What obligations does a Lodge have to its members who have grown too old or become too sick to be able to attend meetings and other events?
What should we, as active Lodge members do for these Brothers?
Turning it around, since we may well be in that position ourselves someday, what do we hope the active members of our Lodge will do for us when we are too old and too sick to attend meetings and other Lodge events?
The first of what I hope will be many Emeth Sunday Evening Virtual Gatherings will take place this upcoming Sunday. Those with a paid subscription to Emeth should receive an invitation via email at 9:00AM today. If you don’t please just let me know.
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This will be the first Emeth live event for paid subscribers, but not the only one, and not the only type of event. I’m also planning live Reddit style AMA (Ask Me Anything) threads, and a multi day Emeth gathering in a traditional vacation destination, the first to be held in 2022. Beyond that, who knows what else we can do! I’m open to all kinds of ideas as we build this new kind of space for Masonic education and fellowship together. Got something you’d like to see? Just let me know!
This is a tough question because it can hurt feelings. Upon initiation we are told that masonry may not accept fools, young men in nonage or old men in dotage. Some old world and east coast jurisdictions also deny membership to those with physical disabilities. The reasoning of course is to be sure the candidate can perform the labors of masonry. Historically the craftsmen must be capable of lifting the stones and tools in the quarry and intelligent enough for learning the mathematics of drafting and architecture to create the cuts and angles for a sound structure "without the use of mortar". Today the physical aspects are less important but being able to perform the ritual is still necessary. The mental aspects however are more important with the body of knowledge a mason is expected to memorize. When a mason reaches an age where his ability to participate in ritual work is compromised and therefore would present a lesser experience for candidates, the lodge should be wise enough not to elect him to office. If he has become senile enough to blackball a good candidate it might be best not to allow him to ballot.. if he is not able to make his way to observe a meeting whether because he cannot drive or cannot walk up the stairs etc, the obligation the others have is to continue Fellowship outside the lodge. The problem that I see isn't that our elderly masons might not make regular meetings but that most lodges these days have no fellowship outside of lodge. Instead of bringing a man to lodge, the master should take the brethren to him for food, fellowship, and the charity we talk about but rarely activate. The business of lodge is best done by men with ambition at their peak with ideas to attract new candidates. Too often that ambition is crushed by the immovable stagnation of men who have reached dotage but don't have the sense and haven't been told to step down. Jeff Bezos recently stepped down from the ceo position at Amazon. The last founding member to hold leadership. He knew he was out of ideas and it was time to allow new leadership to ensure the company keeps innovating. I have built in an automatic removal system for myself as head of the corporation I founded. I won't have to be told to leave. My retirement is a certainty upon the acquisition of any 1 of 3 benchmarks. Of the three the one I hope to achieve first is the growth of the company to a point where my annual retirement dispersement for the remainder of my life based on share ownership at separation would exceed my annual active salary.
I've actually thought about this quite a bit. Belonging to an old and relatively large lodge, but being a fairly new MM, it's difficult. Out of all of the members of the lodge, I've probably met 20% of the actual members. A few years ago we had a past master's night, and we had 19 PMs show up - of which I had met five of them before.
There are many reasons why masons stop attending lodge. Some just can't do the travelling. Some moved out of state. Some haven't attended lodge in quite a few years, and are a little too embarrassed to show back up.
But it's also a generational issue. Because I haven't met or interacted with a lot of these brothers, and I haven't seen any effort on their part to partake in the fellowship the lodge has to offer, then frankly I'm not going to invade their privacy. The older members of the lodge that do know these brothers should be keeping in touch.
I look at it much like I look at my personal dealings with people in general I do know and care about. If I am the one that always has to reach out to someone to check up on them, or to just say hi, if they aren't bothering to check up on me, then my concerns tend to wane a bit. I've even had close relatives that would only call me when they needed some technical help, like I am a free version of the geek squad. It may sound callous, but friendship and brotherhood is a two way street. Sort of like unrequited love. Eventually you just give up as you're just seemingly wasting your time.
I've mentioned this before, but both the lodge and the brothers have an obligation to each other.
This is a tough question because it can hurt feelings. Upon initiation we are told that masonry may not accept fools, young men in nonage or old men in dotage. Some old world and east coast jurisdictions also deny membership to those with physical disabilities. The reasoning of course is to be sure the candidate can perform the labors of masonry. Historically the craftsmen must be capable of lifting the stones and tools in the quarry and intelligent enough for learning the mathematics of drafting and architecture to create the cuts and angles for a sound structure "without the use of mortar". Today the physical aspects are less important but being able to perform the ritual is still necessary. The mental aspects however are more important with the body of knowledge a mason is expected to memorize. When a mason reaches an age where his ability to participate in ritual work is compromised and therefore would present a lesser experience for candidates, the lodge should be wise enough not to elect him to office. If he has become senile enough to blackball a good candidate it might be best not to allow him to ballot.. if he is not able to make his way to observe a meeting whether because he cannot drive or cannot walk up the stairs etc, the obligation the others have is to continue Fellowship outside the lodge. The problem that I see isn't that our elderly masons might not make regular meetings but that most lodges these days have no fellowship outside of lodge. Instead of bringing a man to lodge, the master should take the brethren to him for food, fellowship, and the charity we talk about but rarely activate. The business of lodge is best done by men with ambition at their peak with ideas to attract new candidates. Too often that ambition is crushed by the immovable stagnation of men who have reached dotage but don't have the sense and haven't been told to step down. Jeff Bezos recently stepped down from the ceo position at Amazon. The last founding member to hold leadership. He knew he was out of ideas and it was time to allow new leadership to ensure the company keeps innovating. I have built in an automatic removal system for myself as head of the corporation I founded. I won't have to be told to leave. My retirement is a certainty upon the acquisition of any 1 of 3 benchmarks. Of the three the one I hope to achieve first is the growth of the company to a point where my annual retirement dispersement for the remainder of my life based on share ownership at separation would exceed my annual active salary.
I've actually thought about this quite a bit. Belonging to an old and relatively large lodge, but being a fairly new MM, it's difficult. Out of all of the members of the lodge, I've probably met 20% of the actual members. A few years ago we had a past master's night, and we had 19 PMs show up - of which I had met five of them before.
There are many reasons why masons stop attending lodge. Some just can't do the travelling. Some moved out of state. Some haven't attended lodge in quite a few years, and are a little too embarrassed to show back up.
But it's also a generational issue. Because I haven't met or interacted with a lot of these brothers, and I haven't seen any effort on their part to partake in the fellowship the lodge has to offer, then frankly I'm not going to invade their privacy. The older members of the lodge that do know these brothers should be keeping in touch.
I look at it much like I look at my personal dealings with people in general I do know and care about. If I am the one that always has to reach out to someone to check up on them, or to just say hi, if they aren't bothering to check up on me, then my concerns tend to wane a bit. I've even had close relatives that would only call me when they needed some technical help, like I am a free version of the geek squad. It may sound callous, but friendship and brotherhood is a two way street. Sort of like unrequited love. Eventually you just give up as you're just seemingly wasting your time.
I've mentioned this before, but both the lodge and the brothers have an obligation to each other.