The most dangerous talk in Masonry

 

The Most Dangerous Talk in Masonry

This talk was given at our annual holiday dinner for widows and family members.

 

How often have you asked your husband or boyfriend what they did at the Masons that night?  And the reply was “nothing much”.   Then you wonder why they go?

Tonight, I am going to share with you what we are really learning and doing at some of our lodge meetings.  This is not secret information; in fact, it is information that can easily be found by search engines.

First a little story.   A new dating app was created.  Instead of swiping left or right, this one lets you have only one chance to pick the right man.  Each group of men are on a different level of the app.  But there are only 6 levels. Each level up costs another $100.00.

So, a lady decides it must be a good app if it costs so much and pays her $100.00.  It says,

“Welcome to level one men.  These men all have jobs and work hard”.  She likes this, but decides, “Wow, what can I get for the next level.  She pays her $100.00, and the app says,

“Welcome to level 2.  These men all have jobs and work hard and also love and are great with kids.”   She is really excited, but now can’t stand that there are higher levels and pays yet another $100.00.  The app says

“Welcome to level 3, These men all have jobs and work hard, love and are great with kids, and love to do household chores.”   OMG she thinks.  How great is this.  She now really wants to see what is on the 4^th level.  Pays another $100.00, and the app says

“Welcome to level 4.  These men all have jobs, work hard, are great with kids, do chores, and would love to have pets, including cats.”  This is becoming her dream search app.  She decides it would only be $500.00 total so far to go yet another level up and pays $100.00.  The app says

“Welcome to level 5.  These men all have jobs, work hard, are great with kids, do chores, love pets, and are really, really romantic and would do about anything for their wife.”  She looks at all the men on this level and just can’t choose yet, because it really bothers her that there is still one more level to go.  She forks out yet another $100.00 and the app gives a warning that this is the last and final level and there are no refunds if she continues.   She presses the next level button and the app says

“Welcome to level 6.  These are the best men yet.  They are all Master Masons.   However, because you and 8,645,000 other women all had to go to level 6, there are currently no men left on this level.  We are however putting you on the waiting list because there are a bunch of Fellowcraft Masons working their way up and will be here soon.”

Now you are thinking either A.  It cost me a lot more than that to end up with my husband, or B.  Dang, that app was not around back then and I got robbed.

So, while we do not teach how to do household chores at our lodge meetings, we actually are teaching and working at our Motto, which is “Making Good Men Better”.

Here are areas we try to teach in our lodge meetings and also strongly encourage our brothers thru our meetings and ceremonies to continue to learn and expand on their own.

We teach that we should make time management a priority.  We are all given only so much time.  No matter how rich or poor, everybody has the same time in a day.  We learn to allocate our time wisely between our family, our work, rest and other activities.   We do this with various tools, like planners, calendars etc., and also by seeking input from others.

Once we have developed a personal schedule, we can now work on things that have a detrimental effect on not being able to pursue our goals.  This includes any bad vices or superfluous activities.   The bad habits can include a variety of things like Greed, Anger, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Laziness, Addiction, or wasting time on unnecessary activities.

We learn how to do this by seeking professional help as needed, self-help, or seeking help from our brothers.

The next areas of life we look at are how to live a moral life by understanding God’s words and commandments.  How to live in brotherly love even when your political party is different.  We understand that we will have to give an account to God.

We learn that all men are created equal.  There is no distinction in the eyes of God.  Unfortunately, Masonry itself has had to come to terms with this and yet there are still Masons who are discriminatory.

We also learn that we need to walk just and upright before God and man.  We do this by keeping on a narrow path of virtue, not bend towards avarice, injustice, revenge, or contempt.   So, we teach the Golden Rule, treat others the way you want to be treated.   Always striving to improve ourselves.  And to take personal responsibility for our words and actions.

We encourage our brothers to set goals in writing and track progress.  

We want brothers to do random acts of kindness each week.

When we talk about virtues that we want to develop, these include Self-Discipline, Compassion, Responsibility, Friendship, Work, Courage, Perseverance, Honesty, Loyalty and Faith.

Given all of this so far we are not even close to what areas we are working on.  We also encourage all masons to study the 7 liberal arts and sciences.  These include Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy.  There is a lifetime of learning and reading just in these areas.   You would think we would all be outstanding Renaissance Men after all of that.   However, this is supposed to be just creating a strong base to do even more learning.

All of this growth is supposed to help us to reach one of the ultimate goals of our fraternity.  That is to become leaders.    Leaders in our families, leaders in our lodge, leaders in our community, leaders in our church. 

We are constantly improving our lives in all of these areas to be always looking to see how we can best be a tool for our Creators use.  How can I use my skills and abilities to best help others, especially our widows and brothers.

Now, why is this talk titled, The Most Dangerous Talk in Masonry?   Because, inevitably, you will at some point ask your husband about all the great things that we say we pursue, and you ask him “How come you are not doing such and such?”

“That guy at the dinner said you are supposed to give up drinking.”,

“If you are a master mason, how come you are not spending more time with me?”

I want to strongly reiterate what I said in the very beginning.  These are areas we are working on.

Just like some of you when you were dating said about your boyfriend, “Its OK, I will change him.” I do not know if that was a success for you or not.   But what I am telling you is that hopefully, with your help and ours, “We can change him.”

It goes back to “Making good men better”, it does not say “We made good men better, it says making.”   It is a process, and sometimes it takes a lifetime of small improvements.

So, you do not need to make a list and send it to lodge with your husband saying “Please help improve him in these areas”.

Let me leave you with this story of how Masonry personally helped me in my life.

I was the Worshipful Master of my lodge in Kansas in 1985.  That would make me 30 years old at the time.  I also had 2 daughters who were 3 and 4 years old at that time and I had been married 7 years.

I asked some of the older men at the lodge what is one thing looking back on their lives that they would have changed.   More than half, some with tears in their eyes, said they wish they had spent more time with their kids.

This had a profound impact on me and I vowed that that would not be the case with me.  I was on every PTO school board thru high school, even substitute taught at their schools.  I was their girl scout leader for 3 years when they were brownie and junior scouts.  “Siver and Gold”.   It was at every soccer and tennis match.  They also went with me to many Boy Scout campouts and activities, at least until they were 10 and I caught my oldest kissing a boy.

I took a lesson I learned from Masonry and made deliberate choices that impacted my life for the better.  I do not have any regrets.  Now I have found out that grandkids however, are even better.

It was not until much later that I realized that getting that advice was not the only thing that happened.  Something that I wish I had done earlier in my life also happened that day.  It was the fact that I sought out advice from older and wiser masons who had lived their life and had wisdom to share.

This is the final thought that I want to leave with all the younger masons here.   You have a wealth of knowledge from a bunch of older guys in every lodge meeting around you.   Seek out their knowledge.  There is not a brother in the room who would not gladly share that with you.

Hopefully, the next time your wife asks what you did at lodge, you can share a story about what you learned at lodge or what you taught someone else at lodge, not just that we had ravioli for dinner.