We aren’t all suited to every role within our Ancient Craft. Some of us might make excellent Lodge Secretaries (not me.) Some might excel at leadership. Some might be wonderful scholars or historians, while others might be superb ritualists or mentors.
I think that one of the great strengths of Freemasonry is its vast scope. There is plenty for us to do and to contribute and indeed to learn, no matter where our specific interest might be.
I was reminded of this tonight on our weekly Rummer & Grapes zoom gathering, when W. Thomas Lamb encouraged us to consider a question:
What part do I want to play in the advancement of Freemasonry?
I think we all do well to ponder that question, and perhaps discuss it here.
Let’s chat about it…
As I’m talking of Worshipful Brother Lamb, I would be remiss if I neglected to include a link to his excellent paper on the origins of the Master Mason degree. You can read it here:
I think a lot of it for me has rubbed off from my military time. For me, after I've thought about it for a while now, is to make the best masonic experience for everyone in my lodge. From there, hopefully to influence others to do the same. If I lead by example, perhaps we can get the titanic turned away in time from the iceberg ahead.
I was struck by what (I think) Brian mentioned as secretary during R&G, how trying to contact all of the members who never updated their contact information and one brother telling him to "never contact me again, I want nothing to do with masonry". Makes me wonder just how many of those older brothers who never step foot in lodge feel the same way.
When I became Lodge Secretary I made a very strong effort to try and reconnect with Brothers who had not been heard from in decades. Some I was able to do so, others not. Only a couple were not appreciative as I recall. So, yeah, it happens as was mentioned, but I think not very often.
My favorite experience as a Lodge Secretary taking over from someone who had spent 7 years doing nothing was trying to clean up the rolls. We had two brothers in the Lodge (their father and uncle had been members as well) and we showed one brother as living and one as deceased. Well we knew the one shown as living was deceased, he was local and several of us had been to the funeral. Surmising that perhaps the previous secretary had killed the wrong Brother I talk to the Master and we decided to try calling the brother listed as deceased and if he didn’t answer we’d leave him dead, well he answered and we had a great visit and he got a huge laugh out of why he hadn’t heard from the Lodge in a few years.
The corollary to the question “What part do I want to play in the advancement of Freemasonry?” Is “What part do I NOT want to play in the advancement of Freemasonry?”. Knowing what you don’t have passion for and what will burn you out is just as important as understanding what you do have passion for. I’ve seen too often when we take a good Brother and shove him into a job that does not suit him, but we need it and so he does it, but in the end we lose him.
We all have gifts and strengths and passions and weakness and blind spots and feelings of loathing, and the importance of picking up a role is to pick up one that maximizes the fist set of things and minimizes the second. But as our Grand Master’s theme suggests, we must know ourselves to make those choices (and we ,use be honest with ourselves)
Years ago I joined a failing lodge (along with a lot of other brothers from my home lodge) in an effort to keep it afloat. Originally I was just a steward, but after a year I was asked to take over the treasurer position from a brother that was getting old. At first I resisted, because frankly I am terrible with money and accounts but I eventually agreed because there was no one else who would do it.
Along with the newly installed secretary, we set about to try and fix that portion of the lodge. It was a massive undertaking, because of prior mismanagement from earlier brothers. Things were so bad just a few years prior that the GM had gone to the lodge with the specific intention to seize it's charter. He instead assigned a special deputy to right the ship, and that's when the process of other brothers coming in from other lodges to help began.
To say the accounts were a mess is an understatement. The lodge had an ok amount of money in it's checking and savings accounts, the issue was the other investments were spread amongst four different CDs earning shit for interest. Making heads of tails out of the different accounts, having to actually drive out to past treasurer's house in another town an hour away just to get the checkbooks and certificates for one was time consuming and a pain in the ass.
I took all those different accounts, pulled out the money and closed them, and then visited an investment firm and created a new account that today is a sizeable scholarship fund that the lodge draws from to award High School Jrs relatively sizeable checks. It is probably the one thing I am most proud of - taking a pile of unused money and turning it into an award that makes a difference in a young person's life.
A couple years later that lodge merged with another, but that scholarship fund continues to grow to this day.
The moral of this story (to me) is that sometimes putting someone in a position they didn't want to do can sometimes reap benefits down the road. It may not be fun, but they might just be determined enough to make things right when someone else would simply do as little as possible to get through their term.
I think a lot of it for me has rubbed off from my military time. For me, after I've thought about it for a while now, is to make the best masonic experience for everyone in my lodge. From there, hopefully to influence others to do the same. If I lead by example, perhaps we can get the titanic turned away in time from the iceberg ahead.
I was struck by what (I think) Brian mentioned as secretary during R&G, how trying to contact all of the members who never updated their contact information and one brother telling him to "never contact me again, I want nothing to do with masonry". Makes me wonder just how many of those older brothers who never step foot in lodge feel the same way.
When I became Lodge Secretary I made a very strong effort to try and reconnect with Brothers who had not been heard from in decades. Some I was able to do so, others not. Only a couple were not appreciative as I recall. So, yeah, it happens as was mentioned, but I think not very often.
My favorite experience as a Lodge Secretary taking over from someone who had spent 7 years doing nothing was trying to clean up the rolls. We had two brothers in the Lodge (their father and uncle had been members as well) and we showed one brother as living and one as deceased. Well we knew the one shown as living was deceased, he was local and several of us had been to the funeral. Surmising that perhaps the previous secretary had killed the wrong Brother I talk to the Master and we decided to try calling the brother listed as deceased and if he didn’t answer we’d leave him dead, well he answered and we had a great visit and he got a huge laugh out of why he hadn’t heard from the Lodge in a few years.
The corollary to the question “What part do I want to play in the advancement of Freemasonry?” Is “What part do I NOT want to play in the advancement of Freemasonry?”. Knowing what you don’t have passion for and what will burn you out is just as important as understanding what you do have passion for. I’ve seen too often when we take a good Brother and shove him into a job that does not suit him, but we need it and so he does it, but in the end we lose him.
We all have gifts and strengths and passions and weakness and blind spots and feelings of loathing, and the importance of picking up a role is to pick up one that maximizes the fist set of things and minimizes the second. But as our Grand Master’s theme suggests, we must know ourselves to make those choices (and we ,use be honest with ourselves)
Years ago I joined a failing lodge (along with a lot of other brothers from my home lodge) in an effort to keep it afloat. Originally I was just a steward, but after a year I was asked to take over the treasurer position from a brother that was getting old. At first I resisted, because frankly I am terrible with money and accounts but I eventually agreed because there was no one else who would do it.
Along with the newly installed secretary, we set about to try and fix that portion of the lodge. It was a massive undertaking, because of prior mismanagement from earlier brothers. Things were so bad just a few years prior that the GM had gone to the lodge with the specific intention to seize it's charter. He instead assigned a special deputy to right the ship, and that's when the process of other brothers coming in from other lodges to help began.
To say the accounts were a mess is an understatement. The lodge had an ok amount of money in it's checking and savings accounts, the issue was the other investments were spread amongst four different CDs earning shit for interest. Making heads of tails out of the different accounts, having to actually drive out to past treasurer's house in another town an hour away just to get the checkbooks and certificates for one was time consuming and a pain in the ass.
I took all those different accounts, pulled out the money and closed them, and then visited an investment firm and created a new account that today is a sizeable scholarship fund that the lodge draws from to award High School Jrs relatively sizeable checks. It is probably the one thing I am most proud of - taking a pile of unused money and turning it into an award that makes a difference in a young person's life.
A couple years later that lodge merged with another, but that scholarship fund continues to grow to this day.
The moral of this story (to me) is that sometimes putting someone in a position they didn't want to do can sometimes reap benefits down the road. It may not be fun, but they might just be determined enough to make things right when someone else would simply do as little as possible to get through their term.