Let's Help Our Worshipful Master
By telling him that he's wrong
One of the truly great things about Freemasonry is that in general, we all seem to do our best to get to know and understand the other guy. To avoid conflict with him. To look for ways to build friendship with him, or things we can bond with him over. In short, we try to act as Brothers should.
One of the other truly great things about Freemasonry is the fact that we are in actuality, a democratic benevolent monarchy. We elect our leaders, to limited terms, ensuring that we have the leadership we choose, and once chosen invest our leaders with virtually unlimited power over our Craft. If I remember the line from my own Installation two years ago it went something like “Power well nigh absolute.” This allows for a clear and efficient structure, while protecting everyone’s rights.
But…
While both of these things are positive, they are negative as well.
It’s the negative I’m writing about today.
Both of these things can be negatives because they tend to encourage us to go along with bad ideas. Even can encourage us to help with things that we know in our hearts will be harmful.
Unfortunately, when a Lodge leader has a bad idea, we can be quite hesitant to speak up. And by not speaking up, we can allow harm to come to the Lodge, and indeed to the man we are trying to support.
Let’s be honest for a moment. Not one of us, not even I have all good ideas all the time. Heck, I’ve had some real stinkers from time to time.
But, if no one around me is willing to tell me that my FAVORITE IDEA OF THE MOMENT is a bad one, and everyone is standing there smiling and nodding their heads, I’m going to run off and do it. And it’s going to suck. And I’m going to make myself and my Lodge look bad.
Letting bad ideas go unchallenged leads to failure.
It is, undoubtedly uncomfortable for us, as Masons, to stand up and speak up when something questionable is happening in our Lodge, or when a friend and Brother is clearly very excited about his bad idea. But we must.
We must say no to bad ideas.
By doing so we are truly doing our duty as Masons to protect our Brother. Doing our duty to point out impending danger. Doing our duty to show him what he is currently blind to see.
Remembering a First Lady’s saying from when I was a teenager: “Just Say No.”
There is no reason not to tell anyone, let alone a WM, that his “idea” may be lacking in fore thought. There is also no reason to tell the WM his “idea” is a bad one in a manner that would cause a public conflict or embarrassment. I learned a long time ago to praise in public and critique in private.
"Bad Idea" is certainly a subjective preposition. I've had (at least to me) plenty of good ideas shouted down because the old guard considered them "bad".
Take, for example, the idea I had during a recent election of officers. I suggested we have a single piece of paper with the five elected positions listed, much like how we vote in our county/state elections now. We wouldn't list the candidates, just a space to write in names. Pass the sheets around, and announce the position we're voting on, everyone writes down a name, then the next, and so on. Speeds up the entire process a little bit as the gathering of votes need only to be done once. Now, I didn't just come up with this idea. I had actually looked at the WMC to find any reason why I couldn't do it that way. There wasn't, as far as I could tell. The only restrictions is that it be by secret ballot and that all master masons that are members of that lodge had to vote. That's it.
But when I suggested it, it was immediately shot down because "I couldn't do it that way".
That was not a hill I was willing to die on, so I let it pass, but I was right.
As I said, bad ideas are subjective. All too often I've seen ideas get shot down (not just mine) because someone doesn't know the code, or what leeway we have in running our lodges. Yes, we should speak up if someone is attempting to do a bad idea, but we need to be aware of the rules first before speaking up.