This just in from the Middle East, apparently work has stopped on the building of King Solomon's Temple. According to officials, when the workmen reported for work this morning there was no plans laid out on their trestleboard. Hiram Abif was not available for comment.
Traditionally here in lower Michigan lodges tend to go "dark" during the summer months of July and August. Some lodges in northern Michigan go "dark" in the winter months of January and February. Just a little background which has little to do with my thoughts for this entry. As I often tell my girlfriend I am full of useless information.
So as the lodges are now wrapping up for the upcoming summer months, it's refreshing to see many of the lodges scurrying to tie up some of their loose ends concerning degree work. After a couple years of uncertainty and not being able to meet and conduct degrees, we are now somewhat back to normal with lots of "work" to do.
There is absolutely no doubt that the pandemic had a detrimental effect on the fraternity and it's current members. What is odd is that it seemed to have an almost opposite affect on the aspirant, not in all lodges but it seems to be the case in the majority of lodges.
By now I think everyone who reads this blog has a pretty good idea of my philosophy concerning quality vs. quantity when it comes to candidates for the fraternity. Now I feel the need to point out how degree work can become so enjoyable when the number of brothers seems to be a little light, stretched, and even could be referred to as a skelton crew.
The basis for these thoughts has evolved over a few visits to a couple of the smaller lodges in the area. One being Millington Lodge and the other Otisville Lodge. It seems that both of these lodges have existed and continued to work, but for what ever reason don't put a large number of candidates through.
Admittedly Millington is a little busier than Otisville but both are smalltown lodges with very loyal members and some of the Past Masters have a number of notches on their aprons for years in the East.
Back when the snow was blowing and temperatures were dropping, Millington made it known that they had a father and son duo who had petitioned the lodge and were being initiated in the Craft. I ventured out after work to find a warm meal, warm fellowship, and two eager candidates.
The EA degree was well attended in spite of the weather and was conferred in fine fashion as well as the Fellowcraft degree a few weeks later. Again the FC degree was nicely attended and conferred in fine fashion.
Now it's time for the father and son duo to undergo one of the most trying scenes that human nature has ever endured......that's right, it's time for the Master Mason degree. The weather was much nicer and warmer, the meal was great but the attendance was shall we say a little slim.
We ventured up to the blue room for the degree. I was even able to do second base for the second time in my short 39 years. Most of us doubled up on different parts and just a handful gave the lectures....the surprising thing was it was without a doubt one of the most enjoyable MM degrees I have ever been involved in or witnessed. It was just a great amount of fun and truly an enjoyable evening.
I'm not advocating that degree workers should be stretched so thin...but in the above case even with very few in attendance and all the multi-tasking, the brothers received a mighty fine Master Mason degree and those of us who were there got to take part in an almost magical degree.
My hat is off to WB Gary Watt and the leadership of Millington Lodge for really knowing these two brothers before they received any degree. In fact I learned that they had been working with the brothers at the lodge before, during, and after their degrees. The Grand Lodge of Michigan's six-step program in action.....brothers it pays huge dividends to the lodges that embrace it.
Another great night was last night at Otisville #401. Their candidate had been patiently waiting for at least 6 months if not longer to join, the hangup was his residence in the state, he finally got his 12 months in residing in the state of Michigan.
Again my hat is off to WB Joe Norton and WB Dale Thomas for keeping this young man interested while he put in his time to get to 12 months of residence. The young man was at their Installation of Officers and would come out and socialize with the brothers before they had their regular stated meetings.
The turnout was mighty slim for an Entered Apprentice degree, in fact we had a grand total of 8, including myself. As the night proceeded there was nuch doubling up and multi-tasking and again the brother received an awesome degree.
Too often we take for granted 30-40 brothers showing up for a degree. While that is great there is something different about an intimate setting , everyone is involved out of necessity and they tend to really step up to accomplish the degree.
Let me be perfectly clear, I am NOT advocating light attendance. To have the sidelines full, and a full compliment of officers is a clear demonstrable sign of honor and respect to the candidate and the fraternity as a whole.
Sometimes a more intimate setting can also be very powerful, whether it be a small number of committed brothers, or a Fellowcraft degree by candle-light, when the chips are down and the brothers are determined to get the degree accomplished despite the challenges, special things happen.
How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together as Masons.
It appears that we are getting back to doing Masonry again. There also seems to be a little bit of a backup in degree work, a good problem to have. Some lodges are managing this new influx quite well, others have reverted back to the old "rush 'em through" method.
I've been asking for years, "What is the big rush?" Are we in a big rush to get the candidates through their work, so they can stop coming back to lodge, sooner?
I really have to give kudos to WB Scott Wogen and Linden Lodge #132 for managing their candidates in a responsible and productive manner. They have spaced out the work, they have involved the newly made brothers in visiting other degrees and have also supplied candidates for a King Solomon's Club event. In my opinion this is doing Masonry correctly and responsibly.
One lodge attempted to schedule 3 candidates for an Entered Apprentice degree. In my opinion the EA degree and the MM degree are designed to have individual candidates for a reason. The candidate's first experience with Masonic degrees and his last experience with the Blue Lodge degrees should be deeply personalized and geared toward one individual brother.
That did not sit well with the brothers in the area who travel to help with the degree work. The lodge was advised by many including myself that this was not a good idea, the lodge would not aquiesce and scheduled for 3 candidates, only 1 showed, which leads to another dilemma......the absentee candidate.
The absentee candidate is becoming quite the popular character, one which only a few years ago was nearly extinct. Today the elusive absentee candidate can be seen in a variety of lodges and situations. In the case of the 3 scheduled EAs the lodge had 2 absentee candidates.....why is that?
My feeling is that when candidates don't show for their degrees, it illustrates that there has been a breakdown in the 6 steps and a breakdown in the lodge really getting to know the candidate and building a relationship with him before he takes any work.
Especially for the EA degree, it makes one wonder just how committed the man is to joining us and the fraternity. In the words of PGM Lemons, we need to remember that the candidate is joining us we are not joining him. In other words if this is truly important to the man, he will be there or at least make a courtesy call with some sort of excuse.
This all leads to the age old question....are we looking for quantity or quality? As we move forward, we need to concentrate on preparing our candidates before they receive their degree work. Another important factor is not allowing the candidates to languish between degrees, but get them involved all along the way. Encourage them to travel with the other brothers in the lodge, visit other lodges, get them ivolved, but all of this requires leadership.
One thing that always strikes me is when a lodge has a candidate and none of the officers from the Tyler to the Junior Deacon, to the Senior Deacon, to the Wardens and right down to the Master knows the candidates name....and when it gets really embarassing is when the candidate has a difficult name to pronounce, the man's name gets absolutely butchered.....if the lodge truly knows the candidate then they are familiar with his name and if it's difficult to pronounce then the officers of the lodge should have spent enough time with him to learn how to pronounce his name correctly.....so often these actions produce some embarassing times for the lodge and the candidate and demonstrates disrespect and disregard for the man's most prized posession, his name.
One can say what they want about we old grumpy Past Masters....but some things should never go out of style. Showing up for meetings on time, on the right date, properly attired,etc. Joining a Masonic Lodge is a privilege not a right. Men who are truly ready and willing to join the fraternity will demonstrate their desire to be accepted and clearly demonstrate that they are ready to join us and as the EA charge says conform to our tnents and rules that the honor, glory, and reputation of the institution may be firmly established, and the world at large convinced of its good effects.
First of all, my apologies to those who have followed the blog in the past, my attention has not been on writing here lately. I enjoy it and would very much like to continue and hopefully get re-inspired to add to the content.
From what I've read and heard expressed by a variety of brothers, our new brothers to the fraternity are hungry to learn as much as they can about this great fraternity.
I've also heard from a variety of brothers that we are dying as an organization or fraternity. My feeling is that we took about a 2 year slow down due to Covid-19 and the shutdowns and precautions taken to help curb the tide as they say. Hopefully the majority of that is behind us now.
At our most recent King Solomon's Club event we had the pleasure of having WB Dirk Hughes from the Library and Museum give us a presentation on the anti-Masonic movement of the late 1800's. He reminded us that during this dark time that the Grand Lodge of Michigan basically ground to a halt for nearly 13 years.....and somehow we rebounded from that.
We should also be reminded that in the Fellowcraft Degree it speaks of the ruthless hand of ignorance and the ravages of war destroyed many valuable treasures but not withstanding Freemasonry has survived. I've said it 100 times before and here is 101....the fraternity is bigger than any of us or anything that can be thrown at it.
Now on to the actual meat and potatoes. I've heard bantered around recently what is the meaning of....As all brothers and fellows have done before. This is something we've heard too many times to count, but it raises a good question, just what does it mean and who are brothers and who are fellows.
Let's start with Fellows. After reading several definitions of the word fellow, I think in our case it can be deduced that a fellow or fellows have similar interests in common, as far as the fraternity goes similar values and beliefs.
Brother is defined as members of a certain group or fraternity. The term brother is widely used today, African-Americans very often refer to one another as brother, some religious bodies call each other brother, but in our case we are Masonic brothers and the term is widely used throuout our ritual.
So.......why is brothers and fellows used in the ritual? If we examine the interrogatories in all three degrees the term brothers and fellows is only used in the EA degree.....but, why?
I feel that the term fellows means that during the "process" of becoming an EA the candidate is a fellow, he's not a brother until the obligation is completed at the altar and at that moment he becomes a brother. Further, if for some reason he becomes disassociated with the fraternity he returns to fellow status because he still has things in common with the brothers but he is no longer a brother.
For the initiate, he is seeking what all brothers and fellows have done before him. Even if a brother becomes disassociated with the fraternity he still had that experience which will be what the initiate will experience.....the the fun begins what will the newly made brother do with what he has received.
It looks as though we are tip-toeing back into Masonry, therefore I am tip-toeing back into blogging. I had the pleasure of attending an Entered Apprentice degree last evening. The degree was very well done with the candidate being the grandson of a very dear friend and brother.
As with all meetings I attend I have a few pet peeves that I always listen for and last night didn't disappoint.....in a fun sort of way.....and hopefully we can learn from it.
During the opening 90% of the time one can rely on the following; keep off all cowans and eavesdroppers...and so on.....instead of; keep off all cowans or eavesdroppers.
One may ask as I did myself last night what is the difference. When I was a DDI this was one of the things that I always tried to hammer home....the correct word is...OR
It turns out that the definition of AND is a functional word to indicate connection or additional items of the same class or type. Whereas the definition of OR means choosing between different possibilities.
There are two more words that have to be examined to understand why the framers of the ritual may have used "or" instead of "and"......those words are.....Cowans.....Eavesdroppers.
Cowan can be defined as a sneak, a pretender, an intruder or in other words one who would be brazen enough to fraudulently "pose" as a Mason....compared to an Eavesdropper who secretly listens without consent to gather information, a spy who operates undercover or in the shadows instead of trying to intrude.
In conclusion the framers and authors of our Masonic ritual made some very wise choices in the words and phrases they used. As has been noted in numerous older posts the creators of our ritual knew very well what they were doing and made the most of the words they used.
So the next time you hear......to keep off all cowans OR eavesdroppers you will know that one word does matter over another word and there is a reason.
Another misused word is PEACEABLY, when it is given wrong it is always replaced with Peacefully. Again, what's the big deal? It may not be a big deal but there is a difference when one gets into researching the difference.
Peaceably means favoring peace, not at conflict.....whereas peacefully means not at war or disturbed by strife currently.
Peaceably indicates peace and harmony while peacefully indicates not currently at war which lends itself to being the exception rather than the norm. Hopefully lodges are in peaceable operations, and that is the norm not the exception.
Those few words.....and when it should be or......and peacefully when it should be peaceably,,,,they may not be a big deal on the surface, but with a little research as to why those particular words were chosen demonstrate remarkable differences in their meaning and usage.
I've said it a hundred times before, we all too quickly take for granted the ritual words of our fraternity and the planning and forethought of our founding fathers in putting everything together and using words for maximum effect.
WB Billy was known and loved by many local brothers and brothers throughout the state and also other states and at least one other country.
He was Past Master of Flint Lodge #23 and served as secretary of that lodge for many years. He was a very good ritualist and did the part of King Solomon not only for Flint 23 but countless other lodges in the area. Wow, he did a great job as King Solomon regardless of the fact that the robe usually was, shall we say a tad large for him.
One thing that preceded him was the myth that he was frugal with a dollar which if you knew Billy he played that up to the max. In reality Billy was a generous man giving of his time, talent, and yes even a few dollars here and there.
WB Billy's quick wit was enjoyed by all through the years. Many have heard him introduce Marion as the luckiest woman here tonight. When he would come into a room of brothers he would make the announcement, "Please don't get up, no need to stand." Sometimes when greeting a brother he would say, " Without going into a long dissertation, how have you been?"
In addition to Billy's quick wit was his quick response to help when called upon. I've often wondered and often right here on this blog will the future Craft have timeless legends such WB Billy. Pictured above is Billy in his Shrine Fez, he could always be counted on to be at his "job" at the Circus always with a smile and impressing the Circus girls with harmless banter, but that was Billy.
He was also very active in Kishma Grotto and the Hillbilly Clan #55, he enjoyed people and being around people and actively involved with his brothers but really all people.
I just got off the phone with a brother who just got back from Florida and he said he was very thankful that he was back and could go pay his respects to Billy. This brother mentioned that Billy truly loved his lodge and was saddened at it's demise which was extremely depressing for Billy and he took it very personally that he was unable to save Flint Lodge #23 and it's legacy. In fact he expressed to many brothers that it was his fault that he couldn't hold things together, but I don't think for one second anybody blamed Billy for what happened.
Another item we have discussed in the past is sitting with brothers in lodge. We never know if it will be the last time we sit together in lodge. When we put this into perspective it makes all of our piques, quarrels, and disagreements seem extremely petty. If we would just recognize the importance of sitting in lodge with a brother or brothers which may be the last time, the importance and joy of that moment shines through.
We've been experiencing some tough times for the fraternity due to Covid, some lodges have yet to meet. Some lodges have found ways to meet safely, and have reinvented some of their fund raising events. Lodges that have traditionally held dinners and such have resorted to take out only and are enjoying great success financially, but the social aspect has not restarted thus far.
The fraternity as a whole will survive this epidemic, it has survived many challenges throughout history and this too shall pass. The fraternity is far bigger than any of us and even bigger than this worldwide epidemic.
One thing that the life of WB Billy illustrates can be found in a few lines taken from one of the lectures; thus was man formed for the social and active life, the noblest part of the work of God.
If we want to honor WB Billy Gordon, then the next time you sit in lodge with someone you may have disagreed with or have a dispute with, try to look in your heart to find forgiveness for those transgressions. You don't have to do it publicly or even privately, unless of course you wish to, forgive them in your heart and mind for this may be the last time you sit together in lodge. God Bless.
