Thoughts From a Young Mason, by G. Cliff Porter, 32°

The other day I heard, once again, from a brother approximately 30 years my senior who told me “what young Masons want.” It was one time too many for me, and so I have put my thoughts on paper as to what a young Mason wants. After all, I’m 34-years old and have been a Mason for 4 years—I should know!

I do not mean this to be a commentary on the division of young and old, but rather to be a proclamation of a young Mason concerning what I believe we want. This is so we might all improve our understanding of one another and progress our fraternity.

It occurred to me that some may not know what young Masons really want. Worse, I think it is often misunderstood or misstated. We “young Masons” or new Masons bear some of the responsibility for this. We are often uncomfortable declaring our desires, our disappointments, and our frustrations. And what do we do? We quietly stop appearing at meetings and simply slip off the rolls. We return to our communities outside the lodge disheartened with Masonry, and—unfortunately for the fraternity—we will often share our disappointments with our friends. Sadly, we then join a group of Masons as diverse as the lodge itself: unfulfilled Masons.

Well, Brethren, I don’t intend to become an unfulfilled Mason. So here I stand. It is vital for the members of the Craft to understand one another so that we can create an environment that is beneficial for all.

Initially, we must discuss Blue Lodge, the birth place of the Master Mason, for without it, Scottish Rite Masonry does not exist. The young man approaching the Craft today does so to supplement and add to what his church and family have already given him. A certain tugging at his soul speaks to him to seek a deeper meaning in life, in family, and in God. He researches and desires an initiation into the esoteric and ancient quest for Truth. He requests a petition with these hopes in mind. Why shouldn’t he? The eloquent writings of Masonic scholars, including the Scottish Rite’s Albert Pike, have hinted at the existence of such knowledge, and Masonic writings abound with hints of this very thing.

What does this man find once he joins? For too many, it’s membership drives, one-day classes, poor and hastily planned ritual, late nights, and a push to become an officer before he is even proficient as a Master Mason. If that man has made it through the three degrees hoping that at the end of his journey some of the promises might be fulfilled, he only learns phrases like “progressive science” and “self-improvement.”

Excitedly, he stands up in lodge one day or approaches a small group of brethren in the parking lot and explains some ideas that he has for lodge and changes he might like to see. He is immediately told, “It has never been done that way, they won’t allow it, and anyway it’s against the rules.”

He swiftly learns that they won’t allow much of anything, and worse, no one will claim to be a member of them. They are the most elusive, but most powerful members of Masonry. They are responsible for every poor, hasty, or frustrating decision ever made, and more importantly, they rigidly enforce their number one rule: NO CHANGES.

I bring up them as it leads into discussing what they have decided the young Mason or unfulfilled Mason is looking for. I will attempt to list some of the most common things I’ve heard. Make no mistake, I am listing these because they are misconceptions, and we do not want them.

X 1. Young Masons want everything easier and faster, which leads to one-day raisings, watered down ritual, and little or no memory work.

This simply is not true. Once I arrive at the West Gate and am permitted entry, I want a fulfilling and life-changing experience on which I can build a better understanding of my relationship to my brethren and my God. I don’t mind hard work. To the contrary, and this is a big one, I want to feel like I have achieved something. I don’t want to be handed a pin, given a handshake, and told thank you for your small fee, and by the way, here is your membership card. I want my path to be challenging and enlightening.

X 2. Young Masons want or need low dues.

I am very willing to pay higher dues. I do, however, want a quality experience—educational, social, and community—for my money. I don’t need low dues. If the fraternity does not value itself, why should I value it? Can something that comes so cheaply have real value? These are questions I asked myself when I saw Masonry’s low dues schedules.

X 3. Young Masons want it to be easy to get in.

I don’t want to believe that just any man could or should get in. I wish that every investigations committee treated their assignment with the importance it should have—if we did not worship at the altar of bigness. I already belong to the community at large, and that costs me nothing in time or money. I would like the Fraternity to be guarded and to care greatly about the men who enter it. If I am going to call a man my brother, I want to be able to trust him. I don’t trust everybody who shows up with some money in one hand, and a petition in the other. I have seen brothers sign both lines of a petition, as if increasing our numbers is the only thing that counts. Let us care about our fraternity enough to guard it against those who do not deserve the title of Master Mason and brother.

These observations would prove of little value, if I did not offer some solutions and provide an explanation of how they might be applied to the Scottish Rite.

It begins with ensuring a quality Blue Lodge experience. We as Master Masons should return Masonry from a primarily social institution to one that studies ancient symbolism and the truths so revealed. Encourage and allow the candidate to have a meaningful experience in the initiatic phase of his degree work. Follow up with quality education and instruction in regards to the symbolism and, more importantly, how to apply it to his life.

The concepts I provide above are succinct, but no less complete. Let us address how they might apply directly to Scottish Rite Masonry and tie it all together.

Scottish Rite Freemasonry is the graduate faculty, the pinnacle of Masonic thought and study, the “University of Masonry.” This implies a higher learning and higher level of understanding, research, and study for its members.

Outside of reunions, I cannot remember any Masonic instruction on the Scottish Rite degrees ever being presented—even once—in the years of my involvement. The cure is simple really: treat Scottish Rite Masonry as the university it purports to be.

Do not thrust an application at men the night they are raised Master Masons as if the only thing of importance is a signature and $250. It debases the man’s night, for one, and it says that the man—without further evaluation—is ready for the degrees of the Scottish Rite, which debases our membership.

Do not rush through a reunion like it must be done in three hurried days or it doesn’t count. Many of us “Young Masons” work 50 or 60 hours a week and earn about a week of vacation a year. Our wives don’t want us to burn two of those precious days on another Masonic event. No candidate can take in what the degrees have to offer in three days. To pretend they can says that all Scottish Rite has to offer can be learned in 72 hours. Let’s back off the tight three-day schedules. Offer the degrees throughout the year. Offer some degrees at the stated communications and have a few Saturdays thrown in.

And if it takes a man a couple of years to reach the 32nd Degree, so what? If the man understands what has been presented, if the degrees were done with brothers that knew and understood the work, and if each degree was treated as a special event, then the brother is not going to mind the time. Remember, it is not the speed of the education, but the quality of it that young and unfulfilled Masons are interested in.

Bring education and discussion to the forefront of the meetings.

Period.

You are not going to retain young Masons without real change. It is not about a gimmick or a slogan. It is about improving men within the fraternity who seek a higher understanding and deeper meaning of the Craft.

Let the Scottish Rite take its rightful place as the University of Masonry. Let’s improve our men and make them better. Let every aspect of Scottish Rite Masonry radiate perfection in ritual and education.

It is not going to be easy because we are asking you to imagine a Masonry many have never seen in their lifetime. I am asking you to see beyond your own personal experiences and allow progress in this beautiful philosophy and science of ours.

How Do We Know When Our Strategic Mission Is Complete?, by Bro. Ronald D. Martin

There once were grand temples that resonated with life. The thousand seat auditoriums would be filled with enlightened brothers listening to traveling orators who spoke from the inner chamber of their souls and presented laudably lofty speeches. Every brother in the room was seated on the edge of his chair, attentively listening to each word spoken. Each brother's heart and mind was enriched by Masonic philosophy, and an ever so descriptive picture of how Masonry can change the world.

Many of those buildings now resonate only from their own death rattle. The thousand seat auditoriums are now empty. There are no more traveling orators making laudably lofty speeches. Brothers seated in a room on the edge of their chairs, is now probably a good sign they are ready to leave. The once discerning hearts and minds of those who were being enriched by listening are now seeking the answer to the question, what has been lost?

There is something to be said about seeking for that which was lost. This is the life long quest of a true Master Mason. As Scottish Rite Masons and Master’s of the Royal Secret, we are presented with knowledge, that when applied correctly will become the wisdom of equilibrium in all our endeavors and understanding. If we seek to find the answer to the question, what has been lost, we may also find the answer to, “where have all the Masons gone?”

Human ignorance lives in the darkness of Wrong Thought, Wrong Desire, and Wrong Action. Some might say, “tell me that isn’t so,” and “what does that have to do with our fraternity?”

As brother Manly P. Hall stated, “a Mason is a builder of the temple of character. He is the architect of the temple of character. He is the architect of a sublime mystery; the gleaming, glowing temple of his own soul.” He realized that he best serves God when he joins with the Great Architect in building more noble structures in the universe below.

Why haven’t we been building all those noble structures that were once honed from so many rough ashlars? Are the quarries in which we look no longer marked by Brotherly Love, Truth, Relief, and Charity? Are the rough ashlars we accept as the underpinnings of our grand structure no longer on that personal journey in search of that which was lost?

Illustrious Henry Clausen, Past Sovereign Grand Commander, once stated, “We seek to instill into the hearts of our members a love of knowledge and thereby inflame their souls with a passion for mental and spiritual growth. They then may devote themselves to a search for the truth that should dominate their lives. The marks of a true Scottish Rite Mason are not glib phrases, nor ready answers, or shining jewelry, but an insatiable curiosity, a love of learning, and a desire to know and to find the radiant truth.”

Do not all great men learn from the words of other great men; is that not the building plan of the Great Architect of the Universe? The Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is the repository for that knowledge; it is the College of Freemasonic thought, and education. This Masonic organization, being the greatest that there is, has the grand responsibility of conveying this wisdom to mankind; so that it will be endowed, to shine the light, the whole world over, for time immemorial.

Have we been living up to our responsibility?

Emerson once said, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what your duty is better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.”

Have we let the rest of the world redefine our duty for us? Are we living after the world’s opinion instead of our own? In our current solitude have we convinced ourselves all is fine? When is the last time we stood in the midst of the crowd, and unwaveringly knew exactly who and what we are?

Masonic education brings about human enlightenment, and the enlightened live in the light of Right Thought, Right Desire, and Right Action. So how will we know when our Strategic Mission is Complete?

I would suggest; we will know our mission is complete when, every candidate that enters through the West gate has an insatiable curiosity for knowledge and the truth. When the quarries in which we work are marked by Brotherly Love, Truth, Relief and Charity. When each of us has honestly embarked on that personal journey to find that which was lost.

When each of us has achieved the wisdom of equilibrium and is applying it in all our endeavors and understanding. When each of us has realized that we best serve God when we join with the Great Architect in building more noble structures in the universe below. When each of us learn one from the other.

When each of us in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude. When each of us lives in the light of Right Thought, Right Desire, and Right Action.

When our temples can once again be called grand, and each one resonates with life. When the seats are filled with enlightened brothers, listening to traveling orators who speak from the inner chamber of their soul and present laudably lofty speeches about Masonic philosophy, and poetically convey how the teachings of Freemasonry can change the world.

Then and only then, can we say, as Scottish Rite Masons, that Our Strategic Mission has been Accomplished!

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.