The Tao of Masonry

While some Grand Lodge officers are barely able to use their email, Connecticut’s Grand Master, MW Bro. Simon LaPlace, is going to do an AMA on Reddit Friday afternoon, June 7, from 3 pm to 6 pm.

Reddit is a news aggregate site, similar to Digg or Stumble. Users submit news items and articles of interest, and readers vote on the quality, timeliness, and usefulness of the item. As the site has grown over the last five or six years, users have added sub-groups, so people interested in certain topics can find items more easily. There are now several thousand interest groups, ranging from art, to cooking,  exercise,  investing, home remodeling, coin collecting, bicycling, and yes, even Freemasonry. I know this because I happen to be a mod on the Reddit Freemasonry group, along with another one of your blogging friends, The Millennial Freemason.

/r/freemasonry, as the group  is known, has been growing steadily for the last couple of years, with now well over 2,000 members. Since the Reddit user demographic tends to be late teens to 30s, the members are mainly younger (i.e., newer) Masons, most of whom are enjoying the opportunity to ask questions and trade ideas with Freemasons in other jurisdictions.

The other day, after I had been writing about how great Masonry is in Connecticut, and how progressive the Grand Lodge was with regard to online communication, one of the members asked if our Grand Master would consider doing an AMA. The next thing we knew, we had it set up.

An AMA is an online Reddit interview, in which a person of interest agrees to stay online for a few hours, answering questions from random users, mainly, but not always, about the topic at hand. While there have been several Freemasons who have volunteered for these on the subgroup /r/iama, MW Simon will be the first Grand Master — and apparently the highest ranking Mason ever — to sit in for one.

For some reason, I’m sure that this won’t stop the various conspiracy nuts from asserting that “Yeah, he might be a Grand Master, but he’s still not a high-enough ranking Mason to know the *real*truth about the Illuminati — Zeta-Reticulan — NWO conspiracy.”

If any Freemasons are reading this, please stop by and join in the fun. If non-Masons are reading this, please stop by and ask questions or offer up comments.

Friday, June 7th 3 pm to 6 pm EDT

Be there and be square!

Like a lot of my fellow Masons, there are times when I get really busy with work, family stuff, work, personal health care, work, projects around the house, and work. In the last few years, I have often missed lodge meetings because I’m working until 7 or 8 pm, or because I’ve needed to do something with the kids, or because some other matter has cropped up that I can’t take care of at any other time. I’m sure that this happens to other brothers, too.

That’s why I’m thrilled by Maso-Net, the new program that will be introduced by RW Simon LaPlace, the incoming Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, that will allow busy Masons to attend their lodge meetings virtually, at their own convenience.  I don’t want to spoil the surprise, which he is expected to announce at his installation as Grand Master during next week’s Grand Lodge Annual Communication, so I’ll just mention some of the highlights of the program.

While there have been online Masonic communities of Masons since the before the internet was available to the general public, they have generally taken the form of text-based message boards. Maso-Net will be completely different in that it will allow lodge members to actually see, and in some cases, attend a lodge meeting in real time.  To accomplish this, Mason-Net will have several components. One will be a Skype-like interface that will connect members directly to a lodge. Participating lodges will be outfitted with a large screen TV on the North wall of the lodge room, with a corresponding webcam positioned in the Northwest and Southwest corners. Maso-Net Members will sign in and be presented with a view of the lodge room that includes the Master’s chair, and the screen will allow the other members to see who has signed in. Maso-Net members, though their own webcams hooked up to their computers, be able to attend the meeting and follow along with the proceedings without missing any of the details. Amplified speakers near the TV screen will allow them to speak during meetings as if they were in attendance.

RW LaPlace initially conceived of this as a way to reach out to older brothers who were unable to attend because of health reasons, but the idea quickly gained ground among the Grand Lodge technorati who, accustomed to live webcam meetings, saw this as a way to keep existing brothers involved. As a Maso-Net member, a brother could work late, and take a dinner break to attend lodge. Users with smartphones (apps for iPhones and Android phones running ICS or better are already being developed) will even be able to attend while on the road, although they will probably need at least a good 3G data connection.

A real advantage to Maso-Net meetings is that a WM will no longer have to worry about a last-minute cancellation on a degree night. A brother assigned to a particular lecture will no longer have to cancel if he’s away on business; the Master of a lodge would even be able to open if he’s out of town. Imagine an older brother delivering the working tools lecture to his grandson from the comfort of his own home — in Florida! Or imagine a District Deputy being able to attend a different lodge meeting every night of the week, and not spending a fortune on gas and car expenses.  This aspect of the program is certainly a way that the Craft can take advantage of new technologies.

Another interesting component to Maso-Net that RW LaPlace is expected to announce will be the ability to sit in on lodge meetings at any time of the day or night by the use of streaming technologies. Participating lodges will begin recording their meetings and using broadband connections, begin uploading those meetings to the cloud. Maso-Net members will then be able to find a lodge meeting and replay it. Members will be able to pause the recorded meeting for a break, or even better, skip through the boring parts.

Still unannounced is just where the video recordings will be stored. The Grand Lodge of Connecticut has its own servers, but as more lodges join the network the data storage itself  would become unmanageable, to say nothing of the capacity for streaming a number of different meetings back to the members. Early reports have suggested Youtube, perhaps a dedicated channel as the perfect storage & replay solution. Obviously, the concern was raised that anybody could view a lodge meeting on Youtube, however, the counterpoint was raised that any non-Mason who viewed one lodge meeting was unlikely to make it a habit of viewing many more. I suspect that talks are underway with Google about the possibility of a private Youtube channel. Another advantage of this would be the ability to upload sections of various degree ceremonies in order for lodges to watch them for the purposes if ritual instruction.

There are other aspects of Maso-Net that will be made public after RW LaPlace takes office. About a dozen lodges will be part of the initial phase, and RW LaPlace will probably announce which ones have been selected after his installation, with more participating every month. Brothers interested in signing up to be a Maso-Net member are encouraged to talk to their District Deputy, who should have the contact information.

As a busy Mason who has been having a hard time getting to lodge meetings lately, I’m happy to see that Connecticut is on the forefront of bringing Freemasonry into the 21st century. Kudos to soon-to-be MW Simon LaPlace, and best wishes for an exciting year in office.

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Well, it’s about time that some of the Freemasons came to their senses, and we should all be thankful that Florida has the temerity to lead the way.  I’m talking, of course, about the recent edict by the Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Florida who is evicting anyone from the Craft who are not right-thinking, God-fearing Freemasons.

The Masonic online discussion world has been all a-Twitter over this, so there’s no need for me to go over the details, but the essentials (from the Grand Master’s Edict page) are these:

The question has arisen if certain religious practices are compatible with Freemasonry, primarily Paganism, Wiccan and Odinism, and secondarily Agnosticism and Gnosticism.

He then natters on about some legal stuff, and writes:

I. CONCERNING GOD AND RELIGION
“A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious libertine.”……….

And then finishes up with the important part:

Therefore, as Grand Master, it is my Ruling and Decision that none of the above mentioned beliefs and/or practices are compatible with Freemasonry since they do not believe or practice one or more of the prerequisites to be a candidate for Masonry listed above.

Further, any member of the Craft that professes to be a member of one of the groups mentioned above shall tender his resignation or suffer himself to a Trial Commission whose final outcome will be expulsion since there is no provision to allow anything contrary to the Ancient Landmarks.

Furthermore, Freemasonry prohibits the change of any of the Ancient Landmarks, and its members admit that it is not in power of any man, or body of men, to make innovations in the body of Masonry.

It’s about time that somebody took a stand to kick out those trouble-making types who can’t commit to a real religion, and who pick some made-up theology in order to join the fraternity. My only beef is that MWGM Jorge Aladro hasn’t gone far enough.

For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to Tom Hanks, Nicholas Cage, or any of those TV specials that have come up in the last five years, the Freemasons have very few actual requirements for joining. You must be a man, of lawful age, of good character, with a belief in a Supreme Creator. Some jurisdictions change the qualifications slightly, but those are the basics. Florida, apparently, has gotten tired of non-religious posers who are trying to sneak into the fraternity by claiming to be believers in completely fictitious, made-up religions like Paganism. Personally, I can’t imagine anything good coming from allowing such trouble makers into the Craft. If a real religion isn’t good enough for those people — or as is more likely the case, those people aren’t good enough for a real religion — then they are obviously rebels who will end up causing nothing but trouble for those around them.

My only concern is that Florida is about 240 years too late. Reading through my Masonic history books, I see that quite a large number of Freemasons from that time were also posers who claimed to belong to some movement called Deism. You can tell that Deism isn’t a real religion because they don’t have any churches. But even at that, listen to what those guys believed:

From Wikipedia:

Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature that he configured when he created all things. God is thus conceived to be wholly transcendent and never immanent. For Deists, human beings can only know God via reason and the observation of nature, but not by revelation or supernatural manifestations (such as miracles) – phenomena which Deists regard with caution if not skepticism. See the section Features of deism, following. Deism does not ascribe any specific qualities to a deity beyond non-intervention. Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. Deism may also include a spiritual element, involving experiences of God and nature.^[17]

So, let’s see: No churches, no bible or holy book, and a God that makes stuff and then wanders off to God who know where. Those guys from back in the late 1700s obviously were not members of a real religion, either. Too bad MWGM Alandro wasn’t around to kick them out of the fraternity, before they got themselves up to no good.

If you’re interested in reading more about this:

GM of Florida Expels Wiccans, Gnostics and Others

An Open Letter to the Grand Master of Florida

More Masonic Purging Florida Style

Just in time for the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping season, too.

From The Telegraph (UK) comes the headline:

Freemasons sell Christmas membership packs for £80

Its ‘secret’ handshakes and elaborate rituals have long been a mystery to outsiders, but the world of freemasonry is opening up by selling membership Gift Packs for people to give their loved ones for Christmas.

The Masonic Christmas Gift Pack costs £80 and includes a tour of the local Masonic Lodge, an invitation to meetings with masons, and – subject to approval by the local Lodge – a year’s membership to the group.

The British Federation of Co-Freemasonry described the pack, which is available until the end of December, as “truly a life-changing gift”.

Link to the rest of the article.

Friendship Lodge No. 33 was proud to host a visit from MWGM Gary Arseneau, newly installed Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Southern New England on Monday. This was the Grand Master’s “Homecoming” visit, and naturally he was accorded the highest honors and a warm welcome. MW Gary was accompanied by several other new officers of the GL-SNE, several of whom who were invited to help judge a chili cookoff dinner before lodge opened.

The Grand Master’s schedule is pretty full, so we were fortunate to get him to stop by so soon after his installation. To mark the happy occasion, the officers of the lodge presented the new Grand Master with a bottle of single malt for him to enjoy during the very few quiet moments that he will have during the rest of the year.

The evening was not all pomp and introductions, though. WM Ryan Carlson presented the lodge with a recitation of the infrequently heard third section lectures; otherwise known as the  ”Beehive” lectures. WM Ryan recited the entire section from memory for the benefit of five of our newest Master Masons.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation to MW Gary of a bottle of a very old single malt Scotch, presumably for medicinal purposes, as Grand Masters are notoriously prone to headaches.

From MWHMGary

The very full lodge was closed, and the Craft gathered downstairs for refreshment and several hours of friendly discussion. It’s unfortunate that RW Gary probably won’t get many opportunities this year to attend lodge at Friendship, but I’m sure how knows that our best regards attend him no matter where he might be.

We have nine Masonic Districts here in Connecticut, and the “guys who have been around” tell us that they were created according to the old rail road lines that ran in those areas. Back in the pre-automobile days, the District Deputies needed to take the trains (and then what, a horse cart?) to visit the various lodges. An amusing idea, although I have my doubts as to the veracity.

Several times a year, usually in a month with 5 weeks, the senior officers and other interested members of the lodges in a district will get together in order to keep abreast of what’s happening, to ask for (or offer) support for upcoming degree work, or to spread the news about some community activity. These meetings are called Blue Lodge Councils, and most lodges find them helpful. Our district has a little competition: the lodge with the most members that show up are awarded the “Traveling Gavel,” which entitles them to nothing except bragging rights. But it’s fun.

Friendship Lodge No. 33 is located at the southern end of the 5th District, and last night I drove up to Canada Collinsville to sit at the Blue Lodge Council meeting held at Village Lodge No. 29. As it happens, this was the Annual Meeting, which means a changing of the guard. Traditionally, the outgoing District Deputy for the district is arm-twisted elected to the position of BLC President, and his Associate Grand Marshal  is brow-beaten politely agrees to be Vice President or perhaps  is blackmailed into fills in Treasurer/Secretary position.

Last night, the previous  Associate Grand Marshall was in attendance, but the District Deputy was fishing and gambling away on an important business trip in Las Vegas. However, a fortuitous circumstance allowed a brother from Frederick Franklin Lodge No. 14 to contact RW. Bro. Larry over Skype using his iPad. The outgoing President, wanting to make sure RW Larry didn’t escape  seeing an opportunity for efficiency, was able to install his successor by placing the iPad in the East and swearing him in.

We rounded out the evening by playing Masonic Jeopardy, a trivia game in which teams (in this case, the A side of the district vs the B side) answer various questions on ritual, rules, and history.

And then I had to take the train back from Canada make the long drive back home.

A Worshipful Master noticed there was a newly proficient Master Mason who came to diligently practice the ritual every time the lodge was open. So the WM went to question him: “Dear brother, what are your intentions in practicing the ritual? What do you want?”

The MM said: “More light!”

The WM then picked up a tile and began to rub it very vigorously. Of course, the MM noticed this and asked: “What are you doing?”

The WM said: “I’m polishing it to make it into a mirror.”

The MM asked: “How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?”

The WM said: “You’re absolutely right, polishing a tile will not make it a mirror. How can practicing the ritual give you more light?”

The MM scratched his head: “Then what am I supposed to do?”

The WM replied: “It’s like an ass pulling a cart. If the cart does not go, should you hit the cart or should you hit the ass?”

The MM had no reply.

The WM continued: “Do you think you are practicing ritual or do you think you are practicing Masonry? If you are practicing ritual, ritual is not degrees, or opening and closing the lodge. If you are practicing Masonry, it is not a fixed form. In the midst of everything that is changing you should neither hold on nor push away. If you keep ritual in the lodge, this is dowsing the light. If you cling to the forms of Masonry, this is not attaining its essence.”

From Zen Masonry

Most lodges probably have a “move up” night, during which the officers will move up and perform the duties of the next station, usually as a way to help the newer officers prepare for the duties that they will most likely have during the next year. Once in a while, Friendship Lodge has a twist on that idea. We sometimes have a “Sideliner Night”, during which we randomly have the regular members draw a position out of a hat and fill it for the evening. We also have a “Shake-up Night”, in which the officers are randomly reassigned to different stations. It’s not really a big deal for the Senior Warden to fill in at the Junior Deacon’s chair, but it’s much more interesting when the newer, junior officers are suddenly promoted into the senior chairs. The other night, the Senior Deacon ended up in the East, and our “Associate Steward” ended up in the West, and our Junior Deacon ended up in the South.

Anyone who has watched experienced officers barely get through an opening ceremony can imagine the smiles (and groans) of the Past Masters watching such a display, but the Friendship officers usually practice several times for any degree ceremony, and so each officer certainly has seen an opening quite a few times during his membership. I happened to be sitting next to our Past District Deputy, and we joked that we’d seen worse at lodges on their regular nights.

Well, okay, maybe I wasn’t joking.

But here’s the interesting part. I was sitting there, watching the displaced officers trying to brazen their way through an Entered Apprentice opening, when I found myself ignoring what they were actually saying, and listening to what they were trying to say. Yes, most of them missed some of  the words, or substituted similar words, or switched phrases around — but that was just on the surface. When you listened closely, the words were wrong, but the ritual itself was right.

Masonic ritual is not simply a ceremony denoting the opening and closing of a lodge. Nor is it (as it seems to be practiced in some lodges) a memory competition designed to show who would make the better officer.  Our rituals, and the lectures during our degree work, are not empty passages, but lessons. Indeed, when the Worshipful Master is charged with giving instruction to the Craft, most people aren’t even aware that the ritual itself, is part of that instruction.

I have seen lodges in which Past Masters critiqued new officers, admonishing them for missing a word in an otherwise well-delivered piece. If that makes that officer concentrate upon the words, will he then begin to miss the underlying meaning, or maybe to miss the overall lesson of that particular piece? Personally, I think so. I’ve seen some officers literally close their eyes and stand , trembling with effort, to deliver a rushed, albeit word-perfect memorized lecture. I’ve seen more than one charge delivered at high rates of speed by men intent upon getting all of the words out lest they forget something and freeze up.

What is the lesson here? What values and precepts are being taught — or learned?

On another note, I’m happy to say that this week marks our Grand Lodge Annual Communication. I’m particularly happy about this one because it has been an excellent year for the outgoing Grand Master, MWGM Jim McWain. Bro. McWain has been a particularly good example of a Grand Master who has been able to blend vision with practicality. We wish him well in the future.

And adding to that, Friendship Lodge will see one of it’s own entering the Grand Oriental Chair: RWB Gary Arseneau will be installed on Monday afternoon. Gary has shown himself to be a dedicated and resourceful Grand Lodge officer for the last ten years, and we’re all looking forward to another excellent year. We understand that we probably won’t get to see as much of him in lodge as we would like, but the members of Friendship wish him well, and hope he gets a chance to visit, with or without his purple apron.

I just got a notice from the Grand Lodge office this weekend, reminding me that our Grand Lodge Annual Communication is only a month away, and outlining some of the issues that we will be discussing and on which we’ll need to vote. As usual, most of them are clarifications and procedural items.This is the dull part about Freemasonry; we sometimes forget that we have an organization, and with an organization comes — eventually — the organizing. You know what I mean: the bills, expenses, regulations, planning, and other issues that need to be taken care of before we can get to the fun parts.

Connecticut meets twice a year — not a hardship in a small state like ours — and it often amazes me that in one sessions we will quickly throw together a regulation, then vote on and pass it, only to modify it at a subsequent session when we realize it wasn’t written up as tightly as it could have been. However, I guess that the alternative is to mull it over for six months, send out proposals to the members, then collect various ideas and alternate proposals, and then re-vote on them. And believe me, you need to get this done before lunch, or else there will be a lot of complaining.

That said, this should be a great Grand Lodge. Since our state long ago squandered its money on some kind of hospital or something, instead of on a fancy Grand Lodge building, we hold our Annual Communications at area hotels. After about 10 or so years in Farmington, last year we moved our Grand Lodge to Cromwell, where the hotel management seemed a little more accommodating to our needs. Those “needs”  were mainly things such as to have a number of small meeting rooms available, to have a large convention room that would be private, and to be able to accommodate a large number of people just meandering around the floors, talking and socializing until the wee hours.

Friendship Lodge is booking a few rooms, and we’re in the mood to throw a party. A nice party. One that will probably last for a few days. Not that we need an excuse, but we have an especially good reason for doing so this year: One of our own is going to be installed at Grand Master.

R.W., Gary Arseneau (he’s the older guy with a beard in this picture) was elected back in October. The Grand Line in Connecticut is a little different from that in other states. We have 9 Masonic districts. The outgoing Grand Master will pick a potential successor from the district from which he came, which means that every year there is a Grand Line officer from a different district. While only the top three Grand Officers are voted on each year, the end result is that we have a progressive line from Junior Steward, right up to the GM. Once in a while somebody will propose changing this, but nobody seems to come up with a better idea, so we stick with it.

Fortunately for us, RW Gary is one of the younger, more progressive minded Grand Officers, and he has spent a good part of his Masonic career on the challenging committees, like Legal Matters and Welfare of Lodges. A bright, easy-going brother, he often fills in as Secretary at Friendship, and he has a wealth of knowledge that he never hoards, but happily spreads around to the lodges inside (and out) of his district. Gary, an engineer in real life, rigged up a series of thumb switches and a light box, and when coupled with a large supply of Masonic trivia index cards, has a traveling “Masonic Jeopardy” show.

Sure, he has his quirks, but we at Friendship are nothing if not tolerant of the quirks of our members. We’re counting down the weeks — no, days, now, since Grand Lodge is literally only a month away. Here’s hoping for a smooth transition, and a successful installation for him.

Picture Karma to 2balls1cane via Reddit.com

The real secrets of Freemasonry are not the grips, signs, words, or anything like that.

The real secret is that men who never clean up after themselves when they make a sandwich will happily toil away doing the dishes after a seven-course meal at their lodge. Please don’t let this get out the public.

(Picture found in the Freemasonry group on Reddit. Karma goes to user 2balls1cane.)