Tipping Over Apple Carts, by Paterson Burns

The following is reprinted with permission from the original author.

Let's talk about tipping over apple carts for a minute.

Our lodge would not exist if there were not a need to start new lodges in our vicinity. A goodly contingent of our upper management locally have been nurtured by the same content that spawned the "Dilbert" cartoon strip, and have been guided by the same management mindset that governed their working lives when making decisions about the volunteer organizations they oversee in their fraternal preoccupations.

Many of the tenured governors and administrators in our storied subculture have been actively disengaged from the currencies of the working world of today for 20 years or more and have had limited contact with the philosophies and attitudes that have come to set the tone for the modern development of the white collar workplace.

What does that mean? That means that in most cases the mindset occupying the management structure of our fraternity is out of touch with the interpersonal conduct expectations that occupy the professional environments of the current generation of men now becoming Freemasons. In other words, Management isn't listening to the Membership.

Look around, would there be new lodges forming across this country if the existing lodges were actually meeting the needs of the new membership? I travel regularly across North America to participate in a variety of different Masonic activities and the new Masons I'm meeting are in their twenties and early thirties. The really active Masons that I'm meeting, have been Masons for 3 - 6 years and joined in their twenties, 5, 6, 7 years ago.

Young Masons who after sitting in the status quo lodges of this fraternity, have either quit altogether or started getting together with other similarly disaffected and like-minded brothers and have started new Masonic organizations. The precedent in Scottish Rite Valleys across the Southern Jurisdiction, of new Scottish Rite Masons forming chapters of the Knights of St. Andrew is a big statement.

People don't generally undertake to burden themselves with the extremely difficult and time consuming process of starting a new lodge or service club, if they are getting what they need from the existing opportunities for participation in their Lodge or Valley. The common denominator here is that if the folks who have the authority and influence to support the ideas being presented by young Masons, are not listening or don't care, then one of two things happen to those young Masons, they either quit, or they decide that they are going to follow through with creating their own Masonic real estate and make their own ideal Masonic venue for themselves and others like them.

Young Masons across North America are actively initiating new Masonic organizations in many different formats and manifestations, tailored to fit the needs of the individual group and their philosophy and perspective. The trend of young Masons forming new Lodges and clubs, whatever the planks of their platforms may be, is going to continue and in fact grow as stronger and stronger precedent is set and developed by those young Masons who are successful in establishing the continuity of their Lodge building efforts.

Like it or not, young Masons are not going to sit around and wait for the rest of the fraternity to die before we get a chance to drive. We make plenty of money, we can buy our own car.