Today was the final day of the Conference of Grand Masters of North America, 2024.
It was wonderful to once again see so many old friends, and to have the opportunity to make new ones as well.
First of all, I’ve got to report that VW Frank sold the last copy of his Masonic Trivia game early this morning. He and I were hanging out at his booth when the last one was sold.
Now that’s the good news.
The bad news is that VW Frank and I were hanging out at his booth. His lady was not. Much like my apparent inability to drive a mile in Seattle without going 300 miles out of the way while lost, I learned that my Brother is similarly challenged when it comes to taking Credit Cards. So, it only took an hour or so to complete the transaction.
But, all the cards are sold. If you would like a set of your own, we’ve got to convince our Brother to have another batch published. So just hop on over to his website, buy a set, and by doing so convince him to make another batch for us! Details:
The main bit of business for me today was the delivering of the report of the Commission on Information for Recognition. That was delivered, orally, to the Grand Masters of North America and beyond this afternoon.
It contained information about Freemasonry within the nations of Georgia and Brazil.
A printed copy of the report will be published on the web page linked below within the next day or two:
The reports on that page go back many years, if you are ever curious about Freemasonry in some part of the world, there is lots of interesting information to be found in those archived reports.
My Jurisdiction, the Grand Lodge of Washington, will continue to be well represented with the broader Masonic world.
MW Jim Kendall was re-elected to the post of Commissioner of the Masonic Service Association of North America.
More information about the good work that organization does can be found here.
MW Steve Martin and MW Al Jorgensen both serve on the Masonic Renewal Committee.
More information about the important work of that Committee can be found here.
And I am now serving as Chairman of the Commission on Information for Recognition.
As long as I have you, all submissions and requests to make presentations must be submitted to the Commission Secretary by December 1 in order to be considered in February of 2025. Instructions for doing so can be found on the website here.
Next year’s Conference of Grand Masters of North America will be held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. February 15-19, 2025.
More information about that can be found here.
I know, I know, this has been an awfully dull darn report so far…
So here’s some good stuff!
Over the course of our time here, we heard some common and truthful laments. More and more boys are growing up with little to no involvement with their fathers or other positive male role models. Boys and young men are being bashed with denigration of manhood, exemplified by terms like ‘toxic masculinity.’ Fewer and fewer male only activities and spaces exist.
Yet Freemasonry exists. It offers those positive male role models. It celebrates strength, responsibility, standards, and morality. It is a male only space that exists for good men who seek to become even better men. Better leaders of their own lives, their families, and their communities.
Yet, a question hangs over us all.
As was pointed out by one of our speakers this week, would we rather our Mayor, our Governor, indeed our President, hold the values that we hold as Freemasons? Or not?
I must assume that most of us, as Masons, would like to see those offices, indeed all positions of influence and importance held by those who share our Masonic values.
But how can that ever be effected if only 50% of people can ever become Freemasons?
That is, I think, a question well worth pondering.
It was suggested that female Freemasonry will continue to grow.
As it does so, we can either be proactive and encourage its development, or we can completely ignore it. It will grow, outside of us, no matter what we choose to do.
But, it was suggested, if we select the proactive route, and help to create a parallel and equal system of Freemasonry, we can have some influence on its development. We can assure that it is an equal system to our own.
If we ignore it however, it will develop on its own, and in so doing, may very well end up quite irregular in its practices. That would undeniably be a negative for Freemasonry as a whole.
Lastly, it was suggested that a good way to think about all of this is not in terms of Recognition, the way we think of other Jurisdictions, but instead to consider it in terms of Acknowledgement. We need not Recognize, nor ever move towards Recognition, but rather we should Acknowledge.
That makes sense to me.
If we think about it, girls face the same problems that boys face. They are increasingly being raised in broken homes. In far too many cases they attend failing schools. They lack positive female role models. Indeed they are bombarded with negative role models, hyper sexuality, and worse while spending inordinate amounts of time on spaces like Instagram and TikTok.
They could benefit from a female Freemasonry, just as we benefit from male Freemasonry.
Indeed if we want to be led by leaders who share our Masonic values, we can’t achieve that unless female Freemasonry thrives sometime in the future. Not a mixing into our system or our Lodges, but another system, a system of their own.
I know that at this point some might say Eastern Star, but Eastern Star is not Freemasonry, indeed it is an extremely poor substitute.
Blending various things I heard over the past few days, all together in a jumble, that is what I’m taking away from this conference for further contemplation.
I don’t say that this is the answer, I don’t say that it is correct.
I do say that if we are smart, we will think about it as we contemplate the distant future of our Ancient Craft.
I think you’ve hit on an important point that has been floating at the fringes and moving more and more into discussions in the slightly more than a decade I’ve been a Mason, that of the current state of young men and of role models (see MWBro Bob Davis’ book “Understanding Manhood in America” for one take on this discussion, see Charles Barkley 1993 Nike commercial for another take on how long this discussion has been percolating).
How we present ourselves to the outside world, and how we engage with our communities will define our opportunities to influence others, and to present our values to those young men who are seeking to fill an unmet need for male role models and male company.
You’ve hit on a less talked about issue for young girls in the world today that matches it, and I think the “acknowledge and understand” take towards female-only Freemasonry is probably a reasonable compromise. I’ve always had an issue with the concept of co-Masonry in that as soon as you have both genders in the same space it changes the dynamics, discussion, and feel of the space. Study after study has shown the criticality of men having time with other men to develop into a better version of themselves, which is the core of what a Lodge is really offering.
I think the UGLE’s path on this is probably a good one to look at for a guide marker, they even discuss the female only order’s in England on their website and coordinate on charity and public events from time to time https://www.ugle.org.uk/become-freemason/women-freemasons
In regards to females joining, I sometimes wonder if there should be encouragement of GOdf lodges as apposed to UGLE? Thus giving choice to each jurisdiction to have a liberal body or regular body.