Communication

Perhaps my largest frustration within all of Freemasonry?

Through my life I’ve been involved with a large number of groups. Some formal, some informal. Some work related, some non-work related. Many people today say that they aren’t joiners. Me, I’m a joiner.

But out of every single group I’ve ever been involved with, I’ve got to say, Freemasonry is hands down, no question, the absolute worst group, probably in the world, when it comes to effective communication.

It’s almost bad enough to drive me insane!

Photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash

An example:

Somehow, in my Lodge, I seem to have become the fellow in charge of setting up all of our Degrees. So, I’ve done that, and if I must say so, I think that we have had some truly excellent Degrees recently.

But, I’ve been hearing some complaints.

Members of my Lodge have complained to me that they haven’t gotten to perform whatever role in the Degree that they want to perform.

My answer has been: Well, you have to tell me what role you want to perform instead of leaving me to guess what on earth that might be.

My answer seems completely reasonable to me.

But, I certainly don’t want to disappoint anyone, so while setting up a Degree for next week, I decided to do things a little differently.

Instead of announcing publicly that we need roles filled for the Degree, I kept it 100% in house.

At our last Stated Meeting, I stood up and reminded everyone about the upcoming Degree, reminding them as well that I needed them to let me know if they can help, and if so, what role they would like to play in the Degree.

At my request, these same questions were emailed by our Secretary to all of the active, and barely active members of the Lodge. If we have an email address, the member got that message.

Now, weeks later, I’ve only heard from three members.

No one else has told me if he will be able to come, no one else has told me what ritual part he would like to play. Indeed, the only people I’ve heard from are the Junior Warden, the Junior Deacon, and a brand spankin' new Entered Apprentice.

When we go through the Degrees of Masonry, is there some Magick that descends into our minds rendering it impossible for us to actually send an RSVP?

More often than not, it certainly feels that way.

I first noticed this problem years ago, when my wife spent a few years doing the cooking for our Lodge. She never knew how much to cook, because she never had any idea how many were going to show up! Pleas for RSVP’s fell upon deaf ears.

All these years later, nothing has changed. I’ve watched for a couple of years now as our poor Worshipful Master has struggled through this. He’s given to generally cooking two or three times as much food as actually gets eaten, because he has no idea how many will decide to come for dinner.

And none of this is fair, or reasonable.

But, alas, I have no idea how to fix it.

If our Craft is in any way cursed, it is cursed with an inability to effectively communicate.