recruitment

I Have Decided I Don’t Want To Do Bare Bones Masonry Anymore

August 14, 2010 by Fred Milliken

A typical Masonic Lodge will meet in a small sparse building which I call a shack. It will be a two room affair – a Lodge room and a dining hall both sporting the barest of essentials. Practicality will over rule lavish luxury. Of course there are exceptions.

Some stately and roomy Lodge buildings can be found in cities where multiple Lodges meet and Concordant Bodies also are tenants. But the number of these more luxurious cousins is a drop in the bucket compared to the large number of suburban and small town Lodges that dot the American countryside.

Rural Lodges don’t have much choice but to be this way. But city and suburban Lodges could afford much better digs if all the Lodges in a 20 mile radius were to meet in one building. Our European Masonic cousins have long found this to be the answer to meeting in surroundings of comfort. You can find many English Masonic buildings where up to twenty Lodges meet.

American Masons are wedded to having their own Lodge building which they share with no one just as the American public is wedded to the automobile which they share with no one. Mass transit may be available but Americans with cars seldom use it. And HOV lanes in Dallas have reduced requirements to just two in a vehicle yet 98% do not take advantage of them. We all have to have our own thing. But in doing so “our thing” becomes too expensive for us to maintain all by ourselves. The result is that many Lodges meet in buildings of somewhat disrepair.

Of course better surroundings could be provided if Lodges were allowed to rent out their building to a wider clientele. But Grand Lodges in their ultimate, know it all wisdom impose so many restrictions on who local Lodges can rent to that no takers can be found. You can’t rent the Masonic Hall to any affair that will serve liquor. That kills most of your wedding reception business. You can’t rent out to women’s Masonry, Co-Masonry or in some cases in Mainstream to Prince Hall Masonry. You can’t rent to any of the so called clandestine Lodges. It is doubtful you would be allowed to rent out your building to the Knights of Columbus, AA or the NRA.

Then there is the issue of participation. Each new Grand Master tries to outdo the other. Each new District Deputy tries to make a name for himself by beating the performance of his predecessor. Each new Master tries to out shine the previous Master. Consequently there are always a host of programs and duties that need to be staffed. Mainstream Masonry also has a plethora of Masonic Awareness/Charitable events which require a boatload of manpower. Masonic Communications become meetings of recruitment. Soon what is expected of a Mason is eating away at all of his free time.

I have decided that I don’t want to do bare bones Masonry anymore. Masonry on the cheap is not for me.

The organization I belong to will have a beautiful, large building with many rooms. The floors will be plush carpet or hardwood. Wall paper and paintings of renowned artists will adorn the walls. I will sit in a large leather chair with a foot rest and a side table beside me. A waiter will bring me a cocktail and my choice of an hors d’oeuvre and an expensive cigar. If I prefer I can sit on the veranda in a rocking chair gazing out at the beautiful view. One room will have a grand piano for those members who know how to play. Another room will have a pool table and game tables. Seven course dinners will be served once per week.

I have no desire to be drafted into manning somebody else’s pet project. Instead of doing all the time I would much rather just be. After all I am a human being not a human doing. I will sit and learn about my organization in its giant library. I will learn the knowledge I want to gain, if not by reading, by viewing presentations in the media room of my organization.

I will attend on the days or nights I have free time and an inclination to do so. My organization will be open for business six days a week but it will make no requirements of me or my attendance other than the dues I pay to belong.

My organization will be there for my edification and pleasure not to work me to death or enlist me in its army.

My organization could be Freemasonry. Then again it could be not.

Measure for measure – Pennsylvania and the 21st Century.

January 12, 2010 by Masonic Traveler

Weight and volume are very important. Two evenly measured weights on a opposite pans of a scale and you have a perfect balance, so long as your equipment is calibrated correctly. Add more weight to one pan and incrementally the scale will move towards which ever side the heavier burden is applied.

Extrapolate this idea into a larger arena where the medium that surrounds the moving weight is fluid, and with the Newtonian force of gravity, the material closest to, and bonded tightest to the weight will move with it, in effect causing an avalanche of sorts, or at least a heightened shift of position.

Perhaps you could say its an Alchemy of sorts, the transmutation from one thing into another, from one state to another. Neutral buoyancy to weight displacement. From Lead to Gold, or perhaps in this instance, from Gold to Lead.

I spent some time on Chris Hodapp’s Freemasons for Dummies site trying to catch up on what has been coming out of Pennsylvania recently on their aptly titled a 21st Century (Masonic) Renaissance page.

Its quite a paradigm shift in the way things have been to the way things are to be. What I mean by that is apparently, without much fanfare, the Grand Lodge isn’t just rolling out a few changes for 2010, they are rolling out a battalion of them, for what seems to be for the purpose of improving Pennsylvania Freemasonry and the lives of its members. All said, in their introduction site, the changes are (by category):

Membership Recruitment
Members May Selectively Invite Good Men to Join
Three Black Balls Are Now Required to Reject a Candidate
One Day Masonic Journey: October 30, 2010 (at 13 locations and with YR, SR, and Shrine)
All-Star Teams Will Confer District-wide Degrees
An Unlimited Number of Freemasons Can Be Made in One Day
Senior Recruitment Program
Lodges Awarded for Membership Growth and Retention

Membership
“Call ‘Em All” Will Continue as “Call to the Craft”
Dues Can Now Be Paid By Credit or Debit
Lodge Notices Are To Be Distributed Electronically

Masonic Ritual
Members May Learn Our Ritual From Printed Manuals That Will Be Monitored Closely And Never Used in Open Lodge
Certified Brethren Will Receive a Proficiency Award Pin
Opening and Closing of Meetings May Be Shortened

Grand Lodge Governance
District Deputy Grand Masters May Now Serve 10 Years
Some Masonic Districts Will Be Eliminated and Realigned
A Masonic Congress Will Be Held in February 2010
A New Due Process for Suspensions and Expulsions
The Legal Structure of Grand Lodge Will Be Assessed
New Software Will Simplify the Lodge Audit Process
Committee on Masonic Homes Meeting Change
The Dress Code for Masonic Meetings Is Relaxed

On Image and Visibility
Open Installations of All Symbolic Lodge Officers
Electronic Guide Will Provide Tours of the Masonic Temple
Masonic Villages Adopt-A-Resident Program
Lodges Will Conduct Monthly Community Service
Members Will Commit A Weekly Random Act of Kindness
Members Will Support Our Military Through “HELP FOR OUR HEROES”
Lodges Will Raise Funds to Support Our Masonic Villages
Masonic Youth Initiatives Will Be Supported By Lodges

On the page from the PA GL, they provide a brief explanation of what each change represents, and the hole that it seeks to fill, and while I am having a hard time understanding (agreeing?) with some of them, I have to say that the approach is an inventive and bold addition of weight to a scale that has long been un-moved by any form of change.

But, this change isn’t without its detractors, and a website has already been published to argue the counter point to the Grand Masters plan, billed as Pennsylvania Masonic Restoration. While I respect the civil dissent, I have to say that the call to arms may be premature given the nature of the changes the Grand Lodge is trying to implement.

On the 21 Century Renaissance site, it is easy to see the large one day class as BIG CONCERN to an otherwise interesting program and a potential affront to what has traditionally been Masonry the way its “always” been, which is clearly not the case. Not that one day classes have ever been the norm, the process of Masonry today is an evolved process that had a beginning that came from something else. It evolved, and this one day mass raising is another step in that evolution for better or worse. And, I’ll be open here, I have my own misgivings as to the intention of the one day class process, but taken in parcel with the other items, it becomes an easier bitter pill to swallow.

Some of what I do like in the program:

Three Black Balls Are Now Required to Reject a Candidate:
This is a good way to break a singular majority in a solitary vote. Harmony in the lodge still needs to be met, but giving live or die power to one brother may be to much power in one place.

Dues Can Now Be Paid By Credit or Debit:
This is a fantastic change that really brings things into he 21st Century.

Lodge Notices Are To Be Distributed Electronically:
Another great system/operations update.

A Masonic Congress Will Be Held in February 2010:
This is a great idea and something FmI and Time Bryce have advocated to see for some time. Perhaps this will lead up to something National.

Lodges Will Conduct Monthly Community Service:
This is a Great program, and my guess is that it will be another hard pill to get down. Not that there isn’t a level of charity within the membership, but to be told to do is it quite different than doing it out of will and love. an interesting idea, however, is the opportunity it gives to lodges to explore what that charity looks like, from donating lodge rooms to Boy Scout Troops, hosting voter polling locations, or any other creative measure to give back to the communities from which the membership comes from.

Members Will Commit A Weekly Random Act of Kindness:
This one escapes me, but I like the idea of it. It has a definite Pay It Forward appeal to it.

Personally, I have some concerns for these items, but I’m sure they are being implemented with the utmost caution.

Members May Selectively Invite Good Men to Join.
One Day Masonic Journey: October 30, 2010.
An Unlimited Number of Freemasons Can Be Made in One Day.
Senior Recruitment Program.

All of these are cause for some alarm, but as I mentioned, to enter into the 21st Century Renaissance, we enter into a period of change, just as Europe did in the post Medieval Renaissance.

Members May Learn Our Ritual From Printed Manuals:
This one concerns me too, in that it would be the first state (to my knowledge) to openly WRITE what had here-to-fore only been given in written cipher. Despite the warnings and admonitions, the content will be copied and distributed no matter the level of governance and audit processes. And if not lost in the original content, photocopiers and scanners are very easy to make use of these days (though I do have some security ideas for how to safeguard the material).

All in all, I say lets see what these changes have in store for 2010. The concerns being what they are, the changes do seem to have the over arching growth and good will of the fraternity in mind.

At first blush, the 21st Century Renaissance seems to be mind blowingly radical, but really, the alchemy is in putting into play the ideas of best practice to bring its large membership in the modern age. Hopefully the ambitious shift of their weight shift will be a good one and something others will adapt too and continue the Renaissance of the 21st Mason.