A Masonic New Year’s Resolution

To not make a rough ashlar even rougher by misapplying the working tools of Freemasonry.

Fidelity, Masonry and Christmas — A Story

There it sat, wrapped in green paper with drawings of little candy canes, surrounded by a carefully-tied broad red ribbon. The smell of the cookies inside the package lingered in the air. The Master’s wife had baked several dozen of the Christmas treats and put them into little parcels to be delivered to the widows of members of the Lodge. The Master had driven around to drop them off, along with a card and a holiday wish from their late husband’s brothers in Masonry. But one package remained on the dining room table.

“All of the guys jumped up and volunteered at the last meeting to take these to the widows, but I’m the only one who’s been doing it,” thought the Master to himself. “I know! I’ll call around and see who can deliver the last one.”

He punched some numbers into his cell phone. The Senior Warden answered.

“Dave, it’s Rick,” said the Master cheerfully. “Mrs. Wilson’s cookies are over here and I was wondering if you could drop them off? We talked to her a few days ago and told her we’d do it tonight, and...”

“Yeah, I’d like to,” replied the Senior Warden, “but tonight’s a really bad night. You know Thursday’s my Warcraft night and I’m kicking ass.”

“Can’t you play some other night?”

“Not now. I’m the middle of this. Maybe tomorrow, if I’m not at a new level in a few hours.”

The Master thanked him and put a call in to the Junior Deacon.

“Steve, remember you said you could help deliver the widows’ Christmas presents? Mrs. Wilson’s is sitting here...”

“I’m sorry,” said the Junior Deacon. “I know I said that, but my office Christmas party is tonight and I have to go to that. The boss kind of expects it.”

“Can’t you say ‘no’ to him?”

“Well, you know he doesn’t have a high opinion of us to begin with because he wants me to work late all the time and I can’t if something with the Lodge is happening. Besides, drinks are free. Talk to you next meeting.”

The Junior Deacon hung up. Somewhat forlornly, the Master tried a few other members, all of whom had promised they would personally hand out gifts to the widows. But one was going out with some buddies that night. Another was too tired after work. Yet another said the widow lived too far out of the way for him. Still another had a concordant body meeting he wanted to go to. Finally, the Master tried the last person on his list, a Past Master of the Lodge.

“I need your help. Last meeting you said you’d help deliver the widow’s gifts. Mrs. Wilson’s is sitting here and...”

“Wilson?!” he interrupted. “Did you know her husband? He dumped on me the whole year I was in the chair. He kept giving me hell for all kinds of little things.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with his widow. It’s a Lodge tradition we go out and deliver...”

“And another thing,” butted in the Past Master. “Last meeting you came down to the altar at the wrong time. And you gave the wrong knocks to close the Lodge. Can’t you follow traditions? Don’t you pay attention at practices or know what’s in your ritual book?”

“We were talking about Mrs. Wilson...”

“Wilson. The hell with him.” With that the cell went dead.

The Master prepared to pick up the lonely little parcel when the phone rang unexpectedly in the other room. He picked up the receiver.

“My name is Mrs. Lane,” the feeble old voice at the other end quavered. “I live next door to Gladys Wilson. I thought I’d better call you. She has been taken to the hospital.”

“What!?” answered the stunned Master.

“I had invited her over for dinner tonight, but she said she couldn’t come because she was waiting for the Masons. She got a little tired while waiting and went to call someone to see if there was a problem, but she slipped on the carpet and fell. I think she had been on the floor for awhile. It looks pretty serious. I thought I’d better call you.”

“My father was a Mason a long time ago,” Mrs. Lane went on. “He didn’t talk about it much, but all I know is when I was a girl during the Depression, the Masons helped us. One Christmas we had nothing. And there was about two feet of snow. But a bunch of the Masons came over with a tree and a huge baked turkey. They put up the tree and decorated it, then we ate the turkey and they sang Christmas carols to me and my three sisters until it was bedtime. It was so wonderful. I learned then that when times are tough, you can depend on the Masons.”

“Thank you for calling me, Mrs. Lane,” said the Master.

“It’s just too bad someone didn’t get here a little earlier because this probably wouldn’t have happened,” added the old woman. “But God bless you Masons.”

“Yes, thanks again,” replied the Master, and gently hung up the phone.

And as the Master put on his jacket, and picked up the little wrapped parcel to take to the hospital in the clear, moon-lit evening, he wondered if the Masons today really were as dependable as their forefathers. Or, if the admonition of not letting “public and private avocations” interfere with Masonry had turned into nothing more than a convenient excuse.

Note: the Christmas story “The Gift of Yourself” can be found by clicking HERE. The post “Masonic Thoughts at Christmas” can be found HERE

What Every New Mason Should Know

Someone in Switzerland did a web search of the subject above and came upon this humble blog. Whether they found something to their satisfaction, I don’t know. But in case they didn’t, allow me to pour forth a few thoughts and a couple of stories I wanted to tell but couldn’t figure out how to make them really relevant until just now.

NOT SO GOOD
Every new Mason should know he may be joining a Lodge that is less than overwhelmingly impressive, a semi-moribund Lodge with elderly members or ill-instructed Masons of a few years’ standing who don’t remember—or know—what to do, or how things operate and how to execute them.

Every new Mason should know that the novelty of being a Mason will wear off. That leaves him the seeing the same three degrees over and over, and the same general uninteresting routine at business meetings. The new Mason should be prepared for this eventuality. Many are not, which may explain why over the decades we have continued to lose newer members (the trend is not a new one).

Every new Mason should know he’ll be disappointed if he’s joining because he expects—or wants—Freemasonry to be exclusively some kind of party-hearty social club, organised charity or hidden retreat for deep philosophical pontification. It has elements of all three, but it is none of them.

GOOD
Every new Mason should know he is among friends. One of my Lodges held its installation Thursday night. Four of the new Entered Apprentices showed up (a fifth had car trouble). This was their first Lodge meeting since their Entered Apprentice Degree. During refreshment, they all sat at the same table. Being the Grumpy Old Past Master™ I thought this was a bad sign; they should mingle with all their brothers, harrumph, harrumph (G.O.P.M’s are good at harrumphing). But then one of the guys came over to two of the new E.A’s, who had been chatting merrily, looked at one, then said to the other, “Is he your friend?” “He is now,” replied the new E.A., who then related how the five of them got together on their own last week to get to know each other.

Building friendships. What a great thing.

Every new Mason should know that there’s a brother to help you. During the evening mentioned above, the Board of Installed Masters convened, with non-W.M’s and P.M’s outside. After the Board was closed and those inside were congratulating the new W.M. on his installation, your demure correspondent Justa peeked outside the door to tell the guys the Lodge would be called on and the M.M’s would be re-admitted. Then I got the stunning news. “Lex has had an allergic reaction and Scott has taken him to hospital.” Apparently, the guys standing outside the room all wanted to do something, but Scott took command and told the others to stay behind and get invested into office while he made the quick trip a mile away to the hospital and stayed with our bro. to make sure he was going to be alright.

We were all stunned again during the social period when Scott walked in with Lex. Everyone burst into spontaneous, unanimous applause. The guys came over to see if Lex was okay, including all our brand-new Entered Apprentices who didn’t even know him—other than he was a Bro. Mason who had been in trouble. Lex looked a little pale but was fine the rest of the night. He could have gone home but he wanted to be with his brothers because he told me before the meeting he was so looking forward to installation night.

Brothers you can count on. What a great thing.

I’ve being trying to come up with a post about why people stay in Freemasonry, why it is they cope with disorganised and seemingly-pointless Lodge meetings, petty arguments and some guys who really could do a better job of following what it is our ritual teaches. I still haven’t written that post but it boils down, in part, to the fact they have found the good outweighs the not-so-good. You can ask my brother Lex.

And that’s what every new Mason should know.

The Skirret

The question did have a familiar sound to it.

Peter had been asked to present the Third Degree working tools to the Master at the installation of the other Lodge that now meets in his local Masonic Hall. There was only one problem. The guy who asked him to present the tools forgot that Peter’s Lodge has different tools in the Third than Peter’s does (note to conspriracy kooks—how can Masons rule the world when we can’t even make up our minds what kind of symbols we use?). Peter’s Lodge uses an American-type ritual which has a trowel, a fine symbol, but one that strikes me as more appropriate for the First Degree. The other Lodge uses a ritual that has its basis in English ceremonies draughted after the Union of the two English Grand Lodges in 1813. That Lodge has three tools—the skirret, the pencil and the compasses.

When Peter got a copy of the ritual he needed for the presentation, he looked at me and said “What’s a skirret?”

It was at that point where real Masonry and on-line Masonry violently collided because I immediately thought of Tom the Masonic Tao Guy. For Peter’s question is the same one which Tom has asked on occasion, believing one of our symbols is either a Masonic Blue-coloured ferret or some kind of Asian water lily.

“It’s that flat spool with the string around it,” I said, waving a finger at the box of tools, then assuring Peter that I was not giving him some kind of skirret-related Masonic sign also not found in his Lodge.

The skirret is a measure—one that is to ensure the foundation of a building is straight by laying down the string as a marker. It is related, symbolically, to the 24-inch gauge and the plumb rule, but has a specific connotation to the Third Degree. The main subject of the Third Degree is one’s mortality and immortality. The skirret represents the foundation of the way of life we are to follow as laid down to us by our Creator—keeping it on the straight and narrow, so to speak, using our Masonic principles. The other two tools of the degree follow naturally, and all three are interrelated. The pencil bears a relationship to the All-Seeing Eye of the Second Degree closing ceremony. But the pencil reminds us that not only does the Eye of the Almighty observe whether (and how) we follow the conduct symbolised by the skirret, He remembers what He observes. And the compasses symbolise what fate He has in store for us at the final hour, according what he has recorded (symbolised by the pencil) of our behaviour (symbolised by the skirret) throughout our existence in this Earthly life, during which we are to work with the tools of the other degrees and follow the principles of Freemasonry. Thus all three are symbols of our belief in the Creator and of an individual Mason’s religious faith.

We should allow the skirret, therefore, to remind us to start building our character on a proper foundation—namely, the many virtues of behaviour found in the Masonic ceremonies, and in the Holy Word of the Almighty. And we should allow this tool to remind us why we should do so—the end of our life shall end some day, and we should prepare now for what comes next.

The Self-Motivated Mason

“Have you appointed an investigation committee yet?” said the weary Secretary to the Master of the Lodge.

The question was rhetorical. The Secretary knew the answer. And you know the answer, too, because there wouldn’t be a need for me to post if the answer were “yes.”

We’ll get back to this scenario in a moment.

One of the questions that might well be asked of every petitioner, even for affiliation, is: “Are you a self-motivator?” While Freemasonry instructs by symbols and allegory, and while a good Master should ensure discussion on Masonic topics is stimulated at meetings to provide knowledge, it is very much up to the individual Brother to learn for himself, and then take those lessons he’s learned into the world at large.

Freemasons are supposed to be workers. There is really no place in the fraternity for the lazy Craftsman who expects everything to be done for him and handed to him. King Solomon’s Temple would never have been built if the labourers expected someone else to do the job. So it is in Freemasonry. Instruction is given in our degrees. Tools are given to a Mason with which to work. The new Entered Apprentice is given the admonition from Homer’s Ilyad—“Labour is the lot of man.” No one can force him to do labour in our Masonic quarries. He must pick up the tools on his own and work on his faults. While others can help, he needs to motivate himself to do it.

The self-motivated Mason will also prove to be a good officer for the Lodge. And a vital one. It doesn’t take much intelligence to figure this out: officers have assigned ceremonial work. There is a progression of office. A junior officer should know several years in advance what ritual he is required to learn. It is the labour of his office. The sooner he starts on it, the better. It doesn’t bode well for a Lodge when, on a degree night, an officer is expected to do his work and then says “I’ve been too busy learn it.” The officer knew he had to learn it, and had plenty of time to prepare—he simply put it off and put it off until it was too late. He winds up inconveniencing his brothers and his Lodge as a result of his lack of self-motivation.

What happens to those men when they end up in the East? Those are the Masters who answer “no” to the weary Secretary at the start of our story.

And those are the Lodges that have a problem.

So one can see the necessity of self-motivation—for a man’s Lodge, for his own character, and ultimately his daily life.