A Coal Away From The Fire

I enjoyed a very nice conversation the other night with a very good friend and current WM of a local lodge the other evening while we waited for loved ones to finish what they were doing. He told me of what was going on in his lodge and I listened with as much interest and empathy as only one who has served his lodge can understand. The strange thing about the whole chat, was that for the first time in many years the attentive ear my friend received was as far from being an active mason as it has ever been. I have been as far away from a lodge as I have ever been since I have written this blog and I am not sure of how I feel about it.
There are many factors that have led to my hiatus, including finally finding a very challenging and time consuming job, along with the usual constraints of being a father of three with a wife who works full time also, along with some other heavy baggage that you may be full aware. All of these things have led to my not going to my lodge or any other lodge for that matter. I am still a Freemason, a very proud one at that, I still wear my masonic ring everyday and answer the usual questions that comes with wearing such regalia but the farther I get away from going to lodge regularly the more I begin to ask the question of what it is I gained from regular attendance.
This question in my mind makes the Past Master in me shiver to my essence. When I was the one trying to get the brethren out to every stated communication or to the various events that were planned, I would think that the brothers that weren't there had somehow fallen off the wagon, masonically speaking, or had lost what it is that makes us an order. It was a very narrow minded thought but it is definitely one that every dedicated officer has at every poorly attended gathering.
The further I get away from regular attendance, the more I have garnered the question of what it is that makes us "Free" masons. Was slavish devotion to our home lodge thought of when the masonic order was developed? Is the lodge we are raised in the end all be all of our masonic existence, or were we meant  to be the traveling men we call ourselves? These are tough questions, but I have no doubt that many brothers like myself have found themselves at a masonic crossroad where they have found these questions echoing in their head.
I have not the answer, I travel on.
What have you discovered?

Are You A Traveling Man?

May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields and,

Until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

I am a traveling man.

My journey is never ending.

I travel towards the East,

The source of all light.

The source of all knowledge.

I am a traveling man.

I wander a winding road.

With many twists and turns.

I know not what lies ahead.

I find new truth with every step.

I am a traveling man.

On a path from whose bourn no traveler returns.

The final destination is not the goal.

The goal is the odyssey itself,

and what I learn with every new vista.

I am a traveling man.

It is the only thing I know for sure.

My insatiable curiosity,

and desire for knowledge

are my ever present companions on this trek.

Traveling.

Traveling.

Traveling.

Never weary

Never ending.

M.M.M.

A Master Mason Degree Then Dim The Lights

There seems to be a common thread right now in Masonic Blogs. They all have posted something in the way of "Well, I haven't posted in a while because I have been so busy with work, family and lodge commitments and the beginning of summer is upon us....."

Now I don't want to be one to be left out so let me start this post by saying:

Well, I haven't posted in a while because...

Between my last Masonic post and now, I traveled 800 miles each way with two children in the car to my sister in laws wedding in Kentucky. Again during a road trip pit stop in New Jersey I received warm fraternal greetings from a Prince Hall Brother who noticed the S&C on my T shirt and called to me "I see you are a Traveling Man" and gave me a brotherly handshake and hug and we exchanged lodge info and parted on the square. Even my wife, who at times seems just to tolerate my Masonic stuff loves it when I run into a Brother on the road. My four year old said "Daddy you have brothers everywhere!" to which I told her, "all over the world honey!" which she thought was so cool. But other than seeing where the local Masons lodge was in my Father in laws home town of Eminence, which is a very small rural town, I had no other masonic contact on the trip.

When we got home I had to kick it into high gear Masonicly. My lodge was about to host a Master Masons degree for the first time in a long time and I was responsible for getting two of the five Brothers to be raised proficient at the previous degree. We had a log jam of Brothers needing to be raised, and in Connecticut you can only raise five Brothers at one time (thankfully). Our district degree team was gathering to help us with the second half and was made up of more purple aprons than we had seen in our old building in forever so I wanted to get my guys up to snuff. I had two personal sessions with the Fellowcrafts and then started to plan for the dinner to precede the degree. Being Junior Warden is the penance to pay for leading the lodge someday. I cant wait to hand over the responsibility of the dinners to another Brother not only because it adds a huge responsibility to my job but we never collect enough donations to cover the cost of the dinners so I have been subsidising feeding the brethren for some time now.

The turnout for the degree was awesome. Although I could not chit chat as much as I wanted to with the visiting brethren because I was too busy setting up dinner and the lodge for the degree. I did however take the time to grab each of the five FC's and tell them to make sure to soak up as much as they could of the evening because it would be the best degree they ever went through and that it was the single biggest bind between brothers, going through the sublime degree. Afterwards one of the new Master Masons and one of the guys I coached, came up to me and thanked me for telling him to drink it all in which made me very happy.

Unfortunately because of the length of the degree and the lateness of the finish the gathered brethren left as quick as their cars could take them. Which left me cleaning up with only the Worshipful Master as company and he was itching to go, so there was not any fellowship after the degree. This was a big bummer to me because it was our last meeting before going "dim" for the summer. In CT we do not meet in July and August mostly because most buildings don't have air conditioning and summer is so filled with vacation and family obligations that barely filled lodge meetings would be even barer during these months. So I went home, hung up my tuxedo for a while, and went out in my back yard for a cigar and my whirling thoughts.

Although I welcome a break from the crazy schedule that my obligations have produced this year, I will miss lodge for a couple of months. I plan to do some serious esoteric delving this summer into our ritual and brotherhood so like my friend and fellow CT Masonic blogger says:

Stay Tuned.....