Masons Are Cheap, by Paterson Burns

The following is reprinted with permission from the original author.

Masons are cheap. Why?

Because most Lodges barely subsist financially, when your only income is DUES from a dwindling membership and 2 or 3 percent interest on BONDS or CDs, you don't really have a lot of extra coin to toss around. If you want to propose something to your Lodge for their endorsement or sponsorship, you had better have already figured out how to pay for it.

If you're not at least 65 YO, most of the established membership in Lodges, aren't going to know what you're talking about because most of them are out of the loop. There is no reason to hold that against them, explain it to them, take the time to thoroughly articulate your idea or suggestion and go over the details with the senior members of your Lodge. Age is not the enemy, it's apathy we're at war with.

As a rule, it's not generally accurate to use blanket generalizations that paint any demographic with the same brush. No one man can make any one change to modern Freemasonry, unless he finds the Ark or the Grail, himself, and lives to talk about it. Change doesn't really exist, nothing really changes, everything is in some constant state of flux between reversion and evolution. What we do do though, is we adapt and assimilate to promote our Masonic culture and traditions, with peace and harmony well in mind.

Something all Masons are heartfeltly encouraged to do is not to give up. As a Master Mason, each of us has been given the tools to build our own temple, ourselves. However, there are those who snuck in the door unnoticed and advanced because no one said no. Yes, we do have those, but very few.

One of the most important dynamics present in Masonic culture is the appreciation and application of credibility. If you want to participate in "changing" things, then get into the line of your respective Lodge(s) and do something about it. If you're not willing to pay your dues, then how are you going to convince others to spend theirs on your say so? Every Master Mason should go through the chairs, in a perfect world.

However in a day and age where men go through the chairs and they can't remember their own name, we have to do the best with what we've got. My brothers and I started a Lodge, a new Lodge, a Specialty Lodge because we were motivated to apply our resources and energies to creating something greater than ourselves.

However, if it wasn't for having the "Old Coots" around to help us and guide us, and tell which were the right forms to use, we might have reached our goal, but not with the same kind of class. The moral is don't mess with the old coots; they are there because they have been waiting for us to come and relieve them. I certainly look forward to the day when I'm the old coot, I should be so lucky.