What a Week

 This has been quite the interesting week in Masonry. We actually started off last Saturday by visiting Roseville Lodge for an all-degree day. That Masonic Temple is just a very fine specimen of what lodge rooms should aspire to be. We were able to stay for the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft degrees which were very well done and interesting in their interpretation.

Monday we had a King Solomon's Club Round-Robin at Linden Lodge and conferred the Master Mason degree on a very worthy brother from Swartz Creek Lodge. There were about 40 brothers in attendance for a great portrayal of the Master Mason Degree.

Tuesday at Fellowship Lodge the Master Mason was conferred on one of their very worthy brothers. The attendance was near 50. This was fantastic coming on the heels of Monday night. WB Austin Conquest of Fellowship Lodge put on a Master class on how a Worshipful Master should conduct the Master Mason degree.

Wednesday at Metamora Hadley was a Fellowcraft degree with 20 brothers in attendance. An excellent degree with the Worshipful Master doing his first degree along with the Senior Warden, another great evening in Masonry.

Thursday closed out the week with a Fellowcraft degree at Vassar Lodge. There were probably 30 in attendance for a fantastic degree on a very attentive candidate, and again the work was done very well.

To the nay-sayers and the skeptics it's hard to say that we are on the decline when just in our little slice of the world we had such a plethora of activity.

The glass is above half-full my brothers. Hopefully we continue on this trend, I am convinced that we will because success breeds success.

Masonry Unites Men

 As I've mentioned it's not a lack of experiences to share. This will shock a few but I have to share our experience last evening at Fellowship Lodge #236 last evening. We gathered for a Master Mason degree at Fellowship Lodge which meets at the Swartz Creek Masonic Temple. Keep in mind we had a King Solomon's Club event in Linden where the Master Mason degree was conferred the evening prior.

Both events had over 40 in attendance and last evening was probably closer to 50. Fellowship has been struggling trying to find it's way while sharing facilities with two other lodges. Thankfully the Worshipful Master Austin Conquest is serving his third consecutive term to keep stability in leadership and he has done a great job.

Last evening the brethren showed up in force and put on an extremely great Master Mason degree. We were also honored by the presence of several of our brothers from Eureka Lodge PHA including the Worshipful Master. In fact I believe there were 5 sitting Worshipful Masters in attendance along with 7 Grand Lodge representatives.

It was just one of those magical evenings in Masonry, the work went very good. The lectures were spot on, the vocals on the song was tremendous, Honorary Member WB Eddie Booth PHA served as Junior Warden and WB James PHA gave the final charge.

This will resonate in my memory bank for a long time to come. It was an incredible evening and a testament to the Craft as a whole. Just when the critics say we are on our death bed we have the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful evening and demonstrate that the glass is half-full and increasing everyday. Freemasonry not withstanding has still survived.

...Masonry unites men of every country, sect, and opinion and conciliates a true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance.

Am I a Builder

 Again I've been very remiss in adding anything new to the blog. It's not for a lack of material for sure. Here we are starting another Masonic year. January seemed to be a little slow but there are many things on the horizon. 

We just had another very successful Tri-District Lodge of Instruction with over 60 brothers in attendance from at least 3 different districts. Also, the Right Worshipful Grand Lecturer, Tom Braun added to the instruction.

Last evening King Solomon's Club had a Round-Robin Master Mason Degree at Linden Lodge with 40 brothers in attendance. The candidate was supplied by Swartz Creek who had a great showing to support their candidate. There is a very healthy competition between Swartz Creek and Linden lodges, these 2 lodges have become the power houses of District 16.

The driving force of both of these lodges are the younger members who are joining both lodges. By younger I mean any brother under the age of 50 is considered "Masonic young" . The younger brothers are eager and hungry for tradition, history, why we do the things we do and how can they learn more. This in turn encourages the "Masonic Mature" (which is nice speak for old farts) to teach, guide and learn.

Imagine that, the elders teaching the younger and showing them the way to foster their growth and to empower those young brothers to be the future leaders.....hmmm it's interesting how that works.

While these 2 lodges are growing there are several lodges on the other end of the spectrum. In the same district we have at least one lodge that will be consolidating into another lodge, with at least one more lodge that is contemplating it's future, there is one bright spot, we had a lodge from a neighboring district merge into one of our lodges. In other neighboring districts we have several lodges that are at a crossroads and their future is in question. 

"Travelling is one of the hidden gems of the fraternity", a quote from the late WB Michael Burt. Travelling is the one thing that Swartz Creek and Linden have in common that the lodges that are floundering don't have in common. By serving as Board of General Purposes, I attend many regular business meetings. The lodges that are successful spend a lot of time discussing how they can do more, make the lodge look better, get in the community more and plan out travelling to other lodges for degree work.....there definitely seems to be some correlation there.

It would be refreshing to see the consolidations and dissolution of lodges slow to a minimum ...the goal should be for those lodges losing their way to regain a foothold in their community and get back to doing Masonry. The challenge is that they have to "want" to make a comeback first in the community of their lodge but also the community at large.....and those lodges somehow have to juggle the finances of utilities, insurance, and property taxes while trying to nurse their lodge back to health.....not an easy feat once the pendulum swings to far to the negative side.

There are 2 very under-utilized resources available to Michigan Lodges they are PGM Fred Kaiser and PGM Bob Conley. These two brothers have a vast knowledge concerning best practices for lodges and lodge renewal. Honestly I've been hearing the term "lodge renewal" for 35 years, some lodges embrace the help and guidance and use them to their advantage while it seems the majority of lodges bristle at the notion of receiving guidance, ideas, and help from these Past Grand Masters. The catch is that the lodges have to do the work themselves, the very hard work of getting the lodge back on track and serving the needs of their Masonic community and their local communities where these lodges reside. The bottom-line is Leadership or the lack thereof that separates the successful lodges from the floundering lodges. Strong leadership is a must to bring these lodges back to life. Jurisdictions around the country bring in PGM Conley to present lodge renewal programs to get lodges back on track, and we have him right here in our state, and he is always very willing to oblige those who will help themselves.

In closing I would like to share a poem which used to be a part of our DeMolay installations....there appear to be many authors from anonymous to Brother Edgar Guest so we will go with Brother Guest

I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell,
They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
The men you’d hire if you had to build?”

He gave me a laugh and said, “No indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”

And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these two roles have I tried to play?

Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down?

This poem by Edgar Guest raises an important and serious question for all of us: “Am I a builder or a wrecker?”