We pledge to keep each other’s secrets.
That is probably the most common reason for those who hate us to do so. Certainly it has proven intolerable to dictatorships around the world for as long as Freemasonry has been in the public eye.
But that facet of Freemasonry: solemnly promising to keep each other’s secrets, has tremendous potential for healing.
If we can trust a fellow Mason to guard our secrets as carefully as he would his own, then we can feel free to open up to that man. To tell him our fears, our failings, things we may have done that we regret, or the things that terrify us in the night.
By doing so, we can heal. We can unburden our hearts, clear our minds, maybe even receive the advice we need.
Not one of us is a perfect man. Hopefully all who wear the Square and Compass are good men, striving to be better men, but none of us will ever reach perfection.
For that reason, we will sometimes fail, and some of those failures will be moral failures. We may act out of anger. We may hurt someone we love. We may fall prey to our own passions. These struggles are different for every man, as unique as we all truly are, but we all struggle to become better, to improve our character.
Having someone to honestly talk with about the issues we personally face can be profoundly healing. Yet to have that honest conversation, one has to trust the person he is talking with. The obligations we take upon our altars assure us that we can trust a man, assuming that he has proven through his actions that he takes those obligations seriously.
When we look at the broken people in our society, at those who are completely lost to drugs, or who commit notorious crimes, we are seeing people who may well could have been helped before their lives spiraled into disaster. If only they had someone whom they could trust to confide in. Someone they could trust to share their issues with, and seek help from.
This is something that Freemasonry offers to each of us.
This is why it is so vitally important that we, as Masons, keep secret all of those things we have pledged to keep secret.
As with every Sunday, this Sunday we will gather via Zoom for Rummer & Grapes. If you are able to do so, please join us for a superb Masonic discussion. Login information will go out on Sunday to all who hold a paid subscription to Emeth.
I recall WB Jim Hutchins explaining the "Keep the secrets" thing to me. He shared that aside from the "Murder & treason" exceptions, that anything communicated to us in confidence must also be received in confidence. If a brother begins sharing things that I don't want to be involved in, I have the responsibility to stop him immediately from speaking on it further, because I would not be able to keep the secret in good conscience. An example would be a brother sharing his involvement with infidelity and him asking me to keep it a secret.