Peacocks and Pomposity

You know 'em.

What is it about our fraternity that leads a man to the very un-masonic act of pomposity?....Well duh!

Let me rephrase the question.

What can we as a brotherhood do to limit those who treat every medallion attached to the rear of their automobile as a P.H.D., from tainting the perception of the craft?

Boorish behavior is the net result of someone taking their membership of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons to that umpteenth degree of ridiculousness and making sure everyone around them knows about it. They never give anyone a chance to share and care more about "the Brotherhood" than brotherhood. They permeate our society and due to their unmitigated devotion to the craft, regularly end up in some form of leadership position.

Unfortunately for us, the nature of a volunteer organization rewards men of such constitution and there is not much we can do about it. When I was in the Navy (another volunteer organization) I encountered many of these types and they are always a sour note to my old sea stories. Arms full of stripes and a chest full of ribbons did not always make a great sailor and the same notion holds true to Freemasonry. You can be called a "Knight" or "Monarch" or whatever but if you treat a Brother Master Mason like an inferior you are not a true Brother.

I treat every one the same as I would liked to be treated. Be he a candidate in search of light or a fifty year Past Grand Master, and that should be our conduct to everyone! Non Masons included.

I will admit that many of these "peacocks" have devoted tremendous amounts of time and energy to Freemasonry and their ardor is not unappreciated, but sometimes I cringe when those guys get a hold of a new candidate and hold court for a while.

It is not what we are about.

Or is it????

***SECRET MEMO***DO NOT READ***

(gentlemen set your phasers to snark)

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>>>THANK YOU FOR ENTERING SECRET PASSCODE <<<

9th through 17th degree masons (cause thats the rank of the real secret leaders, heh heh, sorry 33rd's.....stroke white cat here). As we all know, because we actually wrote it, there will be a new book released in the month of Septembiconus that will heighten the interest in our brotherhood.

Unbeknownst to all, but knowenst to us, we have already laid the ground work to secretly keep our secret intentions and meetings secret and I would like to reiterate the plan for those who have just earned the rank of 000000000013579 in seret.

Firstly,

If your lodge has done actually nothing to create or maintain a "website"....bravo. You are the frontline of keeping those whipper snappers who use the interweb for everything from finding anything out about our wonderful fraternity. Sure there are plenty of "sites" out there but if there were young men who wanted to join you in your particular area they can find out nothing about you unless they accidently stumble upon a meeting, somehow.

Secondly,

For those who have a had "website" forced upon you by an overbearing Grand Lodge who actually maintains and pays for it. Don't do anything with it. I repeat DON"T DO ANYTHING WITH IT. Make sure that the pages are the same standard ones that were forced upon you and if you can, make sure that if you do anything write a message from the East from 2003 that states how excited you are about the upcoming picnic or whatever mundane thing you can think of. We really want those techy types to think that we are the most out of date boring organization out there. THAT'LL keep em out!

Everything will go according to plan if we maintain that our fraternity is your grandfathers or great granfathers thing and not anything that would appeal to a "modern" man...

Our numbers will fall back to their proper pre-enlightenment size and we can go back to the ice cream socials and sock hops that we all fondly remember.

From the North Eastern Corner,

Matt M. Morris

(because you already knew my name)

>>>END OF TRANSMISSION<<<

the book is coming???!!!???

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The Sound of Silence

The other day, while I was driving to my parents house to pick up my daughter who had spent the night at Nanny and Gramp's, I started to think about a strange thought that popped into my head as I cruised at 35 miles per hour, music playing and receiving an email on my iPhone (and yes I have left the fruity comforts of my blackberry and joined the evil minions of "i"),

my god, modern society has been robbed of the joy of EVERYTHING because we can get ANYTHING ALL OF THE TIME!!!......sorry for yelling, let me explain.

Lets travel back in time to the dark and desolate time of the 1970's and 80's when I grew up.

Back then if someone had wanted to get a hold of someone they had to walk to a certain area of their dwelling or specially located communication areas scattered about the globe and pick up a phone receiver, which happened to be tethered by a usually unwieldy spiral cord, to a box with numbered buttons, or a mechanical wheel with holes in it if you couldn't afford one of those fancy push button ones, that itself was tethered to a jack in the wall. You dialed the number, and if all stars were aligned, and no teenage girls were tying up the line because back then you were only allowed one call at a time(is there even such a thing as a busy signal anymore?), you might get a hold of someone if they happened to be home at the time if not you had to try again later until someone was there.

A major event every day was the coming of the friendly Postal carrier, or mailmen as we called them, which brought hand written letters or catalogues (a large bound book of things for sale which only came out a few times a year, if that) and the standard bills for living. Letters would be opened and read with much ado and kept as treasured keepsakes. Catalogues were studied and dog eared and shared by all to find that certain something you dreamed about and would purchase at a later date if you could save up the money, or put on layaway(and old purchase program for this you couldn't afford). And bills were bills yet they had a more ominous meaning when they were in paper right in front of you.

Television was about thirteen sometimes blurry channels you navigated by getting up from your seat and turning a plastic knob on your 16 inch television tube which was the size of an oven to see what was on. Once a year they would televise your favorite movies, that was another huge event that you would anticipate like Christmas and the whole family would gather to watch together. Every night at midnight, or an hour or so after, the National Anthem would be played to the picture of the country's flag and then the screen would turn grey and be off the air until the next day.

Music was a very communal thing. Sure there was radio, but if you were at home and wanted to listen to your favorite artist or tune, you had to find the dinner plate sized plastic disk, or side plate sized disk with the huge hole in the center and find someone who was authorized to use the very valuable record player to engage the delicate needle to play the music to be shared by all in the room.

Alright.....................................................................................................................................................

I am sounding like one of those spam emails sent to everyone in a certain generation, but I can not help to think of how nothing is special anymore.

Access to everything is immediate and easy for most of us nowadays and the magic of certain things is gone forever.

Communication

Shopping

Movies

Music

Things that were special are not anymore because of the wonders of the information age and I think it is a little bit sad.

Many of the things that were a shared experience in my youth are a solitary experience now, and due to the ease of things, are not even enjoyed as they were just a short time ago.

We are barraged every minute of every day with a constant influx of info and it has all become the usual.

Our friends and family can be reached at anytime anywhere,

We can get what ever it is we want tomorrow, regardless if we can afford it,

We can watch what makes us happy all of the time,

and we can hear amazing music, by ourselves, by pressing a button.

Are we better off?

Operative Mason

My lodge has the very distinct honor of having an operative mason as our Worshipful Master and it is my honor and pleasure to call him Brother. For those unfamiliar with the terminology it means he is an actual stone mason by trade. While most of us spend our days pondering and speculating upon the ancient craft of Masonry my W.M. lives it because he is an actual mason. He spends his days in the dirt amidst billowing clouds of cement dust and heavy blocks and let me tell you nothing in our ritual comes even close to the toil of being a mason. I know this now because in a flash of brilliance my wife and I decided to tear down our old deck and replace it with stone steps and a paver patio in my spare time. My Brother agreed to help me with my little project and has come to my house for nearly a month to pay me back for all the pestering and nagging he has received from his overbearing Senior Warden, or Wicked Witch of the West as he likes to call me.

Previously at night and on the weekends I had slowly demolished my 14 x 20 deck and cleared the debris for my glorious introduction into real masonry. The pavers were chosen and delivered to my house and I got up on a Saturday with a air of invincibility and strength which rapidly faded with every shovelful of stone filled soil we removed to create the foundation for my stairs. I remember reading as a kid of how hard it was for the pilgrims to make farmland in the rocky New England soil and boy they weren't kidding. After one hour of being a real mason I found myself entirely depleted of all the strength I woke up with but I persevered because my Brother, who has a few years on me, didn't even break a sweat. As he instructed me on the finer parts of mixing cement by hand, he thought it was hilarious that I was huffing and puffing like a marathon runner at the end of 25 miles while he could wield a hoe and shovel like a feather. Now don't get me wrong, in my regular job I lift thousands of pounds of steel a day but it is in small bursts of strength not the constant grind of moving heavy earth and stone and all that goes with it for 8 hours plus a day. His patience and understanding are boundless and his Brotherhood is second to none.

I have learned many things in the past month of doing this project with my W.M. but the greatest thing I have come away with is the amazing bond that can be made by common labor among men. As we toiled and struggled day after day, all the while exchanging jokes and stories of our lives, we truly shared an experience of building something beautiful and are closer for it. That is what we are supposed to do as Freemasons.

We have two important building tasks at hand while we labor together as speculative masons.

The first task is to work together to improve ourselves as men and Freemasons. It is not an easy task, and some of us stones are allot rougher than others, but we must constantly and conscientiously strive to wield our common gavels to chip away the ugly parts of ourselves to create a more perfect stone to use in the second task and that is in the building of our lodge.

Not the building we meet in but the collective creation of men that meet every two weeks or so. As we work together to make ourselves better in our ritual and regular meetings we grow stronger by spreading the cement of Brotherly love.

Cement is not an easy building material. It requires a correct blend of certain elements mixed just right to achieve the reaction that is needed to build and patience for it to cure. The amazing differences of the Brethren of a lodge mixed just right with the patience of allowing the ceremonies of our craft to "cure" can build anything.

Our lodge is in an incredible period of growth and rebuilding. We have already had almost 10 men entered into our Brotherhood and the list of candidates grows every meeting because under the guidance of our incredible W.M., allot of fellowship, and a little help from the "Wicked Witch of the West". I have much to live up to if I assume the East next year and I know I have Brothers who will be there to help.

P.S. I now know why us masons kneel at the begining of our labor...................

The Compass

Down the hall from the middle chamber in the back corner of King Solomons Temple was a plain door. It had no markings on it or no gilded frame work just a plain wood door with a brass handle on it and behind the door was the office of Hiram Abiff. 

Its walls were stacked with all sorts of scrolls and tablets and tools of every shape and size whose purposes and uses were known only to a few. There were a couple of planks placed on wood workhorses where the trestleboard lay with plans for the labor of the craft and upon the trestleboard was the most important tool of them all, the compass. 

This tool was acquired from traders from the far East where the sun rises to rule and govern the day. The compass allowed the Grand Master to lay out exactly how the building was to be built according to the cardinal directions, regardless of the time of day, or if the heavens were visible or not because of the invisible force that surrounds the globe and keeps the needle floating on a small pool of water always pointing in the same direction. No matter which way you turn, indoors or out, on the high plains of Asia or the deep jungles of Africa the compass always points in the same direction. 

We as Free and Accepted Masons should let it remind us of the invisible hand of providence that will always guide us in the right direction. In the darkest hour, under stormy skies and in the depths of the murkiest forest, when you can find no clear indication of which way to go and you feel as if you will never find your way again all you have to do is wait for the pool of water that is your being to settle and let the needle of the Great Architect of the Universe point you in the right direction again. The direction never changed, it is always there, the invisible force of right and good just needs a still pool and the smallest indicator to guide those that will wait for it to set them on the true path of light.

Long as I See Light

Every few months or so, my wife and I get a reprieve of our parental duties and get a night on the town to dine, catch a movie and rush home to catch up on sleep. Tonight it was her turn to pick out the film and we went to see "State of Play" (because no amount of arguing on my part would get my wife into the new Star Trek movie!) and as much as I wanted to see the back story of my favorite futuristic friends I settled into the murder mystery my wife sold me on. The simple plot of the whole movie was a Washington news journalist (Russel Crowe) piecing together three seemingly unrelated murders in our nations capitol. Soon into the movie I noticed a blue coffee mug with a square and compasses on it in the residence of the protagonist Cal McAffrey (Crowe) and a ring on his pinky finger that might, or might not, have been masonic. Giddy up! A Masonic movie, right? Well not really, but the brooding truth seeker Cal was apparently a mason and I spent the rest of the movie looking for hidden symbols or a decent storyline and came up empty on both searches. Well not really, there was a fleeting screen shot of a marching band on the steps of the House of the Temple in DC which made absolutely no sense, and the story would have been all right if it were an hour shorter but it was a Hollywood movie so I was asking for too much.  

The gist of my post is, since becoming a Freemason I am hyper sensitive to seemingly meaningless images thrown at us, and there are a lot of them, and why they are there. The kicker of the whole thing was the undercurrent of the movie, which was not really developed, was bloggers vs. "real" journalists and the movie ended with a behind the scenes clip of a newspaper being printed with Creedence Clearwater Revival's "As Long as I See the Light" playing in the background, you make the connection.

Housekeeping and Other Thoughts

Here I am, again, enjoying on my back deck a few of the finer things in life; a good cigar, an Irish Whiskey and checking out my favorite Masonic Blogs. I have long been a fan of the aggregator King Solomons Lodge.  For a long time it was a daily destination of a mouse click (and still usually is) but as it has become more and more popular globally (which is quite a testament to Brother Jeff's foresight and vision) I feel as if I have to plod through a security point at J.F.K. just to see what my friends are up to, so, as of late I have used my own links (much slower but less hassle) to see what is being written about the Craft I love so well, by my cyber Brethren.

As I go down the list I recognise a few trends; centralization, "blog fatigue" (you heard the term here first), and extraction.

The first trend is coming about with powerful cyber-Masons like Brother Greg Stewart who seems to be absorbing Masonic Blogs like a "Sham-Wow". Some of my favorite blogs writers have decided to give up their independence and join Freemason Information and leave their unique identities behind. Recently I read a very interesting article about how bloggers are very much like the pamphleteers of the American Revolution and how the independent voices were slowly conglomerated, and I paraphrase here, into the New York Times (yuck!) and how Bloggers were a refreshing link to the independent thought of the past.

The second trend is blamable, (and perhaps the first also), on "Blog Fatigue". A blog, as engrossing at times as it is, is very hard work for no pay. When I started my blog and when it was in its "heyday" I tried to write at least two new posts a week, then it became one, and now I'm Lucky if I bang one out a month. Writing, like Dan Brown has shown us with the lengthy gap since his last book, is not an easy thing to do, and although we all have high hopes and big aspirations when we start a blog we soon find out we already wrote about most of the things we really cared about right off the bat and there are only so many Halcyon Lodge episodes a decade, so what is left; rants and updates and that gets tiresome after a while. Which leads to the last trend extraction.

There are too many dead blogs for my taste on my "Great Masonic Blogs" list! I know its hard,  but there were so many real quality bloggers/writers who have thrown in the towel that it hurts. My inbred Irish Catholic guilt and stubbornness stops me from deleting these links (and you know who you are) but my keen cyber reality begs me to remove them (I still just cant). I just hate seeing *&%%$@!#@blogspot.com has been removed, its like a grave stone of a friend, always there to remind you of the good past.

Anyways, its getting late see you at my next rant.

I'm starting to feel like Andy Rooney!