The Tao of Masonry

“So, what’s your secret recipe for this great tomato sauce?”

I heard this from at least 8 or 9 people on Saturday night, when my wife and I served up 65 pounds of ziti and 480 meatballs, all covered in almost 25 gallons of our home-made tomato sauce. No, I don’t have a big family; this is a now annual fund-raising dinner to help out the confirmation class of the First Congregational Church in downtown Southington.

I know, I know – you came here to read about Freemasonry, not about my cooking skills. I’m getting to that part.

My wife and I had started cooking the sauce a week previously, using the 8 burner stove and large pots available in the church kitchen. I’m sure that the church meeting hall must have smelled like an Italian restaurant by the end of the week, and by 5:30 pm – a good half hour before the advertised time – people were ready to stampede lining up to get good seats. We started serving at a quarter to six, and didn’t get a lull until well after 7:00, at which time I was able to walk around, fishing for compliments asking for feedback for the next year. And that’s when I noticed something: even though I told people what I put in my sauce, everybody acted as if I were being cagey about the answer. But that certainly was not the case; I’m usually more than happy to tell people what my own recipes are, and in fact, I’m going to tell you right here how I make tomato sauce.

Yeah, yeah, I know – you’re waiting for the part about Freemasonry. It’s coming, really.

A word of caution: if you’re the type of person who enjoys “recipes” that include such syrupy metaphors as “Add a cup of courage, a teaspoon of tolerance, stir with passion, and serve with L O V E“, then get thee hence! This blog is a NO GLURGE ZONE. Sure, those cutesy sayings were funny the first six or seven hundred times I heard them, but enough already. The 70s are over, and those little naked kids with the big eyes and hearts over their heads are has-beens. Deal with it.

Yes, yes, I’m getting to the part about Freemasonry. Really.

Now, I take a dim view of people who refuse to share good recipe. I don’t care if your great-great-grandmother carried it in her boot when she came from the old country, or if you just discovered it while messing about in the kitchen. In my opinion, the kind of people who won’t share their recipes are merely feeding their egos while they feed you a meal. When they invite you to dinner, it’s either to brag or to play the “I’ve got a secret” game and are, in essence, saying “Hey, I’ve got this really great thing and I’m only going to let you have a little taste in order that I might feel special. But don’t worry; come back next year and I’ll let you have another little taste, just so you can remember how special this is.”

Even more odious are those that purport to give you the recipe, but hold back a key step or ingredient, thereby making you think that you are stupid for not being able to follow directions. A pox on all of them.

What? Oh, yeah – the Freemasonry part. Sorry.

When the first few people asked what I put in my sauce, I told them “A hell of a lot of tomatoes.” It was funny at the time, and very true – we bought over two dozen of those large restaurant sized cans at the local warehouse store, along with salad for 200 people, dressing, grated Parmesan, and sundry other items. We started by sauteing several bulbs – that’s bulbs, not cloves – of crushed garlic in olive oil. Once the smell started wafting through the church hall (I should point out that I did this during one of the services in order to remind people of the upcoming dinner) I added a few scoops of the crushed tomatoes, and some of the typical Italian spices: oregano, parsley, basil, and a bit of fennel seed. I let this cook for a good thirty minutes, and then put some into each one of the five large pots. This served as a base, to which we added the rest of the canned tomatoes. One pot we reserved as a marinara sauce, and to the others we added some cooked ground beef (left over from the Rally Day picnic in September), and some minced and cooked Italian sausages, both of which had been cooked and minced previously in order to save time. We cooked the sauce for about six hours that day, and then came back for a few hours mid-week, and put them on again first thing Saturday morning so that they had another good eight hours to simmer. Usually I put some red wine in the sauce to counter the bitter taste from the tomatoes, but after a few people had concerns about sensitivities to the sulfites in the wine, this year I opted to add some sugar and salt.

I have to say that this was one of the best batches of sauce that I’ve made in a few years. Even my wife will attest that this year it was particularly good, and the compliments from the hungry crowd was certainly a testament to how it turned out.

Yes, yes – I’m coming to the Freemasonry part directly.

I told every person who asked me exactly what I used in the sauce – which, as you can see, are just regular Italian spices. Every person had the same reaction: If I’m just using regular spices and ingredients that you normally find in sauce, then why did this batch come out so well? Certainly I’m leaving out a crucial step, a secret ingredient, a particular item that made this come out better, right? After all, you can’t just throw some tomatoes and spices in a pan and expect it to come out like that, right? Right?

Apparently, my sauce admirers miss the essential point.

They had the list of ingredients that I use, and I even gave them some little tips. And while in theory there might be some small differences between brands of tomatoes or spices, in practice I’ve never noticed any significant difference.

So, what is the point of all this?

The raw tomatoes contain a lot of water, which needs to cook off. In that process, the heat breaks down certain proteins and acids, releasing certain chemicals, and causing others to bond. Five gallons of sauce in a pot takes hours to get up to the proper temperature, with constant stirring to prevent the bottom from burning and tainting the rest of the sauce. The heat also breaks down the chemicals in the spices, and the stirring allows the flavor to gently infuse throughout the pot of warm liquid. Eventually, the acids break down and dissipate, and the sauce itself tastes of the fragrant basil and oregano, perhaps mixed with the spicy saltiness of the sausage.

The secret, you see, is not the ingredients at all. It’s the time.

Those people who are accustomed to opening a jar of grocery-bought sauce simply can not conceive of the investment of time that one must make to cook a good, home-made tomato sauce. Despite the stereotype of old Italian ladies standing at a stove all day, few people really understand that it’s the process of cooking that makes the difference between a rich, thick, savory sauce and a thin, slightly bitter one. Too often we try to make up for the lack of flavor by adding extra garlic, salt, basil, or other spices. But these serve merely to cover up the fact that the sauce itself is a hastily prepared affair.

Even the cooking shows on television offer up tips on how to make good tomato sauce, especially tailored for busy people who only have an hour or so. And no question about it, some of those sauces are tasty. But they’re not the same; indeed, if I may be so bold, they’re not even in the same
class.

Let me make this clear: In sauce making, as with so many other things in life, there is no substitute for the investment of one’s time. It is only through the lengthy process of cooking that the unwanted and unnecessary ingredients break down, and are replaced by the desirable aromas and textures. It is only through time that certain agents can be make their way around the large vat of liquid, moving here and there until the gentle stirring combines them with other agents to produce something delightful to the senses. And certainly, the larger the pot, the more time is needed.

Time.

Speaking of which, it looks as if I’ve run out. It appears that I’m just not going to get around to discussing Freemasonry, doesn’t it?

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

A few years ago, a friend of mine got into the habit of stopping by my house once a week to talk about his new interest in Eastern esoterica and mysticism. A devoted practitioner of several meditative disciplines, he liked to tell me about his new discoveries, insights, and practices. Since I used to practice yoga, meditation and have had the opportunity to study some of the lesser known aspects, he felt that he could talk to me about what might be termed the spiritual aspects, knowing that I wouldn’t think it was too (forgive the technical term) “woo-woo.”

One day we were chatting about something and he asked me about a particular point, to which I answered that I didn’t remember much about it. He was surprised. “I figured with all the reading you’ve done, you’d have some opinion on this. ” He then confessed that he thought it was odd that I didn’t quote back to him some of the authors that I’d read, or refer to some of the older, classical writings.

I explained that some years earlier I had given away just about all of my books on Taoism and Zen, and hadn’t been inclined to pick up any more. He really didn’t understand this, so I had to explain to him what led to this decision. A long time ago I began picking up books and literature and read almost incessantly on the writings of Lao-Tze, Chang-tzu, and other authors with “z”s and dashes in their names. I picked up old books – translations written in the 1800s and early 1900s – and I picked up new books. I tracked down out-of-print books, the more esoteric, the better. I meditated, I unblocked some of my chakras, and managed to contort parts of my body into odd shapes, the better to allow the kundalini energy to flow.

At some point, I realized that as much as I studied and meditated, I was merely reading about Taoism, and not actually practicing Taoism. In fact, the reading, the meditating – the constant searching for meaning – was getting in my way. I gave away almost everything that I had bought, keeping only my favorite Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Teh Ching, and a couple of other older volumes. Instead of picking up yet another book, I decided that my time would be better spent trying to live up to all of the ideals that I had been reading about.

If this were a Zen parable, this is the point where I’d write “And at that instant, my friend was enlightened.” Unfortunately, that’s not quite what happened; he continued to argue with me, convinced that I was crazy. I’m sure there’s some ironic lesson in all this somewhere…

Anyhow, I’m writing this because the essential point – that at some time you need to put down the books and work with what you know – is not limited to Eastern philosophy. One of the great things about Masonic blogging is the unexpected jewel that you happen across while looking for something else. Earlier last week, I saw that MMM over on North Eastern Corner also came to a similar understanding. After mentioning the time he had spent collecting all sorts of books about the fraternity, he writes:

“It has been my bad habit of buying every book someone mentions on their blog or website for well over a year now and I have come to a decision that it must stop.

“Not because I haven’t gotten anything from any of these publications, but because recently I had an epiphany about books on Freemasonry and a hammer. [. . .] If you do an Amazon book search for “hammer” you come up with 183,470 books associated with hammer as a subject or somewhere in its title.

“I could read all 183, 470 books associated with the hammer and not even come close to what you learn in just ten minutes using a hammer. “(italics mine)

He gets it.

I wonder if this isn’t part of the reason that some Masons roll their eyes when somebody brings up the term “Masonic Education.” Our craft has inspired hundreds, nay, thousands of excellent books and essays on the nature of the craft, morality, on what it means to be a Mason, on the comparisons between Freemasonry and various other philosophies, on the evolution of thought, on the importance of religion or spirituality, and on just about any other subject that you can imagine being tangentially linked to the craft. The excellent website Pietre-Stones itself has more fantastic writing than the average Mason could read, the Philalathes Society has even more, and anyone with access to Google can read about any aspect of Freemasonry until their mouse finally drops from their nerveless grasp.

Here’s a good question: Is there – or should there be – a minimum requirement for some kind of Masonic Education? How much of this should we, as Masons, be reading? Should all Masons be expected to read Pike’s “Morals & Dogma“? Should we all be handed, along with our aprons, “A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry for Dummies“? Should our brethren have a mandatory subscription to “The Tao of Masonry“?

In the last few years, I’ve read and heard some people complain about the sad state of Masonic Education, and about the dearth of great Masonic thinkers, and about the lack of modern books on Masonry. My brothers are, naturally, entitled to their opinions. My own opinion on that topic is that the internet has made available more excellent Masonic information than any of our ancestors would have dreamed possible. My own education on Masonry – the education that I have found to be the most valuable – came less from books, and more from conversations with knowledgeable brothers in person and in various online forums. Back when I joined, several of the brothers told me that “the real Masonry happens after lodge.” I didn’t understand what they meant for the first few months, but soon it became obvious – we had relatively short business meetings and then went downstairs for fellowship. Over coffee or whiskey (whichever a brother preferred, and nobody was pushed into anything) we would talk about how the Grand Lodge works, why a certain brother gets certain accommodations, talk about various aspects of our ritual and ceremonies, learn why this or that lodge runs the way it does, and dozens of other trivial-seeming topics that didn’t start coming together for me for almost a year.

Yes, I read a lot of books. I learned many aspects about the history of our craft, the evolution our our ritual, and saw how our symbols dovetail with symbols and teachings from long ago. But I also learned why it was important to have Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi for WB Roger, and to always make a few low-cholesterol dinners for WB Julian, and to have cof
fee ready for WB Bob before and after the meeting, and . . .

Reading and acting. From which do you suppose I learned more about Masonry?

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

Appearances to the contrary, the handsome young men in the photo are not up for the parts of Curly, Moe and Larry. No, that’s me in the center, flanked by two of the four five Connecticut Masons who are guilty of blogging. Movable Jewel currently serves with me on the Committee for Masonic Education, and North Eastern Corner came to the recent officer’s seminar held at Ashlar Village, the Masonicare facility in Wallingford.

I’ve discovered that I have more online friends than local friends, so it’s always rare but interesting to run into someone that I “know,” but have never met in person. As it happens, though, I have met all of the Connecticut bloggers. Masonic Renaissance is a fellow District Grand Lecturer, and the mono-nymed Radcliffe of Metaphysical Freemason – the latest person to admit “If Tom can have a blog, then anyone can” – is actually a member of my lodge.

Is Connecticut big enough for five people to blog about Masonry? Hartford Advocate writer Adam Bulger wondered about the proliferation of Masons who blog in his recent article.

“I said it seemed odd that Freemasons, an order noted for its secrecy, would have so many members writing blogs, which are often like online confessionals.”

What didn’t make the article was that a lot of Masons are proud of their membership, and enjoy talking about it. Unlike the old days when you might never know that a relative had been a member of the Craft until after he died and you were sorting through his things, many Masons today are interested in exploring their journeys, and in discussing how similar and yet different their experiences are.

Of course, some of us (*ahem*) are just attention hounds.

The seminar itself is a half-day session in which Junior and Senior Wardens are given an overview of the things that they’ll need to know for when they assume the Oriental Chair. The seminars are a little different every year, but we cover a little bit about planning and organizing, team building, Masonic jurisprudence, rules and regulations, how to run meetings, etc. We also have a similar seminar for those who expect to be elected as Master in the coming year. We stress planning and team-building because most of us can’t think of anything worse than having the new Master take the gavel and then say “Uh, okay. Now what?” Similarly, if a Master has a plan for his year, he needs to understand how to delegate tasks, and how to follow up on them so he’s not caught short at the last minute. I was very pleased to find that all of the attendees that I talked to found the seminar enlightening and informative.

A nice post about the Warden’s Seminar can be found on Movable Jewel’s blog.

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

To do is to be. – Plato
To be is to do. – Aristotle
Scooby dooby do. – Sinatra

(Graffiti rumored to have been discovered
on a bathroom wall in the ruins of Pompeii.)

A few years ago I was talking to a friend who, at the time, was very interested in yoga, Zen, meditation, and various other “Eastern” style teachings. Once a week or so we’d get together and have discussions about teaching styles, philosophies, authenticity, and how far he thought he happened to be along his own spiritual path. One day ha asked me about a particular Taoist author, to which I responded that I couldn’t remember anything about him, nor did I have the books which he mentioned. He seemed stunned. “But that’s one of the most well-known books on Taoism,” he exclaimed, “how could you not have them, let alone not remember them?”

“It’s simple,” I explained to him, “I spent years picking up every book I could find on Taoism. I amassed a decent library, I read all the volumes, I cross-referenced authors, and even made an attempt to study Chinese, with the hope of being able to read them without the quasi-poetic translations into English as is so often seen.

“And one day, amid all of the books and charts that I’d picked up over the years, I was struck with a realization: that for all the books I had, and for all the years I’d researched, all I had been doing was reading about Taoism; I hadn’t been practicing it at all! So, I gave away the books and charts and made a point to stop reading about it and to start being, that is, living what I’d read about.“

See, reading about something isn’t quite the same as doing it. Anyone who doubts this should pick up a book on learning to ride a bicycle. You can get any number of the principles inside your head, but some of them need to be internalized in your gut in order for you to receive the full impact.

Some years later, I discovered that I was doing the same thing with my new-found interest of Masonry. I had picked up any number of books, ranging from Mackey to Pike to Robinson, and quite a few others. Even before I became a member, the guys on the interviewing committee said I was the most well-informed candidate they’d ever seen. Every night found me combing the web for more and more information, from Usenet groups to Anti-Masonic websites in search of more Light in Masonry. I applied myself to learning the rituals, to understanding the symbols, to the metaphors and allegories of the Craft. I made it a personal mission to be knowledgeable about Freemasonry.

And then, somewhere in the midst of – appropriately enough – my year in the East, I suddenly realized that I was not practicing Masonry, that is, I wasn’t making a point of internalizing the concepts that I’d spent so much time reading about. So, at some point during this past year, I stopped reading Pike (just as well, it was my third try at getting through Morals & Dogma), I put away all those books on Masonry (except for Freemasonry for Dummies, which is still on loan to someone, and A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry, which spent some time in the Tyled Room) and made a point to cut back on my internet time. I spent more time with my lovely wife and precious daughter. I took some time to work on my own temple – my body – because it’s the only one I’ve got to work with, and I’d let the building maintenance crew slack off for too long.

When I had that conversation with my friend, I pointed out that Taoist meditation is unlike what we normally think of as meditation; it’s simple and practical, and often performed while in the midst of doing some useful, physical labor, such as plowing or cutting wood. One learns to become “centered” as it were, by utilizing normal, everyday activities. In much the same way, however, can we, as Masons, smooth our personal ashlars by the proper application of friendship, charity, and brotherly love. We can debate the symbolism of Masonry for so long, that it causes us to lose sight of the fact that Masonic morality is not meant to be merely some esoteric concept, but a real, practical lifestyle.

Remember; the root of “practical” is “practice,” which has two connotations. One is the habit of doing something, and the other is the repetition of that habit. Can we really be true Masons without doing, that is, practicing our Masonry in our everyday lives?

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

A couple of years ago, I read something really interesting . The first Grand Lodge was established in England in 1717, and it only took a few years before “Masonic exposés ” began to hit the street. Even more interesting, though, is that Masonic historians believe that most of those buying the book were Masons, themselves. Many of these books went into multiple printings. Were they satisfying mere curiosity? Of course not; it appears that the Freemasons were buying the books so that they could study their own rituals at their leisure.

Were those Masons being lazy, or somehow less Masonic because of that? Personally, I think not; human nature being what it is, it seems to me that those early brothers were simply making good use of technology. I, myself, learned ritual out of a book, and for several of the larger parts actually tape-recorded myself reading from the book so I could play it in the car on my 20 minutes commute (and yes, I erased the tapes later). I have even transcribed various portions to my Palm T3 (encrypted, of course), where I could pull it out and study for a few minutes while waiting. I don’t think that doing so made my ritual any worse (or for that matter, any better) than those people who learned it “mouth to ear.” Again, I look at it as having utilized a tool that was not previously available to bygone brothers.

I mention this because over the last year I’ve had several conversations with people who speak rather disparagingly about another type of tool for Freemasons.

These tools are called “books”.

More specifically, I’m addressing two particular books: “Freemasonry for Dummies“, by Bro. Chris Hodapp, and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry”, by Bro. S. Brent Morris. Both are, in my opinion, enjoyable, entertaining, and informative books that explain a lot about the Craft, and are written in an accessible style for Masons and non-Masons alike. As I write this, Bro. Morris’ book is on my left, about halfway down on my bookshelf, where it’s been for the last few weeks since I moved it out of the “tyled” room that I suspect many of us use for the purposes of reading. I haven’t actually read Bro. Hodapp’s book, because when I was Master in 2006, I donated a copy to the lodge, and haven’t seen it since. However, I did read several chapters of it, and I’m sure that at some point it will make its way back to me.

However, I’m not here to write book reviews today.

A few days ago, Bro. Jeff Peace wrote an article that was published on The Burning Taper. Now, I happen to enjoy most of the articles I’ve seen from Bro. Peace, and generally I agree with what he has to say, and appreciate his desire to work for the betterment of Masonry. In this particular essay, which was about trying to revive Masonry, he writes:

Have we forgotten what Freemasonry is all about — what it really means? Today we have books like Freemasons for Dummies by Chris Hodapp and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry by Brent Morris. Who is buying these books? Freemasons. Are we so ignorant of our fraternity that we need a guide for dummies and idiots to teach us what we are already supposed to know?

I know that Bro. Peace did not intend to disparage either book. I did, however, find myself disturbed that he used them as an example of something that he saw as undesirable for the Craft. His contention is that the older and more established members should already be teaching such things to the new members. I think that this is admirable, but I have a different take on this. I see the large numbers of Masons purchasing these books as proof that these men are looking to jump-start their Masonic education, that they are desirous of learning and want to augment what they are gleaning in lodge. And too, both books contain excellent resources to other books, so that Masons wishing to continue their education can more readily find something of interest. While Bro. Peace and I disagree on this point, I think that we both agree that any brother who decides to further his education by picking up a book can be considered a good thing indeed.

Unfortunately, several comments to this Burning Taper article, as well as others in the past, suggest that some people simply don’t “get” the concept of “Dummies” and “Idiot’s Guide” books. Here’s an example:

Bro Tom,
I have never read any book that falls within the “Dummies” and “Complete Idiots Guide” genre. Wheteher dealing with masonry or chess or conspiracies or proper ways to give self enema’s.

Maybe it has to do with wanting to read masonic stuff by Pike or Hall, Or By PHD’s like Dr. Margret Jacobs and Dr. Steven Bullock.

Why in name of TGAOU would any self respecting human being want to be categorized as an idiot or dummy and that these books are perfect for me?

I know there is not much pride left in education and the attempt to RAISE our intellectual status by reading up, instead of down in level is foriegn today.

Okay, allow me to help ease the transition for some of you. Back in the early days of personal computers, businesses would buy them, plunk them on your desk, and make you pretty much responsible for getting them to work. Anyone who is new to PCs within the last five years has no idea what those of us went through in the 80s and 90s – before “plug’n'play”, before “WYSIWYG”, before USB, and certainly before you could be assured that of having someone nearby who knew how to reset the BIOS, switch jumpers, or sit on hold to a support center 12 time zones away.

Enter “DOS for Dummies”, written in the early 90s, followed by a number of other computer related books by the same publishing company. The books were well-written, and aimed at people who needed just enough information to get things working. The “Dummies” appellation – like the “Complete Idiot’s” one to come later – was a bit of self-deprecating, gentle humor. Back in 1990, probably 3/4 of computer users felt like a “dummy” at some point simply because computers at the time were almost overwhelming. But as the publishing titles increased, it became obvious that the public was crazy to get books that presented information on a variety of subjects that could be presented in a simple, easy-to-follow format. Computer books were followed by a wide range of other books, and now you can find such topics as cooking, finance, yoga, history, home repair, personal relationships, religion, health, diet, pole dancing, microbiology, sports, and sex.

Most people understand the self-deprecating humor in the “Dummies” and “Idiot’s Guide” titles, and considering that many of the books are written by authors who have more advanced texts in the field, I can’t imagine any shame in picking up a copy. In fact, I have a “Dummies” book on writing VBA macros for
Excel; a few months after I finished it, I was ready to buy a very large, advanced book on the same subject, by the same well-known author. The first several chapters covered much of what was outlined in the bright yellow book I had purchased previously.

To be fair, though, somebody gave me a “Golf for Dummies,” and I purchased the “Idiot’s Guide” counterpart, but neither seemed to improve my game.

Neither Bro. Hodapp nor Bro. Morris asked me to write this, of course, and I’m sure that neither of them lose much sleep over the occasional disparaging comment from the uninformed. But it does bother me when people – especially those who claim to be brothers – criticize either the books themselves or those who buy and read them; as if the pursuit of Masonic knowledge can only proceed according to some imaginary plan that only the naysayers seem to know about.

Free your minds, my brothers, and the rest will follow.

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

Q: How many Past Masters does it take to change a light bulb?

A1: Change?
A2: But… my grandfather donated that light bulb!
A3: Let’s put a committee on it next month.
[ . . . ]
A1,001: The bulbs never went dark in my year.

The jokes about Past Masters abound, and understandably so; the stories we hear about some Past Masters seem to be almost as old as the fraternity itself. Yet, most new Masters look to the Past Masters, if not for help and support, at least for some kind of direction. And again, understandably so: for most of us, being the Master of a lodge is less a matter of preparation and more like On the Job Training. Unfortunately, too often the “direction” we seek comes in the form of “thou shalt nots:”

“We never did it that way before.”
“We tried that back in ’96 and it didn’t work.”
“Don’t waste your time, nobody wants that.”
“We’ve never done it like that, and we’re not going to start now.”
“Don’t worry about what Grand Lodge says, we run things differently here.”

Does any of this sound familiar? Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before.

That was a trick question; if anyone has been paying attention, you’d realize that you’ve heard this not just in lodge, but pretty much everywhere you’ve been since you were old enough to understand the spoken language. Parents, teachers, civic leaders, politicians, religious leaders, family, friends, cow-orkers, neighbors, even spouses have all chanted these lines to you – and perhaps you, yourself have said some version of one of those lines to someone else.

Lately, I’ve been hearing about lodges run by Past Masters, to the frustration of the new Masters. This means that at some point in the history of that lodge, a new Master – perhaps motivated by insecurity or doubt – abdicated some authority to those with (or so he must have believed) more experience. It’s no wonder that so many lodges are run by the Past Masters; to most of us, it’s got to be very difficult to overcome the feelings and beliefs that have been instilled in us from childhood: Listen to your elders. Do what they say. Don’t rock the boat. Follow instructions. Stay inside the lines.

With the exception of a few of the Pointdexter types, most men going into the East do not have the rules and regulations and By-laws memorized, and generally, younger men haven’t had the experience with managing and organizing large groups of people. I’m quoting from something that I wrote last year to help make my point:

For many of us, being the Master of the lodge is our first time in a managerial position, and while we’ve prepared ourselves by honing our ritual work for our new position, learning the proper introduction for the seemingly endless titles of Grand Lodge officers, and getting the phone number of the Grand Lodge secretary, most of us aren’t prepared for the real secret of the Master’s chair: Almost none of the things that were important last year will apply to you this year.

Does that sound familiar, too? It should. No, not because you read it last year, but because this is exactly what happens to us every day in real life. Elementary school, High School, College, and even Grad School do not prepare us for real life, except in the sense that we learn some general skills that we can (hopefully!) apply.

Think of your lodge as a metaphor for your own life, and the Past Masters as a metaphor for the society around you. As Master of the lodge (that is, your life) you are presumably in a position to control your own destiny. Yet, every situation you encounter is one more opportunity not to display your knowledge, but to learn even more new skills, and you are constantly testing your experience and new skills against those societal rules and social mores that you’ve internalized all of your life. In real life, at some point we make our own decisions, even though we may consult others for advice. That is because our life’s task is to learn how to best take care of ourselves. Often, what we want for ourselves is not what our community, family, legal system or faith traditions may want for us, and so we then learn how to cope with either giving up our desires, or to cope with the consequences of doing something that is counter to the desires of those around us. Whatever we decide, we hope it will help to smooth our ashlars.

So, who’s running your lodge?

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry