This article comes from RWB Dean Behrens, Senior Grand Warden for the Grand Lodge of South Dakota. The article originally appeared in the Grand Lodge of South Dakota’s publication The Masonic Messenger. You can visit the Grand Lodge’s website here.
What will be your legacy?
Is it too soon, or too late, for any one of us to ask ourselves that question? Just what is a legacy anyway?
I found this definition of legacy online at www.thefreedictionary.com . Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past. That seems fairly straight forward. The something in this definition could be anything. I like to think that it can definitely apply to your Masonic legacy.
When you became a Mason your Masonic predecessors left a Masonic legacy for you. It included the building you were raised in, perhaps some money in the treasury, a set of principles, beliefs, values, some rules and a bunch of other stuff that only you know about. The intangible parts of this legacy are unique to each new Mason. That is because Masonry will mean something different to each individual Mason. Some have said that this is the only true secret about Masonry. Your Masonry is your secret.
The physical assets you leave as part of your legacy are, of course, important for those Masons you will leave behind. These can ensure that your Brothers will have the ability to meet comfortably and continue to promote Masonry in your community so that they and their community can be the better because of Masonry and its principles. So keep those in mind.
The intangible are perhaps even more important. My experience is that the most valuable person in an organization is the one that is hardly missed when he/she is away for a period of time. They have organized things so well, trained other so well and set such an example that everything works smoothly even when they are not there. Those that do the opposite generally create chaos when they are gone even for a very short time. They have created job security and proved to others how great and invaluable they are to the organization, or so they often think. Be mindful that it can be amazing what can be done if no one cares who gets the credit.
Please keep your legacy in mind in everything you do as a Mason. Not for you, but for those you will leave behind, both in Masonry and in your community.
What will be your legacy?
Fraternally,
Dean Behrens
Senior Grand Warden
My legacy is that I opened up the eyes of a number of GL officers to issues of discrimination in a local Lodge, and blazed a trail for someone else to follow.
Great quote to go along with this article is that of Albert Pike’s.
“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal”
I deff. agree with you that Masonry is subjective in nature and thats one way to show our secular characteristic in which you are able to get something different out o Masonry then the next. everyone comes to join Masonry for almost different reasons. Some for the esoteric and some for the plain brotherhood.