Brotherhood Across Generations

Protecting one of Freemasonry's greatest benefits

From the ‘Masons will argue about anything’ category…

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

At my Lodge’s most recent Temple Board meeting there was a brief argument about tables. Specifically, the arrangement of tables. I must confess that I was one of the guys involved in said argument.

We have two dining rooms, both with rectangular tables, set up in ranks, one behind the other. They can each seat eight grown men comfortably. When I took over as Master of the Lodge, I changed the configuration.

In our small dining room, I moved the tables into one big square shape, and in our big dining room I made a great big U shape. By doing this, everyone who attends a meeting or a dinner can sit together at one great big table.

The argument at the Temple Board meeting came from a Brother who believes that the tables should be returned to their former configuration after each Lodge meeting, so that our Appendant and Concordant bodies will find them in the same way that they have found them for as long as memories of them go back.

My argument in response was that the Lodge wholly owns the building, and if other groups who we allow to use it don’t like it, they are welcome to find somewhere else to meet.

In actuality, I don’t think that my argument is as harsh as it sounds, for I have to believe that everyone will prefer the new configuration, no matter what group they are active with.

So, that was our little disagreement.

Certainly it isn’t worth writing about.

Except for this one little thing…

Earlier this week, three of us met with a new potential prospect for our Lodge.

I wasn’t sure how old he would be, so I went to represent the middle age guys. And I asked one of our older members to attend, and one of our youngest members to attend. I think it is important that potential prospects meet people that they can identify with.

Turns out, the man is younger. A veteran. A former Marine. So, the group I selected was spot on. We had a guy his age, and a fellow veteran from the Navy.

We sat with him for about an hour, asked him some questions, and answered all of his.

If he maintains his interest, and fits in well with all the Brothers, my initial hunch is that he’d be a good fit for our Lodge. He’s from here, seems quite sharp, is the son of a well known and well liked local businessman, and would quite likely have a lot in common with a number of our Masons.

Time will tell.

As part of our conversation, he mentioned that he was a member of another very well respected and long standing organization in our community.

But, he doesn’t like it.

Why?

Well, here’s where it got interesting.

And where it ties back into our table configuration in our Lodge dining rooms.

He said that this other organization is completely segregated by age.

That while it, like our Lodge, has men of all ages, none of the various age groups will actually interact in a meaningful way with the others.

The old guys sit at the old guy’s tables. The young guys sit at the young guy’s tables, and the middle guys, well apparently they sit at middle guy’s tables. And never the groups shall meet.

And he doesn’t like it.

I can’t say I blame him.

Luckily, that hasn’t ever been a problem in our Lodge, at least to my observation. We seem to mix together quite well.

And that is a very good thing. Because I have learned so much from those men who are decades older than I am. Throughout my years in Masonry, I’ve looked up to and admired lots of these men, and from them I have found things that have improved my life. Likewise, now that I’m getting a bit long in the tooth, I find that I’m learning from our young guys. Our world is changing, fast, and these young fellows are up on all of the new stuff.

From that, I can see where this potential prospect is coming from in his strong dislike of the segregation by age he’s found in this other organization. While I’ve not seen something like it in my Lodge, I can see where a situation like that could easily develop. If a Lodge just started naturally segregating itself, with those of a common age or other characteristic just starting to hang together, to the exclusion of others.

Cliques are pretty easy to see form, often without thought. And cliques in a Lodge could do quite a bit of damage.

If Brotherhood among all is our goal, well then, I think one big table for all is surely an easy little thing we can do to help in its creation. That big table is a preventative against cliques.

After all, once we were out of grammar school, I think all of us were probably rather disturbed to still be sitting at the kids table each Christmas.