Let's Discuss The Material vs The Mystical
In what position are the points of the Compasses in relation to the Square?
I think that we often see a tension within our Lodges, between Masons who hope for the Lodge to be strongly focused on the social, charitable, and fraternal aspects of Masonry, and those Masons who hope to explore the educational, philosophical, and esoteric aspects of our Ancient Craft.
A tension between the material pleasures of Freemasonry, and the mysteries it illustrates.
What I’m wondering about today is if some or maybe even most of us experience this same struggle within our individual selves?
Do we experience intellectual or emotional conflict between our material interests and our esoteric interests? Within Freemasonry, and without it?
Full disclosure here, I find that I do struggle with this, and I will post my own thoughts about these questions later on today, but for now, I hope that we can discuss it together…
I would say, in all fairness, i am pretty much exclusively focused on the esoteric. i don't have a personal struggle between Masonry's material and esotetic components, as i am not really drawn to the material side. This orientation brings many challenges of its own, and since 2020 i have been reviewing and exploring what it means for me to be a Freemason, what my goals are, and how i will approach them. i am still not done figuring that out.
I don't really have a struggle wither either side, there's plenty of time for both. I enjoy giving back to the community, but I also love the esoteric side. Unfortunately, all of the lodges in the area are stuck on the material side (and even then, many just barely if at all).
I once had a meeting with the core members of the lodge and asked them three questions. 1) are we a social group? 2) are we an educational/esoteric group? 3) are we a community focused group? The answer to all three was "no". Then the follow up question would be, then what are we? No one could say. Sadly, I would conclude that (in my opinion) 80% of the lodges within Washington probably would answer the same way. They have no direction or purpose. They show up, have a meeting (as quick as possible), parade around everyone that everyone already knows during introductions, gripe about money, and go home.
Looking at my picture of the group that participated in my EA degree, over half no longer attend the lodge I was raised in. While coming up through the chairs I conferred many degrees, and participated in many more. One year our lodge did 22 degrees. Was a lot of fun. Where are all those brothers now? Most never show up anymore.
I would guess that this is not unusual.
Now, there are thriving lodges in the jurisdiction, but those are the exception, not the rule. Those lodges are laser focused on being great at one thing. Joining such a lodge there are no surprises, you are told exactly what to expect, and either you are willing to accept those terms or not. When a lodge dedicates itself to doing something the best they can, chances are they are going to grow. And when those standards start to slip, you'll start to see the eventual decline.
Where did the train tracks go? Seems this one went off the rails as usual.