Young Masons & Social Capital, by Paterson Burns

Brethren,

How many of you are or have been fortunate enough to have had the benefit of ongoing relationships with those you would consider to be your Mentors?

How many of you are, or have been Mentors to new Masons?

It would seem that most of the resistance encountered by our respective Peanut Galleries comes from those who perhaps don't actually live a Masonic life.

I interpreted the lessons, symbols and charges delivered to me to mean that by matriculating through the proscribed Masonic process of self-discovery and enlightenment, that I would become better enabled and prepared to self-actualize.

At this point, I can't say that I see myself ever living my life any differently, because I can't. How could I unlearn all that I have been exposed to and unthink all of the thoughts that come from studying and appreciating our Craft?

What I'm getting at is that it is conceivable to believe that a large measure of our constituency doesn't have a clue what the hell they're talking about as they deliver rote historical lectures to moony-eyed newly minted Entered Apprentice Masons.

If for two generations, this fraternity has not been realizing new membership from Baby Boomers and the Viet Nam generation, that suggests that those who we met when we first entered the Temple, are the ones who outlived the rest of the greatest generation of joiners from the last great surge.

So, if for fifty years these guys just sat around going through the motions, and did nothing to improve the fraternity over that period, why should we expect them to just jump on board with our platform and promote our agendas like they were their own?

Not gonna happen.

Sure, there are lots of Grand bodies waiving flags designed to get the attention of Generation X, but they're really not adding any new line items to the Grand budgets being proposed, are they?

How many grand jurisdictions have a Membership Development Committee whose focus is to attract young people to the Craft?

Every one of them.

Now how many grand jurisdictions have any young people on these committees whose purpose is to identify ways to attract young people?

I'm betting the answer isn't every one.

The reality is this, the kinds of initiatives that we like minds work to promote and support, are the same kinds of things that get the more wizened brethren all riled up and cogitating on our "Innovations" to the Craft, long and short is that for Grand Lodges to support us, the very small minority statistic in their membership, they inevitably alienate the greater, much larger majority of aged brothers who don't want a damn thing to change, for fear that they will lose control (over what I don't know, control for the sake of control I guess) and be replaced.

So, now we're down to the crux of it, these guys must think they're going to live forever because they have no interest in succession planning or the downloading any of their social capital.

Why?

I guess one could surmise this phenomena exists because they feel they own their Masonic jobs, offices, chairs or whatever because no one ever replaced them, as would have happened, if the Lodges they belong to were doing their job and bringing new candidates, to generate protégés.

So in ten years, when 80-90% of them are dead, those of us who have not thrown up our hands in disgust and quit, will inherit the onerous task of sorting through our fraternity and the administration of the same, with no real good guide to follow, because we were not mentored and our coaches didn't ensure that we were at least as competent as they assumed themselves to be.

Any thoughts brothers?

Used by permission of the author