Are All Lodges Worth Saving?

In my seemingly never ending battle to shake the rust off a once glittering ediface, I have been as of late pondering the question above. For two years now, I have made it my quixotic quest to return a nearly two hundred fifty year old lodge to its former glory. I have volunteered for every comittee, been on almost every investigation, created an amazing website, and generally done everything in my power to save my lodge. I have had numerous conversations with every member I can get my hands on expressing my dream of what our lodge could be. I assumed positions that should not have been mine for years, if ever, all in the name of saving a very old organization from the decay that had pervaded it. While we have made some strides in the right direction I dont think we are any better off than when I started. Yes we have some new members, yes we have done some nice things, but overall my lodge has not lived up to the promise of brotherhood. We go through the motions but very rarely live what we preach.

Leadership is a lost art in my lodge. Flowery messages from the East mean nothing when you only devote the few hours of the actual meetings to the service of the lodge. The few Brothers who constantly take the burden of the lodge on their shoulders will eventually be broken under the strain. I am at a loss. My drive to finish my quest is diminshing. I see other lodges working together under great leadership and realizing their potential, but I am hard pressed to see it in my own.

Is it worth all of the effort???????

Columnist For the Grand Lodge!

A couple weeks ago I received a call from my friend WB Tom Accuosti from the Tao of Masonry who wanted to congratulate me for becoming a columnist for our Grand Lodges monthly (almost) newspaper. He, being one of those purple apron types, must have gotten an early edition because my copy only came today. Due to the limitations of news print it was slightly edited so I though I would put it up on my blog to share in its entirety. Although it mostly applies to lodges in the Nutmeg State, it is (in my own opinion) a good piece for all lodges. Enjoy!

Do You Want New Brothers or Visitors?
Update Your Lodges Website


In this new age of information and communication there is a relatively easy and amazingly effective way of letting brethren and men interested of becoming brethren know what your lodge is doing and that you are an active and vibrant member of the Masonic community in Connecticut, and best of all it is FREE, its your lodge’s website. Maintaining your lodge’s website and keeping the content up to date is a great tool to attract new members and let the traveling men know what is going on in your lodge. Let me share a little story of a man I know well and how the internet was the biggest tool in his approaching the West Gate of our Brotherhood.

A few years ago there was a certain young man who after watching a History Channel show about the founding fathers of America and after years of reading about Freemasonry in history books and in exciting fictitious novels, decided to research the famed fraternity he knew very little about. Like most men his age he was well acquainted with the Internet and in fact, the single biggest tool for researching anything he was interested in was right in his living room, his computer. The young man did an internet search of Freemasonry which turned up more results than he imagined.

He clicked his way through many websites, some bad, but many more good and eventually ended up at the website of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, the state in which he resided in. He scrolled through the different informational pages about the brotherhood and saw a link to a list of lodges in Connecticut. Sure enough there was not only one, but two lodges right in the city which he lived in, which amazed him because of in his short 30 or so years of life he had never had any contact with anyone who was a Mason. He clicked on the link for lodge nearest to where he lived and, other than the standard template and an address of the lodge; there was not much on the website. Perhaps they no longer met or existed? His curiosity was piqued never the less, so he hopped in his car to drive past the address from the website.

When he got to his destination he noticed an old sign post with a weather beaten and greened, copper square and compasses on it in front of an old brownstone, church looking building. It sure looked to him like a meeting place of the Order that many of the founding fathers belonged. However it being night time, there was no one there, so he went back home and went back to the computer to do more investigating.

He went to other lodges websites on the list and noticed that some had loads of information about their lodge’s activities with calendars full of events and this thing called a “Message from the East”, which apparently was a monthly update from the leader of the lodge, the Worshipful Master. Yet the majority of the websites had little, if any, updated information, including most of the lodges close to him. He was happy to find out that the brotherhood existed in the state and although the lodges in his city may not meet any more, which he thought because of the empty websites, he decided Freemasonry was something he wanted to be a part of, so he went ahead and filled out the form on the Grand Lodge’s website to become a member.

To make a long story short, after some emails back and forth with many different people the young man met with some Brothers from the other lodge in his city who told him that the lodge that met in that old building indeed still met and existed. After a short talk they gave him a petition to join Freemasonry telling him that he could join whichever lodge he wanted and receive the same Masonry. He went on to petition the lodge that met in that old building and if you haven’t guessed it yet, went on to be the sitting Junior Warden and author of this article you are reading, me.

The reason I told you my story is because as a Brother who came to Freemasonry in Connecticut by way of the World Wide Web I want to make sure that you don’t let a good man slip by because your website is not up to date. You may say, “Hey…you still petitioned your lodge even though their website was not updated” to which I will say that I am probably an exception to the rule. I have heard many stories of guys who after looking up their local lodge and finding the website dated or empty except for the standard template giving up on their decision to join or having second thoughts.

As members of the largest and best fraternal organization in the world we owe it to ourselves to shine our light to all who may knock, or click for that matter. An added bonus of having a great website with updated calendars and news of future events is that Brothers traveling around the state or world can know if they are in the vicinity of your lodge on a meeting night that there is something going on and stop by for a visit. We have had a few such traveling men stop by my lodge, one from as far away as a lodge in Germany and they would have never known that we were there and active without our website. We all should be very thankful that our Grand Lodge provides us with such a powerful and amazing communication tool.

So go on, update your website. If you can’t do it or need a little help there are many Brothers out there willing to help, just ask. Keep it fresh with news and events from your lodge and keep your calendar updated, you never know who will contact you, perhaps a future Junior Warden or a traveling man seeking the friendly confines of a lodge far away from home.

Endings and Beginnings

I have been sitting here trying to fashion some fine quilt of words to describe and update what is going on in my life and I just cant find the right materials.
My lodge's second half of the year began last Thursday without its Junior Warden. Even though I already knew I was not going to be there, because of my involvement in a community theater production that I became a part of over the summer, it was even harder not to go because on that day I received news that my job of the last ten years was soon to be no longer. It also happened to be my wife's birthday, so there were many things stacked against me popping in to say hello to my brethren after two months. I missed it dearly none the less.
For those of you who have read my blog from day one, or even month one, you would know that I am in firm belief that I was lead to the fraternity by my guardian angel, my departed son. My life in the past few years has taken a complete U-turn (or at least a major detour) from where it was before we found out about my son.
Through my interest in the craft I rediscovered many things that had been lost to my life. The introspection of the degrees rekindled my love of study and writing. The act of sitting in lodge and participating in the degrees returned my interest in theater, and the simple act of fellowship that comes from our fraternity restored a camaraderie that had been missing in my life.
In a relatively short time I left a shell that I had fashioned around myself and have re-found the life I was meant to live. Keep in mind that like all great teachers, Freemasonry did not just hand this to me with my dues card but allowed me to find these things on my own, which is always the best way to learn. I know for sure that I am closer to the man I was meant to be than I was before I knocked on the West Gate.
Could I have found this by joining some other organization? Perhaps. But I think it is the deeper aspects that only Freemasonry offers to those truly seeking, that helped me to blossom.
Although I have been one to always land on my feet after life throws you a curve. I am in a much better position now than I have ever been to know what the next pitch will be and to hit it out of the ballpark. We'll see.
Like the old saying goes;
God never closes a door without opening a window.

An Icy Hill in August

"The well-being of every nation, like that of every individual, is threefold,---physical, moral, and intellectual. Neither physically, morally, or intellectually is a people ever stationary. Always it either advances or retrogrades; and, as when one climbs a hill of ice, to advance demands continual effort and exertion, while to slide downward one needs but to halt"

Bro. Albert Pike

The Meaning of Masonry

Lecture

The Evil Consequences of Schisms and disputes for Power in Masonry,

and Jealousies and Dissensions Between Masonic Rites

When last I read these words I was dug in deep to the ritual. I was preparing for my first time in the East while reading three other books on Masonry and blogging about it all at least once a week. My effort was continual my thought was enveloped. Every meeting brought new challenges and satisfying rewards. The first half of the Masonic year at my lodge ended with the culmination of much work and fellowship, a Master Mason degree for five new brothers and then we broke for summer.

Just over the horizon, in the promise of summer, was a shimmering hill. Breaking over the hill was a blinding light that obscured the actual view. The light of continuing fellowship and working together to perform a MM degree ourselves, for other Brothers waiting for the sublime degree, warmed what was to be a couple of months where we would not meet. But overshadowed by the light, was the surface of that hill, glistening ice.

As the weeks passed by in summer bliss the effort stopped and with every day spent enjoying the season I slid further back. My reading slowed. My thoughts turned to other things. I lapsed into lazy enjoyment and here I am.

I have tried to get back in the swing of things but the call of the warm sun and delightful sound of my children laughing was much stronger.

Esoteric thought is like a growing garden. It needs continual pruning and work to keep out the weeds. The garden of my mind is a little overgrown right now which is not a bad thing. I realized that in my deep research and meditation about Masonry I had been a little absent in the things in my life that mean a lot more than the craft, my family.

I had realized this a while back but it really sank in this summer.

Recently while out for a beautiful and enjoyable meal alone with my wife the subject of Masonry came up. My wife stated that she loved the fact I was so committed to the order and she knew how much it meant to me but she asked me one question that I could not adequately answer. She asked me what I get out of the fraternity. I said that I had become a better man and enjoy helping others become the same (crappy standard answer). To which she told me that I was already a good man before I joined Freemasonry so that was not a good enough answer. Which made me stop and really think about it. I did not answer her question that night and have been thinking really hard about it ever since.

I guess it is the fellowship that really ties me to the craft. I enjoy spending time with other men who I would not normally associate with in my daily life. I also enjoy the ritual. It is a challenge to learn and perform the degrees for the benefit of the new Brothers. The deeper stuff can't be communicated but I realize that I need to tone it down a bit and enjoy what is around me more and not live in my own head so much.

The advancement starts anew.

Are The Degree Rituals Too Long?

Ever since my last lodge meeting, where we raised 5 worthy brothers to the sublime degree of Master Mason, I have been pondering how to improve the camaraderie of the degree nights. Not to say that fellowship does not happen, it does, but we build so much brotherhood during the degree and due to the length of the ritual and the late hour we finish everyone is usually in a hurry to get home afterwards. I have lamented this in the past and now seek a solution and I believe I have one.

Remove the first section, or Stewards lectures, from the degree night and do them instead on the next meeting immediately following the degree. They may be called something else in your jurisdiction but these lectures are a question and answer session between two brothers that rehash the entire degree that just happened and are required to be memorized to be passed on to the next degree. By moving this lecture to the next meeting night it does a few things.

1. From my own experience, after going through the degree it seemed so repetitive to sit and watch an entire play by play of the thing I just went through immediately after I went through it. When I study the candidates/Brothers faces when they watch it, no matter how well it is done, they too seemed confused or bored during the lecture.

2. By moving it to the next meeting it gets the new brothers immediately involved. Usually the meeting after a degree is held on a higher degree and the newly initiated Brothers feel a bit left out when they are told they cannot attend the next meeting of the Brotherhood they just joined because they are only E.A's or F.C.'s. This gets them right back in.

3. It gives the new Brothers time to mull over the Degree they went through without the pressure of memorization. If we tell them after the degree to just take some time to really think about what happened during the degree they can take their first step into really delving into the meaning of the ritual without having to recite it from rote.

4. It slows down the "Get them to the next degree as fast as possible" mentality that hurts the overall meaning of our craft. If we slow down the railroading of candidates quickly through the degrees we build better Brothers and consequently a better fraternity.

And last of all it removes a tangible amount of time from a degree night that can be better spent building upon the actual degree and the ties it forms between the Brethren. Maybe if it wasn't creeping on midnight after a degree more brothers would hang out and spend a little informal quality time with their new Brothers in a way that cant happen during a dinner before hand.

What do you think?

Do you do it differently?

Where Has Civility Gone?

Let me preface this post by admitting that 85% or so of the country is not like this from what I have experienced so if you are from one of those places do not get offended.

It was Sunday morning and my wife and I decided to go to our favorite bakery for breakfast so we loaded up the kids and headed down town. On the way I called my sister up to join us even though I knew this bakery is on the small side with limited seating but it was early enough that I figured we could grab one of the few larger tables that are available. My sister was waiting for us at the parking lot and helped unload my four and a half year old and six month old daughters and walk across the street to the bakery.

The bakery itself is in an old industrial building converted to multipurpose commercial use. If you didn't know it was there you would never find it, but I discovered it a while ago and have been a slave to its fresh baked delights ever since and hooked my family on it also. It is, first and foremost, a bakery and caterer and only half heartedly serves breakfast and lunch to customers who have about 10 two seat tables in a six foot wide hallway and three four seat tables on front of the counter to enjoy their scrumptious vittles.

We have been there many times and are usually fortunate enough to grab one of the big tables or take one just after someone finishes because it is first come first serve. Sometimes we have to wait a little for someone to finish which is alright with us because the food is soooo good but then you have a situation like one I experienced on Sunday that sets us off. So here is what happened.

We walked into the busy as always place and there were two of the big tables available as we walked down the narrow hallway towards the counter juggling a four year old, and baby in a carrier, past the two seat tables and people walking out. To our dismay a group of young women walked into the other door by the counter and grabbed one of the big tables. Which is fine with me because it is first come first serve and their party was as big as ours and I don't need special privileges just because I travel with two cute as a button little princesses. Just before we got to the other table a big guy with a turquoise bandanna covering his bald head sat down and got it before us. Which again was fine with me, he got there before me so it was his, but as we walked past him, ordered our food and discussed where we would be able to fit our little group, still swinging around a baby in a carrier and a four year old pointing out all of the yummy things she wanted to her aunt, the bug guy was joined at his table for four by his little female companion and that's it, no one else. There were eight empty tables for two behind him but I guess he needed the extra room for his elbows and such. He sat there waiting for his food and stared at us trying to figure how we were going to sit at the small tables with a dumb look and never thought about giving the table up to us. There is the problem.

We have been there many a time while some person sat at a table for four sipping coffee by themselves while we scrambled around sitting at two table for twos feeding two kids and ourselves on tiny two foot by two foot tables(thats a lot of 2's). I know it is our problem for going to this place, but I was raised to be polite. I was taught to give up my seat to an older person or woman with children. I was taught to hold a door for someone behind me. I was taught to let someone with one thing go in front of me at the grocery store when I have a full cart. I was taught to say please and thank you to everyone and I endeavor to teach civil behavior to my children. I just cant understand people who don't do these things and although I usually shrug it off, sometimes it gets to me. This guy saw us struggling to seat ourselves and (probably)never thought about how rude it is to sit at a table for four when you only have two. That is one of the bad things about living in the North East in America, most everybody is out for themselves. My wife, who is from the South where people are more kind and considerate in general, said to me as we left the bakery we should get out of this part of the country. I sometimes think she is right.

What does this have to do with Masonry?

Nothing really, I just wanted to rant.

I wish more people read the book by our illustrious brother above and took it to heart.

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.