s world. The ease of allowing someone else to tell you what you believe is intoxicating in ways and leads to the ignorant obedience to the pulpit. Never having picked up and read their own holy books, these so called believers, these worshipers of the symbol itself, have the audacity to condemn others who actually read theirs, screaming aloud that they are heretics, sinners, and doomed to some fiery fate. For instance, this was the threat of the Gnostic current within Christianity and why it was so harshly stamped out by those who saw the church as a political foundation for power to administer on behalf of God, which of course, they do through degrading the tradition to an almost superstitious belief in the symbols themselves. All of a sudden the wine is literally blood, holy water can repel evil spirits and the like.
Why all this talk of religion, of current events, of hate, idolatry, bigotry even and what can it have to do with Freemasonry? In a word: Everything.
If Masonry has a religion it is the symbol. Not the ignorant worship of the symbol for the thing it represents, but for the devoted research, study, and inculcation of the meaning behind the symbol. The reality that the symbol, by itself, is a beautiful allegory of meaning when combined and mixed with the inquisitive mind and the working spirit that does not lay idle in hope that someone will tell it what to believe.
Understanding this truth, and the reality of the situation, is important to save Masonry from devolving into a system of ignorant tradition that becomes what it should vehemently labor against.
When, for the sake of harmony, for the sake of expediency, for the sake of laziness, we move quickly through the work, fail to uphold the highest standards, or fail to guard the West Gate against the ignorant and lazy Masonry is destined to the fate of foolish leadership or egomaniacal title collection that will bulldoze and destroy the philosophers of the Craft for fear that their own ignorance will be exposed and their titles recognized by others as ill received.
Allowing these men to lead results in a fundamentalism of sorts that holds highest the most ridiculous elements of the Craft while sacrificing its most sacrosanct to the fringe and barely tolerated. All of a sudden, and at once, the obligation becomes a gray area, we argue with anger, we guard foolish behaviors because we know no other behaviors, because we have opted for habit instead of devoted research, one being so much quicker and easier than the others.
We tell ourselves that someday we will study, that someday we will learn, but until then we spend our energies in Masonry climbing ladders and arguing against progression because we fear it for we have not studied it.
Preposterous statements that the Chamber of Reflection is a purely Christian Rite entitled to the Commandery are made by ignorant men whose only knowledge of the Chamber is their participation in it during a particular Christian Rite. Insufferable jewel collectors claim that Masonry is being wrongly crafted into the image of a few. They do this and claim this because a five minute Internet search is the pinnacle of their research and they fear discovery as a fraud armed with shallow philosophies if the true aim of Masonry is adhered to.
These men worship the symbol, dig no deeper than a facial examination of the lectures, and believe wrongly that some of the legend should be taken as literal history and that the discovery of alchemy and mysticism is a “stretch.”
These men commit the greatest of Masonic sins if such a thing exists because they allow the ritual and rites, without study, to become Masonry; the very thing Free Masonry should stamp out. The power of the symbol is the beliefs in the archetypal spirit of man that they tug at and represent. If Masonry is allowed to degrade into a set of working tools with elementary lectures explaining rudimentary moral concepts the Fraternity will die because its philosophies already have.
We must, within the Craft, utilize the philosophies of the Craft. We must educate and inform our Brothers so that they can form their own opinions without relying on the opinions of others. We must combat ignorance with logic. The brick of mortar of any institution is just that. It does not possess a conscience and does not have a “moral” anything. The minute we are put down, relegated, or denigrated for philosophies that stand behind the symbol and are told that there is nothing more to the symbol than a simple explanation or definition, or that the symbol is powerful for the symbol itself we should rise up, study, educate, and remember that if we put aside Masonic philosophies to fight on their behalf we have likewise been infected with the virus of ignorance and fundamentalism.
We must combat these things with Masonry, with philosophy, with open minds, loving hearts, and education.
What is the relevance of Masonry people wonder….well I wonder where in the world would a philosophy designed to unite and eradicate ignorance and laziness serve a great good. Then I wonder where in the world it would not.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Answering Dan Brown Question
I was asked the other day how one should answer questions about Dan Brown's new book the Lost Symbol.
My answer was and remains as follows:
My recommendation is not to apologize for Masonry and not to spend your time trying to "debunk" the Lost Symbol. In general, it was accurate. Masonry, in my estimation is a transformative art that does have the capability to transform matter.
It is fine and accurate to say, "I'm sorry, but I can't talk about that." But why should we nitpick the novel when it is so utterly positive. In many ways Dan Brown got Masonry better than some of its own members. The perspective that it is special, should be guarded and treated as such, and has the power to transform lives is 100% accurate.
Look people in the eye and say, "Yes we are a secret society, slightly less secretive these days and I believe this is the to the detriment of the Craft because the mystery we do have and is under the constant apology of so called intellectuals lining up at the cameras on behalf of Masonry in hopes of garnering numbers is sickening. The Craft is not for everyone, most men should not be members, not because the Craft is bad, but because they truly are not good enough in heart, mind and spirit to be members. That is what makes it special.
You may call me an elitist, but I must be honest, the world could use a little more elitism, a world where people cared to their core about themselves, about others, and about the condition of the world. A world where people hated the idea of remaining idle and spent their time, energy and money truly trying to improve themselves, and therefore, their community.
So go ahead, line up. Let the Christmas Christians and the closest conspiratorialist line up to declare we are evil. You likely know that in your heart of hearts, even if you had a dues card, the true secrets of Masonry would allude you just like they alluded the villain in Dan Browns' story."
My answer was and remains as follows:
My recommendation is not to apologize for Masonry and not to spend your time trying to "debunk" the Lost Symbol. In general, it was accurate. Masonry, in my estimation is a transformative art that does have the capability to transform matter.
It is fine and accurate to say, "I'm sorry, but I can't talk about that." But why should we nitpick the novel when it is so utterly positive. In many ways Dan Brown got Masonry better than some of its own members. The perspective that it is special, should be guarded and treated as such, and has the power to transform lives is 100% accurate.
Look people in the eye and say, "Yes we are a secret society, slightly less secretive these days and I believe this is the to the detriment of the Craft because the mystery we do have and is under the constant apology of so called intellectuals lining up at the cameras on behalf of Masonry in hopes of garnering numbers is sickening. The Craft is not for everyone, most men should not be members, not because the Craft is bad, but because they truly are not good enough in heart, mind and spirit to be members. That is what makes it special.
You may call me an elitist, but I must be honest, the world could use a little more elitism, a world where people cared to their core about themselves, about others, and about the condition of the world. A world where people hated the idea of remaining idle and spent their time, energy and money truly trying to improve themselves, and therefore, their community.
So go ahead, line up. Let the Christmas Christians and the closest conspiratorialist line up to declare we are evil. You likely know that in your heart of hearts, even if you had a dues card, the true secrets of Masonry would allude you just like they alluded the villain in Dan Browns' story."
Friday, September 18, 2009
Dan Brown Got It Right
“The doughnuts are on the table in the back Brother, make sure you don’t spill your coffee.” The night would be a busy one, the minutes were not read from just before they had gone dark, so there would be the minutes from that meeting and the installation. The speakers would be mentioned again and a brief tidbit of each speech would be reflected upon again in the event that something had been missed the first time.
This meeting is a little different, Dan Brown’s new book, the Lost Symbol, had arrived in mailboxes and many people had read it, had at least unwrapped it, and many more would read what everyone was saying about it on Google, and pretend to have read it, and some, as is their general approach to things, would have already formed a strong opinion of it (these folks never have anything other than strong opinions) without have read or researched the book at all. The strongest opinions, it would appear, are born of ether and not research, so it is best not to let them go.
The discussion this day, following the minutes, would be how to “handle” Brown’s book and what a Brother might say or do if approached by a potential member….and that’s where Dan got it right and the Craft got it wrong Brothers.
The constant downturn of membership has not stopped those who just know how to fix it from taking the reigns of every “Masonic” situation and turning it into a membership problem. We don’t have a membership problem, we have a perspective problem.
There has been a debate brewing within Masonry for years and to some degree Masonic education has caught on enough that not even the appendant bodies can ignore it. To some degree, Scottish Rite Masonry is leading the charge in this, at a conservative pace, but much better than no pace at all, which is the educational programming some lodges have chosen to follow.
The debate has been between educational Masonry and membership Masonry and is sometimes taken as esoteric Masonry versus exoteric, or that which is sometimes deemed “Fish Fry” Masonry as a term which is specifically meant as lightly derogatory to the form Masonry which is loaded with lapel pins, pancake breakfast, fish fry’s, and a believe that Masonry is a predominately good Christian organization that should really step up its efforts to relieve the poor or give to charity.
The question of the debate regardless of the side of the table you are sitting on, regardless of whether you thought you were only arguing membership or not, is HOW TO DEFINE MASONRY. A failure to realize this has created the reactionary stance of grabbing for members wherever we might find them. Those that lean towards educational based lodge experiences tend to be of the esoteric bent, but not always. There are a number of academically inclined Masons with little regard for some of the esoteric aspects of Masonry as an applied philosophy and enjoy the esoteric as research project as one might delve into anything that is little or less known. The membership camp is of the belief that a healthy lodge is one that is doing a lot of degree work and the biggest problem with Masonry is the shotty degree work and the lazy people these days wanting to stay home in front of their televisions instead of dragging butt to lodge and working to keep things going.
What is really being argued here is this. Group A would like to define Masonry as:
A philosophical and Initiatic society.
Group B would like to define Masonry as:
A fraternal organization that does good deeds.
Because we have failed to define ourselves in the recent decades when young men asked about us, society has done it for us. The answer was that an organization that can even define itself is, in large part, irrelevant. Thus, you had, “Freemasons, huh, I think my grandpa was one of those.”
Enter the Da Vanci Code. Brown defined the Fraternity in a roundabout way with his book. He defined the role of the secret society, which, by default, Masonry got some of the attention. Brown said that secret societies kept secrets and that some of those secrets could rock the collective consciousness of mankind back on its heels. This caused a problem for the Craft, in that, we were not prepared to discuss the Craft to that degree, because so many members of the Fraternity had not studied a single Masonic book, researched a degree, and in no way could discuss academically, philosophically, or intellectually a question about or accusation against the Fraternity. So, the argument became that there were no secrets at all, Google could find them for you, we are not ancient, our origins are not debatable, and whatever we are or wherever we come from, we are not mystical, spiritual, chivalric, or old. We are likely a modern English invention of men who like to dress up in the old days (we have often done away with that so please don’t let it keep you from joining), perform ritual (hey, we are not doing the WHOLE ritual anymore so please don’t let that keep you from joining), and meet in private (private isn’t like secret, there is nothing nefarious, or even interesting that happens in private and if you miss a meeting or all of them we understand, but if you could pay your dues on time or near on time or only one year late, that would be great). So, in effect, we communicated:
1. We are a Fraternity, not a secret society.
2. We don’t have secrets, and even when we did, they weren’t valuable or useful in any manner.
3. We don’t take ourselves or the work seriously.
4. We really need members (read in we are hurting for membership because we do not offer anything of value.)
5. We are not sure why we are doing it either, we have said it isn’t secret, it isn’t really Fraternal because real Fraternities demand participation, and we are not really……relevant…hmmm….hey did we mention that there are brochures and petitions on the table in the back.
6. We have no mysticism, mystery, or spirituality. We don’t want these things in lodge because they might offend an evangelical Christian, which by the way, we accept men of all faiths, but really we are mostly Christian and work hard to make sure that no Christian, even the ones with motives ulterior to the Craft, are offended, because like we discussed earlier, we are not sure what our motives are beyond seeking membership. (Note: if your only motive is to grow, you will likely see some growth. But keep this in mind, even weeds and viruses like to grow, and if this is your only motive, someone will make a living trying to destroy or eradicate you.)
7. Ooh, ooh, ooh….we give money to stuff.
My Brothers, this reaction is detrimental. I have seen it occur for another reason, besides knee jerk. It occurs when we do not know our own Craft or seek to deny or apologize for it.
If you are a Mason and you are attending a lodge where education is absent, if you have read little on Masonry, little on philosophy, if you have done the chairs but never conducted an in depth study of the ritual you used, if you believe that Masonic philosophy is the rote memorization of words, if you have recommended a man to the Craft whom you did not know very well simply to sign the first line and get another warm body, if you first learned of the theories in the Da Vinci code from the Da Vinci code but had been a Mason for decades, you must educate yourself and then others. Because my Brothers, when we are not helping the Craft, we are hurting it and it is important as Masons, that we conduct regular and honest self examinations. If our lodge is stagnant, it might because our frustrations with Masonry never move beyond ideas and conversations in the coffee room or parking lot. If you have a frustration, a question, a problem, a desire and do not move on it, do not act on it, then you are adding to the death of all good ideas that die in committees of inaction, even the informal ones.
My Brethren, it is time to declare that the Craft, is, in fact, a philosophical and Initiatic society. I am disheartened that Dan Brown took the time discover Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and the ancient mysteries and we still have members who have never studied the Pythagorean or Hermetic philosophy and cannot speak to the influences of each upon the rituals in our Craft. I am disheartened that Carl Jung used our philosophies to develop his understanding of speculative alchemy, yet most of our own members are not aware of the power of alchemy in a person’s life.
I am completely and utterly disheartened that the Lost Symbol is being addressed as a potential membership grab. Oh, we are not calling it that. We are claiming that we should be ready to answer the questions when they come, and with this I agree. It is the underlying message that there will be all kinds of folks, read in healthy young potential members, asking those questions.
We are not ready for those men and those who answer the question might just get this one drastically wrong. Before we can answer anything to anyone on the outside, we better finally answer the question of what we are first, and we better get it right. Our list of answers should have the following:
1. We do have secrets.
2. We do practice a form of ancient mysticism.
3. We are spiritual in a way that is so deep, so devote, so beautiful that we have trouble putting it in words. For reasons I can’t explain in material and mundane ways I am drawn to lodge, drawn to the ritual, and drawn to our ancient practices. I love it, but I can’t completely explain why and that is part of the secret…how it touches each of us.
4. There are esoteric aspects to Masonry that border on the fantastic. (If you have not studied as much as you would have liked, or maybe even that you should have, this is a great time to be honest and say, “Look, there is a whole lot of stuff out there that I have not studied yet in depth, you could make a lifetime study of our deepest and truest philosophies and some men, like Pike, Hall, and Wilmshurst have. And it’s not just the old guys, we have guys like Kirk MacNulty, Tim Hogan, Mark Koltko-Rivera, and others deeply affected by the Craft who are creating a whole lot of wonderful and philosophical material to devour anew.)
5. And…we better have this one ready to….”No, I can’t recommend you.” And Brothers, stand tall when you do this. You do not owe an apology to the man who shouldn’t be a member and you don’t have to start this one with, “I am sorry, but no.” Why are you sorry for protecting your Craft?
Brothers all, Dan Brown got it right. In so far as the Fraternity is a guardian of a lost secret. Dan Brown got right when we said that we harbor ancient wisdom. Dan Brown got it right when we studied the Kybalion, the Zohar, and the mystical traditions. Dan Brown got right. Will you?
We have a choice here. We can read the ancient tomes, the current philosophies, and the blooming Masonic writers. We can meditate upon our discoveries and utilize Masonic philosophy as a more than passive part of our existence. But first we must face some hard and brutal truths.
The Fraternity is not for everyone. It never was intended as such and is never going to work as a roof for all houses. When we have lodges that are failing, when young men go to a lodge after reading the “Lost Symbol” or books like it, or after reading the Kybalion, Morals and Dogma, or some old tome on alchemy and find poorly executed ritual by men who have never read a Masonic book in their life and believe that planning the next cooking event is of paramount importance, we have allowed a major and critical disservice to the Craft.
We must allow for idea that some lodges are going to die and it is likely because they should. Masonry is Lockean in its function and capitalist in its design. Don’t misunderstand me. I am speaking metaphorically of capitalism and providing that when the product has failed to meet the consumers expectation it should die so that the new and improved ideas and functions rise from the ashes as a new phoenix takes flight, or at worst, which still isnt’ bad, something that is not functioning properly stops functioning. I am aghast that we can be collectively upset in large numbers at a bailout of governmental proportions, but seem content to bailout failing lodges by joining their ranks in name only to keep a number alive. We don’t meet in lodges, we meet as a lodge.
A smaller, more precise, and properly funded Craft is needed. You want a successful Grand Lodge, cut away the failing and unused lodges, focus your efforts on those that will drive Masonry forward and truly understand it. We clamor for members, but those same misinformed and ill intentioned men end up in chairs stalling change at your Grand Lodge level and voting against even the smallest of necessary budget increases.
If a lodge is not a philosophical, enriching, and enlightening gathering of good men who study, know, and love Masonry, it should not be a lodge. Dan Brown has managed to discover the Hermetic origins of our philosophies, but we have members who have never read a single Masonic piece of literature. Right now, as we try to progress the Craft, the mantra goes that Masonry can be different things to different men. No it can’t. The proof is the fact that in many places it is failing. It will continue to fail until it defines itself and does so properly.
When you define the Craft as a purely fraternal and social order it will go the way of all the other purely social and fraternal orders that at one time tried to model themselves after Masonry. They collectively lacked Masonic philosophy and they died.
When a man comes into your lodge and says, “How has Kabbalah and the Zohar influenced what you practice here?” You should not be hearing the word Zohar for the first time. It should not be expected that we are all Kabbalist, it should not be expected that we are all Hermetic adepts, it should not be expected that we all know astronomy, alchemy, and the seven liberal arts and sciences as experts, but we should all be Masons. We should know why we do the things we do and we should have answer in our hearts and minds as to the true power of Masonry.
Instead of worrying about whether the Lost Symbol will create members, we should hope that we could create Masons. If we are going to make Masons, we can’t have our senior members learning about their Craft from teasers in a Dan Brown novel. We need to be Masons, to make Masons.
This meeting is a little different, Dan Brown’s new book, the Lost Symbol, had arrived in mailboxes and many people had read it, had at least unwrapped it, and many more would read what everyone was saying about it on Google, and pretend to have read it, and some, as is their general approach to things, would have already formed a strong opinion of it (these folks never have anything other than strong opinions) without have read or researched the book at all. The strongest opinions, it would appear, are born of ether and not research, so it is best not to let them go.
The discussion this day, following the minutes, would be how to “handle” Brown’s book and what a Brother might say or do if approached by a potential member….and that’s where Dan got it right and the Craft got it wrong Brothers.
The constant downturn of membership has not stopped those who just know how to fix it from taking the reigns of every “Masonic” situation and turning it into a membership problem. We don’t have a membership problem, we have a perspective problem.
There has been a debate brewing within Masonry for years and to some degree Masonic education has caught on enough that not even the appendant bodies can ignore it. To some degree, Scottish Rite Masonry is leading the charge in this, at a conservative pace, but much better than no pace at all, which is the educational programming some lodges have chosen to follow.
The debate has been between educational Masonry and membership Masonry and is sometimes taken as esoteric Masonry versus exoteric, or that which is sometimes deemed “Fish Fry” Masonry as a term which is specifically meant as lightly derogatory to the form Masonry which is loaded with lapel pins, pancake breakfast, fish fry’s, and a believe that Masonry is a predominately good Christian organization that should really step up its efforts to relieve the poor or give to charity.
The question of the debate regardless of the side of the table you are sitting on, regardless of whether you thought you were only arguing membership or not, is HOW TO DEFINE MASONRY. A failure to realize this has created the reactionary stance of grabbing for members wherever we might find them. Those that lean towards educational based lodge experiences tend to be of the esoteric bent, but not always. There are a number of academically inclined Masons with little regard for some of the esoteric aspects of Masonry as an applied philosophy and enjoy the esoteric as research project as one might delve into anything that is little or less known. The membership camp is of the belief that a healthy lodge is one that is doing a lot of degree work and the biggest problem with Masonry is the shotty degree work and the lazy people these days wanting to stay home in front of their televisions instead of dragging butt to lodge and working to keep things going.
What is really being argued here is this. Group A would like to define Masonry as:
A philosophical and Initiatic society.
Group B would like to define Masonry as:
A fraternal organization that does good deeds.
Because we have failed to define ourselves in the recent decades when young men asked about us, society has done it for us. The answer was that an organization that can even define itself is, in large part, irrelevant. Thus, you had, “Freemasons, huh, I think my grandpa was one of those.”
Enter the Da Vanci Code. Brown defined the Fraternity in a roundabout way with his book. He defined the role of the secret society, which, by default, Masonry got some of the attention. Brown said that secret societies kept secrets and that some of those secrets could rock the collective consciousness of mankind back on its heels. This caused a problem for the Craft, in that, we were not prepared to discuss the Craft to that degree, because so many members of the Fraternity had not studied a single Masonic book, researched a degree, and in no way could discuss academically, philosophically, or intellectually a question about or accusation against the Fraternity. So, the argument became that there were no secrets at all, Google could find them for you, we are not ancient, our origins are not debatable, and whatever we are or wherever we come from, we are not mystical, spiritual, chivalric, or old. We are likely a modern English invention of men who like to dress up in the old days (we have often done away with that so please don’t let it keep you from joining), perform ritual (hey, we are not doing the WHOLE ritual anymore so please don’t let that keep you from joining), and meet in private (private isn’t like secret, there is nothing nefarious, or even interesting that happens in private and if you miss a meeting or all of them we understand, but if you could pay your dues on time or near on time or only one year late, that would be great). So, in effect, we communicated:
1. We are a Fraternity, not a secret society.
2. We don’t have secrets, and even when we did, they weren’t valuable or useful in any manner.
3. We don’t take ourselves or the work seriously.
4. We really need members (read in we are hurting for membership because we do not offer anything of value.)
5. We are not sure why we are doing it either, we have said it isn’t secret, it isn’t really Fraternal because real Fraternities demand participation, and we are not really……relevant…hmmm….hey did we mention that there are brochures and petitions on the table in the back.
6. We have no mysticism, mystery, or spirituality. We don’t want these things in lodge because they might offend an evangelical Christian, which by the way, we accept men of all faiths, but really we are mostly Christian and work hard to make sure that no Christian, even the ones with motives ulterior to the Craft, are offended, because like we discussed earlier, we are not sure what our motives are beyond seeking membership. (Note: if your only motive is to grow, you will likely see some growth. But keep this in mind, even weeds and viruses like to grow, and if this is your only motive, someone will make a living trying to destroy or eradicate you.)
7. Ooh, ooh, ooh….we give money to stuff.
My Brothers, this reaction is detrimental. I have seen it occur for another reason, besides knee jerk. It occurs when we do not know our own Craft or seek to deny or apologize for it.
If you are a Mason and you are attending a lodge where education is absent, if you have read little on Masonry, little on philosophy, if you have done the chairs but never conducted an in depth study of the ritual you used, if you believe that Masonic philosophy is the rote memorization of words, if you have recommended a man to the Craft whom you did not know very well simply to sign the first line and get another warm body, if you first learned of the theories in the Da Vinci code from the Da Vinci code but had been a Mason for decades, you must educate yourself and then others. Because my Brothers, when we are not helping the Craft, we are hurting it and it is important as Masons, that we conduct regular and honest self examinations. If our lodge is stagnant, it might because our frustrations with Masonry never move beyond ideas and conversations in the coffee room or parking lot. If you have a frustration, a question, a problem, a desire and do not move on it, do not act on it, then you are adding to the death of all good ideas that die in committees of inaction, even the informal ones.
My Brethren, it is time to declare that the Craft, is, in fact, a philosophical and Initiatic society. I am disheartened that Dan Brown took the time discover Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and the ancient mysteries and we still have members who have never studied the Pythagorean or Hermetic philosophy and cannot speak to the influences of each upon the rituals in our Craft. I am disheartened that Carl Jung used our philosophies to develop his understanding of speculative alchemy, yet most of our own members are not aware of the power of alchemy in a person’s life.
I am completely and utterly disheartened that the Lost Symbol is being addressed as a potential membership grab. Oh, we are not calling it that. We are claiming that we should be ready to answer the questions when they come, and with this I agree. It is the underlying message that there will be all kinds of folks, read in healthy young potential members, asking those questions.
We are not ready for those men and those who answer the question might just get this one drastically wrong. Before we can answer anything to anyone on the outside, we better finally answer the question of what we are first, and we better get it right. Our list of answers should have the following:
1. We do have secrets.
2. We do practice a form of ancient mysticism.
3. We are spiritual in a way that is so deep, so devote, so beautiful that we have trouble putting it in words. For reasons I can’t explain in material and mundane ways I am drawn to lodge, drawn to the ritual, and drawn to our ancient practices. I love it, but I can’t completely explain why and that is part of the secret…how it touches each of us.
4. There are esoteric aspects to Masonry that border on the fantastic. (If you have not studied as much as you would have liked, or maybe even that you should have, this is a great time to be honest and say, “Look, there is a whole lot of stuff out there that I have not studied yet in depth, you could make a lifetime study of our deepest and truest philosophies and some men, like Pike, Hall, and Wilmshurst have. And it’s not just the old guys, we have guys like Kirk MacNulty, Tim Hogan, Mark Koltko-Rivera, and others deeply affected by the Craft who are creating a whole lot of wonderful and philosophical material to devour anew.)
5. And…we better have this one ready to….”No, I can’t recommend you.” And Brothers, stand tall when you do this. You do not owe an apology to the man who shouldn’t be a member and you don’t have to start this one with, “I am sorry, but no.” Why are you sorry for protecting your Craft?
Brothers all, Dan Brown got it right. In so far as the Fraternity is a guardian of a lost secret. Dan Brown got right when we said that we harbor ancient wisdom. Dan Brown got it right when we studied the Kybalion, the Zohar, and the mystical traditions. Dan Brown got right. Will you?
We have a choice here. We can read the ancient tomes, the current philosophies, and the blooming Masonic writers. We can meditate upon our discoveries and utilize Masonic philosophy as a more than passive part of our existence. But first we must face some hard and brutal truths.
The Fraternity is not for everyone. It never was intended as such and is never going to work as a roof for all houses. When we have lodges that are failing, when young men go to a lodge after reading the “Lost Symbol” or books like it, or after reading the Kybalion, Morals and Dogma, or some old tome on alchemy and find poorly executed ritual by men who have never read a Masonic book in their life and believe that planning the next cooking event is of paramount importance, we have allowed a major and critical disservice to the Craft.
We must allow for idea that some lodges are going to die and it is likely because they should. Masonry is Lockean in its function and capitalist in its design. Don’t misunderstand me. I am speaking metaphorically of capitalism and providing that when the product has failed to meet the consumers expectation it should die so that the new and improved ideas and functions rise from the ashes as a new phoenix takes flight, or at worst, which still isnt’ bad, something that is not functioning properly stops functioning. I am aghast that we can be collectively upset in large numbers at a bailout of governmental proportions, but seem content to bailout failing lodges by joining their ranks in name only to keep a number alive. We don’t meet in lodges, we meet as a lodge.
A smaller, more precise, and properly funded Craft is needed. You want a successful Grand Lodge, cut away the failing and unused lodges, focus your efforts on those that will drive Masonry forward and truly understand it. We clamor for members, but those same misinformed and ill intentioned men end up in chairs stalling change at your Grand Lodge level and voting against even the smallest of necessary budget increases.
If a lodge is not a philosophical, enriching, and enlightening gathering of good men who study, know, and love Masonry, it should not be a lodge. Dan Brown has managed to discover the Hermetic origins of our philosophies, but we have members who have never read a single Masonic piece of literature. Right now, as we try to progress the Craft, the mantra goes that Masonry can be different things to different men. No it can’t. The proof is the fact that in many places it is failing. It will continue to fail until it defines itself and does so properly.
When you define the Craft as a purely fraternal and social order it will go the way of all the other purely social and fraternal orders that at one time tried to model themselves after Masonry. They collectively lacked Masonic philosophy and they died.
When a man comes into your lodge and says, “How has Kabbalah and the Zohar influenced what you practice here?” You should not be hearing the word Zohar for the first time. It should not be expected that we are all Kabbalist, it should not be expected that we are all Hermetic adepts, it should not be expected that we all know astronomy, alchemy, and the seven liberal arts and sciences as experts, but we should all be Masons. We should know why we do the things we do and we should have answer in our hearts and minds as to the true power of Masonry.
Instead of worrying about whether the Lost Symbol will create members, we should hope that we could create Masons. If we are going to make Masons, we can’t have our senior members learning about their Craft from teasers in a Dan Brown novel. We need to be Masons, to make Masons.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Lost Symbol of Masonry Found
mbolHe tripped over it in a small graveyard at the edge of the world; the lost symbol of Masonry. The weather had been superb in a kind of sweltering tropical island way. He had stepped out of the little condo he was staying it and it immediately looked as if he had been running through sprinklers and his clothes took on the appearance of an avocado skin, lightly wrinkled and clinging to the flesh beneath.
The great thing about island life is that you simply pull your shirt off and ride your bike anyway he thought. What was the point of getting bent out of shape about anything? It was the only place on earth that people seemed to drive 20 miles an hour wherever they went regardless of the speed limit when they took the time to drive an actual automobile through the ragtag mixture of strange makemegoes that dominated the streets of Old Town.
On the bicycle then and off to wherever the wind dragged him or the shade made more practical to ride to. It almost called him in a way. The old island cemetery, with its eerie above ground sarcophaguses, seemed to promise adventure and mystery. The collection of tombstones seemed an army of broken promises, sad stories, and lives cut short. The sandy earth below had not held the heavy granite graves and markers in place, the stones leaning this way and that. The burial locations were seemingly picked with a dart, having no rhyme or reason to them.
Surrounded with a giant iron fence, it took a little time, but a pattern did emerge. There were smaller gates once inside, as if the dead would choose not to mingle. A circle and inner circle if you will, a court of rank even among the solemnity of the dead.
The cemetery had been divided. There was a Catholic section, a Jewish section, and a general, sorry you died section it would appear, and three small “Masonic” sections, in that, the areas were not fenced, but signs, plagues, and various forms of decoration made declarations that the Brethren laid to rest in the designated areas had been members of a particular lodge.
He toured them all. The Catholic section had an extraordinary number of saints, crucifixes, and crosses of various shapes and sizes. Lots of rote verse about the toil of life and the rest brought upon by death. The Jewish section had a lot of Davidic seals and stars and multiple Hebraic writings.
The Masonic sections had some of what you might expect. Squares and compasses, a few skulls and crossbones, some double headed eagles, some Templar crosses, and the normal Masonic fare. But as he wondered the different tombs, reading the words of memento left in tribute……
He tripped hard and landed at the foot of a grave. One of the slightly elevated island style graves with a small cement rim around the edge of the grave and gravel filling in the top. A small plague at the head of the grave read, “In Christ Jesus We are Saved,” with a small cross and rose next to it. Then, as he righted himself, the grave adjacent to it had a Star of David in the center and in Hebrew the words, “He was a father, a brother, and a friend.” The grave next to it had an engraving of the Virgin Mary wrapped in a blanket and glowing. The words read, “Into the fold we shall enter once again.”
In a world where people pierce, tattoo, dress, fight, and work so hard to be different. In a world where your race, your lineage, your family name are all reasons for separation. In a world where standing out is more important than standing up, Masons are buried together.
Why is that so important? Because those Brothers attended lodge together in life.
In a world where we build fences to divide the dead, the Lost Symbol of Masonry is found.
The great thing about island life is that you simply pull your shirt off and ride your bike anyway he thought. What was the point of getting bent out of shape about anything? It was the only place on earth that people seemed to drive 20 miles an hour wherever they went regardless of the speed limit when they took the time to drive an actual automobile through the ragtag mixture of strange makemegoes that dominated the streets of Old Town.
On the bicycle then and off to wherever the wind dragged him or the shade made more practical to ride to. It almost called him in a way. The old island cemetery, with its eerie above ground sarcophaguses, seemed to promise adventure and mystery. The collection of tombstones seemed an army of broken promises, sad stories, and lives cut short. The sandy earth below had not held the heavy granite graves and markers in place, the stones leaning this way and that. The burial locations were seemingly picked with a dart, having no rhyme or reason to them.
Surrounded with a giant iron fence, it took a little time, but a pattern did emerge. There were smaller gates once inside, as if the dead would choose not to mingle. A circle and inner circle if you will, a court of rank even among the solemnity of the dead.
The cemetery had been divided. There was a Catholic section, a Jewish section, and a general, sorry you died section it would appear, and three small “Masonic” sections, in that, the areas were not fenced, but signs, plagues, and various forms of decoration made declarations that the Brethren laid to rest in the designated areas had been members of a particular lodge.
He toured them all. The Catholic section had an extraordinary number of saints, crucifixes, and crosses of various shapes and sizes. Lots of rote verse about the toil of life and the rest brought upon by death. The Jewish section had a lot of Davidic seals and stars and multiple Hebraic writings.
The Masonic sections had some of what you might expect. Squares and compasses, a few skulls and crossbones, some double headed eagles, some Templar crosses, and the normal Masonic fare. But as he wondered the different tombs, reading the words of memento left in tribute……
He tripped hard and landed at the foot of a grave. One of the slightly elevated island style graves with a small cement rim around the edge of the grave and gravel filling in the top. A small plague at the head of the grave read, “In Christ Jesus We are Saved,” with a small cross and rose next to it. Then, as he righted himself, the grave adjacent to it had a Star of David in the center and in Hebrew the words, “He was a father, a brother, and a friend.” The grave next to it had an engraving of the Virgin Mary wrapped in a blanket and glowing. The words read, “Into the fold we shall enter once again.”
In a world where people pierce, tattoo, dress, fight, and work so hard to be different. In a world where your race, your lineage, your family name are all reasons for separation. In a world where standing out is more important than standing up, Masons are buried together.
Why is that so important? Because those Brothers attended lodge together in life.
In a world where we build fences to divide the dead, the Lost Symbol of Masonry is found.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Last Saturday He Died
It was like the air was a solid. Like one of the dreams where you are trying to punch or grab something and your hand can’t move fast enough. Palpable would not be an accurate enough term as it would not provide an explanation for the material and mystical, almost electrical, feeling to the entire milieu.
Men rehearsed their parts in quite corners, the whispered voices coming together to sound like an ancient language in chant to their God. The smell of frankincense and Cyprus oil wafted through the lodge as the small pot of incense carried their prayers for a positive experience to God.
Their uniforms were impeccable, each member caring for the presentation they were each about to play a role in, regardless of if it was a keynote speech for the night, or offering energy from a sideline.
It was time, the candidate had arrived. Hoodwinked in dark black velvet slowly walked to the black room of plaster walls and stone floors, he looked as if he were being lead to his death. The Expert draped in a dark black robe himself, jaunting the candidate from his somber step in darkness. The heartbeat of everyone in the room playing a steady beat to the rising excitement.
He would be warned. If curiosity had brought him there, he should leave, if he found differences among men and could not consider them, he should leave. But, if he truly wanted light and enlightenment with a pure heart he should proceed.
The room was dimly light. A single candle guided his focus when the hood had been removed. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dimly lit room. The skull of a man who he knew not stared back at him. He mustered the courage to touch it and as almost immediately he almost regretted the decision, his hand pulling back, it was real.
He wondered for a minute how this poor soul had ended up an ornament in this darkened chamber of morose décor. The thought flashed it could have been someone who had not heed the warning he was given before he entered. No he thought nobody would ever do something like that, then again, the skull was real.
He turned his attention to the questions in front him, none of them easy, and all at once, the sands of the hourglass seem to fall all too quickly and he wondered if he could answer all the questions. They were not easy and all of them required reflection.
Then he died……
His body was taken by a friend to the preparation room. He was prepared and he traveled in darkness, wondering if he had made the right decisions in life.
His soul, no material attachments to it, no metal to weigh it down, floated in circular succession around the symbol and altar of Deity. He was tried over and over. Did he have freewill? Could he exercise it here? Could he meet the requirements to truly be brought into the light? Then he was forced to recognize just how dismal situation was. He asked for something material, when the material had already been shed, and he realized he was lost, yet he stood firm ready for judgment and honest in his own self assessment, “I have nothing.”
Then it was done, like a dream, returned to the material world with all its trials, trappings, and tribulations. Not alone though, he learned that he friends, were there all of the while, that he was not just among friends, but family. A family of brothers that would support him in his darkest hour, guide him when he feared for himself, and let go when he felt he should walk alone. They were all upon an individual journey, but seemed at the same time to journey together.
What’s that he wondered? Was that a stairwell in the dim light?
Men rehearsed their parts in quite corners, the whispered voices coming together to sound like an ancient language in chant to their God. The smell of frankincense and Cyprus oil wafted through the lodge as the small pot of incense carried their prayers for a positive experience to God.
Their uniforms were impeccable, each member caring for the presentation they were each about to play a role in, regardless of if it was a keynote speech for the night, or offering energy from a sideline.
It was time, the candidate had arrived. Hoodwinked in dark black velvet slowly walked to the black room of plaster walls and stone floors, he looked as if he were being lead to his death. The Expert draped in a dark black robe himself, jaunting the candidate from his somber step in darkness. The heartbeat of everyone in the room playing a steady beat to the rising excitement.
He would be warned. If curiosity had brought him there, he should leave, if he found differences among men and could not consider them, he should leave. But, if he truly wanted light and enlightenment with a pure heart he should proceed.
The room was dimly light. A single candle guided his focus when the hood had been removed. His eyes adjusted quickly to the dimly lit room. The skull of a man who he knew not stared back at him. He mustered the courage to touch it and as almost immediately he almost regretted the decision, his hand pulling back, it was real.
He wondered for a minute how this poor soul had ended up an ornament in this darkened chamber of morose décor. The thought flashed it could have been someone who had not heed the warning he was given before he entered. No he thought nobody would ever do something like that, then again, the skull was real.
He turned his attention to the questions in front him, none of them easy, and all at once, the sands of the hourglass seem to fall all too quickly and he wondered if he could answer all the questions. They were not easy and all of them required reflection.
Then he died……
His body was taken by a friend to the preparation room. He was prepared and he traveled in darkness, wondering if he had made the right decisions in life.
His soul, no material attachments to it, no metal to weigh it down, floated in circular succession around the symbol and altar of Deity. He was tried over and over. Did he have freewill? Could he exercise it here? Could he meet the requirements to truly be brought into the light? Then he was forced to recognize just how dismal situation was. He asked for something material, when the material had already been shed, and he realized he was lost, yet he stood firm ready for judgment and honest in his own self assessment, “I have nothing.”
Then it was done, like a dream, returned to the material world with all its trials, trappings, and tribulations. Not alone though, he learned that he friends, were there all of the while, that he was not just among friends, but family. A family of brothers that would support him in his darkest hour, guide him when he feared for himself, and let go when he felt he should walk alone. They were all upon an individual journey, but seemed at the same time to journey together.
What’s that he wondered? Was that a stairwell in the dim light?
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