The urge is strong, to claim legitimacy by adhering to historical practices at the expense of change. It would take an unusually courageous group of men, to change old practices especially for the larger numbers of masons for whom masonry is a concrete, literal process; like having the latin litergy intact; people knowing their place and respect for authority.
Frustrating as it might be, rigid adherence to anything is simply an illusion of stability. Time moves on and history has continually taught us that change is inevitable. Not change for the sake of change but what we call progress.
I put it to you, that the urge to progress is stronger that the urge to claim legitimacy by manufacturing a link to the passed.
But there is a third urge- that of stability and predictability which has a deeper, emotional effect. I believe it is possible and necessary for old order lodges, to broach the gap between those who resist any change and those who embrace the idea new is better; knowing those who wield authority unwisely will drive a wedge of isolation between a membership and those in high position.
Making changes unexpectedly is for most people, disorienting and stressful. Changes driven by necessity are remarkably low key events and usuallyhave a desirable outcome that ripples around the pond. Bigger the pond, smaller the ripple.
Who determines need you might ask? Those who are most aware!
Who are most aware? Natural leaders!
Who are the natural leaders? Those who are trusted.
Who are trusted? Those who serve others.
Why are those who serve others, most trusted? Because through the service to others, a man becomes more accurately aware of his own nature.
Why is that important? Because it is the advice of the Oracle.
What was that advice? Know thyself.
We know, to survive, organizations, just like people, must be adaptive; that's another word for flexible. Even an oak tree gives a little in high wind, just enough to survive the storm.
I know it is a ridiculously simple idea but what if we give a little to survive into the next millenium? Only in hindsight do we know the rightness of our decisions. But to make the best decision possible, requires good, accurate information, on which to base the moves.
Communication and the open exchange of ideas relieves pressure points if it is done in an atmosphere of fraternity. Our Grand Lodge seems to be embracing that type of thinking, sending envoys out to Districts to facilitate discussion groups.
We are encouraged to forward ideas through the DDGM in a district, who then moves the idea forward to the next level of discussion.
Gentlemen's agreements remain intact. Nostagia is unassailed. Old men cling to the familiarity of a day gone by and young men struggle for meaning, living and shaping their own version of history by participation.
For our Grand Lodge Officers, the Grand Lodge Annual Communication is defined in protocol. However, each mason is able to define for himself, what the Annual Communication is for him. It is 6008 A.L. and communication has accellerated exponentially. We all gain from the universal access to information that is now upon us.
The purpose of the functional purpose of attending the Annual Communication is lost to many fellows. Is it feasible to many the AC multi-dimensional? Change that is attempted at glacial speed, usually emerges in a convulsion. I hate the argy- bargy stuff.
Moving at 7 knots, I remain, faithfully and fraternally,
Dale
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Monday, 19 May 2008
Meanderings on A Theme: Freemasonry In Decline
The Essential Freemason
Freemasonry makes an assumption that we come to the order in ignorance and through the process of masonry, if followed faithfully, enlightenment may be achieved. It is undeniable that a lodge begins connecting with each applicant even before he gives the necessary affirmation of belief in a higher power. Why do so few masons understand the meaning.
We need only a general sense of good character. Usually, we do not reveal the amount of time and financial commitment needed to maintain a lodge and support charitable acts. Not nearly enough is said and most often, not at all.
Unless educated in the craft, a member of the investigating committee has only a superficial sense of the craft and likely does not himself know how to describe freemasonry except by a few empty slogans. It’s a little like open casting for a play. Every has an opportunity but few making to the real stage. However, there are no qualifiers for an examining committee but rank and that perpetuates a problem; the lost opportunity to teach. Self improvement? To make a good man better? Quasi-Religious movement? A service club without the expectation of work or donating?
We ride on the coat-tails of a reputation that has become tarnished; a reputation of excellence, or brilliance and innovation, including the liberal arts and sciences.
The nucleus of freemasonry is self-improvement but the way we are going is is breeding apathy.
Moral development, within freemasonry is not like canon law. We are not told what to do and we are not motivated by a veiled threat of damnation, pergatory or guilt. Masonry is an simply an opportunity, outlined by landmarks, symbols and allegory, requiring free will to qualify and self determination to probe deeper insights. It is all difficult and for most men, impossible to acheive those insights, because that takes perserverence and desire. Perhaps more could and should be done in some lodges to encourage this type of effort.
The fundamentals are taught by catechism. Gradually, as the overwhelming experience of initiation, passing and raising subsides, a man is ready to be instructed about a new alphabet of hieroglyphs, new manners and learning his role within the larger order. Students need to be prepared by those who are qualified to instruct while challenging their curiousity.
A program of discussion and mentoring is an old-world form of learning/teaching .
Core topics:
Myth/Legend/Allegory
a) Birth & Death: The Lifespan of a Man
b) Darkness to Light: Understanding vs Superstition
Symbolic vs Literal Meaning
a) Philosophers, Scientists and Stone Workers
History of the Order
a) Early records
b) 17th Century: Social Development Scotland, Ireland and England
c) Freemasonry in Canada
I Am That I Am
a) Ineffable Name and Man
The Nature of Precaution with Politics and Religion
a) The consequence
Philosophy Applied
a) Participation in Masonic Function
The Masonic Way
a) Judgement in the Highest Order: What Albert Pike Did to Prejudice and
Mia culpa. Compared to a time long gone, the standards of freemasonry have eroded. We have let in those who have failed to join the mainstream of masonic philosophy. Have we done this in order to be a democratic movement?
Political correctness requires that I disavow we are an organization of men and a group of uncommon men by intent. I am not allowed to admit there are many, many men, who are not suitable. I am also not allowed to admit there are those among us who benefit from membership but make no contribution. Am I being a harsh, unfair judge or confessing a frustration? Is this why I want tests of achievement and the demonstration of effort to qualify for offices? Yes.
We seem to agree that this is a sensitive problem but lowered standards are a product of our own lack of preparation. How can I blame the new man for poor work when the master who trains him is incomplete?
Drilling down into the problem we may realize what this phenomena can teach us. First, are we letting anyone into the order? There is a sense that lodges are desparate and willing to ignore standards. Anyone can become a mason.
I have suggested, those who ignored standards in the past were unaware of the long term or cumulative consequences. Symptoms of that include low proportions of participation; indifference to masonic education; generations of officers of all stripes, who are unprepared mixed in with a core of dutiful men who struggle to hold the order together.
German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, defined enlightenment this way: “Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority. Minority is the incapacity of using one understands without the direction of another. This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
The enemy of Freemasonry is ennui; fighting complacency in the face of our problems is the challenge.
Dale
Freemasonry makes an assumption that we come to the order in ignorance and through the process of masonry, if followed faithfully, enlightenment may be achieved. It is undeniable that a lodge begins connecting with each applicant even before he gives the necessary affirmation of belief in a higher power. Why do so few masons understand the meaning.
We need only a general sense of good character. Usually, we do not reveal the amount of time and financial commitment needed to maintain a lodge and support charitable acts. Not nearly enough is said and most often, not at all.
Unless educated in the craft, a member of the investigating committee has only a superficial sense of the craft and likely does not himself know how to describe freemasonry except by a few empty slogans. It’s a little like open casting for a play. Every has an opportunity but few making to the real stage. However, there are no qualifiers for an examining committee but rank and that perpetuates a problem; the lost opportunity to teach. Self improvement? To make a good man better? Quasi-Religious movement? A service club without the expectation of work or donating?
We ride on the coat-tails of a reputation that has become tarnished; a reputation of excellence, or brilliance and innovation, including the liberal arts and sciences.
The nucleus of freemasonry is self-improvement but the way we are going is is breeding apathy.
Moral development, within freemasonry is not like canon law. We are not told what to do and we are not motivated by a veiled threat of damnation, pergatory or guilt. Masonry is an simply an opportunity, outlined by landmarks, symbols and allegory, requiring free will to qualify and self determination to probe deeper insights. It is all difficult and for most men, impossible to acheive those insights, because that takes perserverence and desire. Perhaps more could and should be done in some lodges to encourage this type of effort.
The fundamentals are taught by catechism. Gradually, as the overwhelming experience of initiation, passing and raising subsides, a man is ready to be instructed about a new alphabet of hieroglyphs, new manners and learning his role within the larger order. Students need to be prepared by those who are qualified to instruct while challenging their curiousity.
A program of discussion and mentoring is an old-world form of learning/teaching .
Core topics:
Myth/Legend/Allegory
a) Birth & Death: The Lifespan of a Man
b) Darkness to Light: Understanding vs Superstition
Symbolic vs Literal Meaning
a) Philosophers, Scientists and Stone Workers
History of the Order
a) Early records
b) 17th Century: Social Development Scotland, Ireland and England
c) Freemasonry in Canada
I Am That I Am
a) Ineffable Name and Man
The Nature of Precaution with Politics and Religion
a) The consequence
Philosophy Applied
a) Participation in Masonic Function
The Masonic Way
a) Judgement in the Highest Order: What Albert Pike Did to Prejudice and
Mia culpa. Compared to a time long gone, the standards of freemasonry have eroded. We have let in those who have failed to join the mainstream of masonic philosophy. Have we done this in order to be a democratic movement?
Political correctness requires that I disavow we are an organization of men and a group of uncommon men by intent. I am not allowed to admit there are many, many men, who are not suitable. I am also not allowed to admit there are those among us who benefit from membership but make no contribution. Am I being a harsh, unfair judge or confessing a frustration? Is this why I want tests of achievement and the demonstration of effort to qualify for offices? Yes.
We seem to agree that this is a sensitive problem but lowered standards are a product of our own lack of preparation. How can I blame the new man for poor work when the master who trains him is incomplete?
Drilling down into the problem we may realize what this phenomena can teach us. First, are we letting anyone into the order? There is a sense that lodges are desparate and willing to ignore standards. Anyone can become a mason.
I have suggested, those who ignored standards in the past were unaware of the long term or cumulative consequences. Symptoms of that include low proportions of participation; indifference to masonic education; generations of officers of all stripes, who are unprepared mixed in with a core of dutiful men who struggle to hold the order together.
German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, defined enlightenment this way: “Enlightenment is the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority. Minority is the incapacity of using one understands without the direction of another. This state of minority is self-caused when its source lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another.”
The enemy of Freemasonry is ennui; fighting complacency in the face of our problems is the challenge.
Dale
Thursday, 8 May 2008
The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
History is readily quoted by contemporary brethren, reminding us of the famous men and minds, great ideas and noble deeds on which our order is based.
Rather than limiting the number of entrants decades ago doors of lodges were opened wider.
Today, that opening practice appears to be have borne a hidden cost. The intellectual property of freemasonry has been lost and an unpleasant reality has returned to haunt us. Lodge success being measured in the rate of activity has lost sight of the outcome.
That outcome is the point of this discussion paper. Men are moving without understanding where they have been and the meaning of what they have experienced.
When we were boys, most of us knew of one who was unable to do the work but was nevertheless promoted. In those days, little was known of learning disabilities and those boys suffered life defining humiliation, often growing up believing they were inadequate.
In a way, many of us have proceeded from degree to degree by social promotion, realize there are gaps in our understanding of the craft and yet our committment is strong.
Some of us find we are asking questions and are finding self-directed learning is available as well as course work, like the Correspondence Course of the College of Freemasonry.
But can our observations help those who are coming behind us before they are moved too far, too fast?
I think the change has already begun, sponteneously and widespread in pockets and lodges where inquiring masons are voicing those expectations and looking for the change that returns us to the days of the freethinkers.
Rather than limiting the number of entrants decades ago doors of lodges were opened wider.
Today, that opening practice appears to be have borne a hidden cost. The intellectual property of freemasonry has been lost and an unpleasant reality has returned to haunt us. Lodge success being measured in the rate of activity has lost sight of the outcome.
That outcome is the point of this discussion paper. Men are moving without understanding where they have been and the meaning of what they have experienced.
When we were boys, most of us knew of one who was unable to do the work but was nevertheless promoted. In those days, little was known of learning disabilities and those boys suffered life defining humiliation, often growing up believing they were inadequate.
In a way, many of us have proceeded from degree to degree by social promotion, realize there are gaps in our understanding of the craft and yet our committment is strong.
Some of us find we are asking questions and are finding self-directed learning is available as well as course work, like the Correspondence Course of the College of Freemasonry.
But can our observations help those who are coming behind us before they are moved too far, too fast?
I think the change has already begun, sponteneously and widespread in pockets and lodges where inquiring masons are voicing those expectations and looking for the change that returns us to the days of the freethinkers.
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