There are so many portions of our fraternity that reflect themselves in this mystical number that it is nearly impossible to describe them all. There are, of course, three initial degrees in the blue lodge; there are three symbols in the Square, Compasses, and the letter G; three geographical locations in lodge, South, West, East, with the North being a place of darkness; and three officers for those stations.
When you go deeper in the degrees it becomes even more apparent; there are three Great Lights and three Lesser lights represented by the three officers of the three geographical locations. This number is also repeated in the very fabric of our degree work.
To bring it to a more broad horizon, three is repeated on a much larger scale starting with our planet's position in the solar system. Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Thus in this aspect three becomes a number representing the creation and sustaining effect of life. A number that can be connected to a solitary degree of distance which is suitable for the flourish of our existence. Three is an ideal position.
Three can also be attributed to the Holy Trinity in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this aspect the number three becomes a relation of faith, spirituality, and religious teachings. Three is a spiritual connection.
Three is representative of the three stages of life, Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age. In this capacity Three gives us the sum of education, experience, and wisdom. Three is a path of life.
Three is the first prime number that we come to that is more than the sum of its two predecessors. Why is this number so often repeated in the course of our experiences? Is it a divine truth that yet escapes our full understanding or is it merely a set of coincidences that bar any unforeseen explanation?
As Freemasons it is our privilige to be able to investigate such mystical occurences and try to decipher either for our Brethren and the common good or for our own personal benefit, what truth we can come to ourselves in the never ending journey of the sublime path that such metaphysical matters afford us.
Let us begin.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Lesson of Three, by Bro. T. Justin Robinson
Friday, February 8, 2008
What Young Freemasons Want, by WB William A. Isabelle
Why do young men go out of their way to become Freemasons in the first place?
Why did you become a Freemason?
A generation or so ago, there was something called “anti-establishmentarianism”. As an attitude, this notion changed the world we live in today.
Today, we have “political-correctness”: no one is a winner or a loser; everyone is now a participant with no set standard to follow, or to be held to.
Parents no longer discipline their children; “they talk about their issues”; children no longer fear consequences because they don’t have any.
Men no longer have a definable role in society.
The term “man’s work” is sexist and discriminatory; Using such phraseology is considered to be harassment.
Most of Generation X came from broken homes, from parents who got divorced because they could, unlike many of our grandparents who really believed it was “’till death do us part”.
Most young men of today who are becoming the young Freemasons of today, do so because they perceive our fraternity as a bastion, an island of social constants where your word is your bond and the prerequisite is that you must be a man, good and true.
Most young Freemasons today are starved for adequate role-models because the society of today seeks to produce an androgynous homogeny, where the consideration of one’s Manhood is a misnomer, because today we seek to achieve “Actualized Persondom”.
What most young Freemasons want is a place where they can go and be around MEN. Men who have contributed in their way to the greatness and growth of the modern world. Men who have wisdom, and are not Dr. Phil.
What young Freemasons want is to make their mark on the world, because we believe it is our right and our responsibility to do so.
What young Freemasons want is to be a part of something greater than ourselves, something that will last longer than the popularity of the latest and greatest video gaming console.
What young Freemasons want is to be good Freemasons; the problem is that we don't have enough good examples to follow, because for most of us, we’re a generation too late.
I'm a young Freemason, and I want to leave the world, my Craft and Fraternity better than I found it.
Thank you.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
10 Planks of Lodge-Building, by WB William A. Isabelle
A lot of people right now are complaining about what Freemasonry isn't to them. I submit that if the following initiatives were put into practice, things would improve dramatically and quickly.
1. We need to immediately start taking ourselves much more seriously than we currently are.
There is nothing more noble and valuable to this Craft, fraternity, culture and society of Freemasons than taking pride in ourselves as Freemasons and bringing honor to our institution will follow accordingly.
2. Don't walk, but rather run to your Blue Lodge and start giving a damn about the kind of Masons we bring into our midst!
Immediately cease the flow of the unprepared into offices of power that wield consequence to the detriment of all those in their care.
3. If your Lodge is broken and beyond repair, don't waste any more of your precious time listening to stupid, childish, nonsensical bluster and fuss over nothing.
Take charge of your own Masonic experience and go start your own Lodge with a group of like-minded and equally motivated Masons. You will be amazed at the social-alchemy that will be wrought amongst those who work together, to achieve a SHARED VISION.
4. Make Masonic Charity mean Masonic Charity!!!
Stop shoveling money to the administrative fees of faceless charities that don't need your money. Instead, go visit a widow of one of your departed Lodge Brothers and see if her home is in disrepair. Find out if her yard is in need of attention, or even go to lengths to see if she is eating cat food because she is in financial peril and too proud to say so.
If one finds such a situation in their midst, then fix it and stop writing checks to organizations that are endowed beyond this lifetime. Masonic Charity should look after its own house first, and then worry about those beyond our existing responsibilities and obligations.
5. Set an example.
Stand up in Lodge and show the new members that they too can stand up and voice their opinions or offer their individual expertise to benefit the Lodge. Read your Lodge By-Laws and identify the things that must change to adapt to the world we live in today, and vote it so. Read your Grand Lodge Constitution and By-Laws and identify what needs to be changed to adapt to the world we live in today, and write a Resolution or Amendment to that effect.
6. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, has any right to push anyone around in this organization and fraternity of enlightened souls!
If you see someone taking advantage of whatever pitiful authority they think they have, that has convinced them that it's OK to push around the new guy or an Entered Apprentice that doesn't know any better, then it's your immediate and imperative responsibility to step in and correct the situation!!!
7. Bring an immediate end to the promotion and acceptance of incompetence and arrogance!!!
To do so is despicable and patently un-Masonic. I don't know when or where the tenets of Masonry became trifling and petty favors to be bestowed upon the undeserving.
8. Make sure that every man who passes the West Gate of your Lodge has a solid and deepest understanding of how honored he should feel to have been accepted into your Lodge and that he realizes that it is he who owes his Lodge and not the other way around.
9. Past every other trifling concern and non-priority, ensure beyond all else that the ritual which your Lodge represents to its members and to its initiates is deserving of being labeled Masonic and enlightening.
Be ever watchful and ever-ready to provide resources for additional Masonic education to the occasional bright-eyed and overly-interested newly-minted Master Mason.
10. Call your Brothers, go for a beer or a Scotch!
Hang out with your Brethren, get to know each other and start building on the relationships that will define the necessary development of the Masonic community that you will ever be proud of , honored by and grateful for, to have the opportunity to support for the rest of your years.
If we start with this list, I guarantee that the resulting positives to the Craft and your individual journey will be swift and priceless and more than that, you will be on the road you were looking for when you first petitioned the Lodge.
Sincerely & Fraternally,
WB William A. Isabelle
