Freemasonry As A Ruin
The collapsed Temple
Throughout my Masonic career, much of my thought and action has gone towards efforts to ‘save Masonry.’ To save Lodge X for future generations, to save Temple Y for the Masons of tomorrow.
And I think that’s how lots and lots of us look at Freemasonry. We know that it has been badly struggling for decades now, we know how few men sit in our Lodge rooms, and we know the decreases we see each year in our Grand Lodge’s membership rosters. We see concordant and appendant bodies collapsing, we recognize how few now donate to our charitable endeavors.
We want to save it. That’s only natural. And we have lots of groups out there working to save it. The Masonic Renewal Committee is an example of a really large and engaged effort to do just that here in North America.
We do well to support all of these efforts.
But recently I’ve started wondering if this isn’t the wrong mindset to hold.
I look across my Jurisdiction, and I see some really impressive efforts, not to save as much as to recreate. To rebuild. Not to save what was before, but to build anew upon the old foundations.
Might we be better off if we were to simply recognize that the Freemasonry that existed from the 1920’s to the 1960’s is well and truly dead? A shattered Temple, its columns fallen, never to rise again as they once were?
Certainly this mindset can’t be unfamiliar to those of us who are Scottish Rite Masons. The mindset of returning to the foundations of the utterly destroyed Temple, and building once again with a sword in one hand, a trowel in the other.
Maybe we do better to shift our mindset. To not look at Freemasonry as something that needs to be saved, but as something already destroyed that needs to be built, created, once again.
What do you think?
it hurts a little to say this, but mostly, I agree. Part of our problem is our recruiting effort (or lack there of) We focused for a long time on "let's make it easier." Easy isn't how you get new men that really want to do something. It's how you get dilatants who will play around the edges until they find the hard parts, then go to the next new thing.
It's time to use the Recruiting style of the USMC. "Are you good enough to be one of us?"
Working on the district level with "Prospects", men who would like to join the Fraternity. I believe there is a renaissance occurring. These Prospects have been on the internet, read about our values, morals, philosophical instruction, founding forefathers, and most importantly that we are men, helping men become better men. They need and want to be part of the institution which will live up to those expectations.
Charity is good. Social lodges are good. They are a by-product of a healthy lodge. I'm not finding that men would like to join us primarily to be social or charitable first.
It is past time we follow our ancestors' footsteps, rebuild and remake the temple.