Our Newly Obligated Brother

Let's ensure that we do our very best to welcome him

We have investigated our petitioner to the best of our ability, and found him worthy to receive the Degrees of Masonry…

We have performed the Entered Apprentice Degree conferral perfectly…

We have a brand new Mason…

So, now what do we do with him?

Richmond Lodge by Albert Herring CC3.0

The first thing we are going to do is give him the Lecture of the Degree.

Far too often what this means is that we are going to sit him in a chair, all by himself, facing the Lecture Chart and the man who is going to be delivering the Lecture to him. All the other members of the Lodge will sit some distance away, and usually the Lodge Officers will remain in their chairs.

In my view, this is a mistake.

This new Mason has just undergone an experience that is likely quite unique, something unlike anything he has ever undergone before. He’s likely filled with questions about it. He’s also probably extremely excited. He has just been made a Mason after all, something that he’s been looking forward too for quite some time.

Should he really be sitting there, alone, just he and the Lecturer at that time?

I don’t think so.

I don’t think that we should pull a single chair up for him to sit in while the Lecture is delivered. I rather think that we should pull a bunch of chairs up there. Put the Master of the Lodge on one side of him, his mentor on the other. Put a couple other guys in chairs right behind him. Place him in the center of a group of men. That is welcoming. In addition to feeling welcoming, it also, if the men around him pay close attention to the Lecture, communicates to him that what he is hearing is important.

Both of those things are vital if we are to retain this new Mason and have him become an active and important member of our Lodge.

After the Lecture and the Charge are delivered, usually the Master will tell our new Brother who his mentor is going to be.

Ideally, this will be very smooth. The pre-selected mentor will already be next to our new Mason, so when the Master tells him who will be mentoring him the mentor can lean over, shake his hand, and say a couple words.

Unfortunately, far too often in our Lodges, we don’t see this ideal.

What we see instead is the Master, standing in the East, asking who will volunteer to mentor this new Mason. If that isn’t bad enough, far too often no one actually volunteers. No one looks excited about helping our new Brother. Eventually the Master ‘voluntells’ someone to do it.

Think about it for just a moment. Just what does that communicate to our new Mason? How does he perceive it?

We may not realize it, but it does communicate something, and it communicates it in a very powerful way.

It communicates to our new Brother that no one in the Lodge was excited enough to have him join that they actually took the time to figure out who would be helping him to take his first steps as a Mason.

It also communicates to him that no one in the Lodge actually wants to spend time with him, or take the time to teach him what he needs to learn in order to advance through our Degrees.

Not having a mentor pre-assigned sends the worst possible message to our new Masons. When so many Lodges do it, is it any wonder that our retention rates are so low?

We need to stop doing that. We need to have mentors pre-arranged for all of our candidates, and those mentors must be knowledgeable enough Masons to be able to get our new Freemason started on his own individual Masonic journey.

It has been suggested to me, and I agree, that every Worshipful Master should appoint a ‘Head Coach’ for his term. That Head Coach would not be responsible for mentoring every candidate, but he would be responsible for arranging mentors, and following up to ensure that the new Mason and his mentor were a good fit, and that the new Mason was learning that which he needs to learn.

Having a Head Coach would also ensure that there was never any embarrassment for the new Mason because the Master forgot to pre-arrange a mentor. If such an error happened, the Master could simply introduce the Head Coach to the new Mason as the man responsible for getting him started on his personal Masonic quest.

After the mentor has been assigned, the meeting will soon enough come to an end.

When the Master closes Lodge, do the members scatter to the wind?

Do the members return to the dining room to share some refreshment? If they do, do they spend that time in little groups, talking with their friends?

I am going to suggest that when the meeting closes, all of the members of the Lodge need to return to the dining room for refreshment. That no small groups of friends are formed.

Rather, what we need to do is form one large group, with our new Mason as the center of that group, and the center of attention.

We need to all give him some words of welcome and encouragement. We need to break out the glasses and spirits, and we need to toast our new Mason, our Lodge, and our Craft.

We need to communicate to him, as clearly as we can through these toasts, that we are proud to be Freemasons, that we are proud of our Lodge, and that we are proud to have him as our newest Mason.

If we are wise we will recognize that some men don’t drink alcohol, and we will have something good for those who don’t to toast with, including our new Mason if he turns out to prefer avoiding alcohol. Sparkling cider seems well liked for this purpose. A new bottle. Not some old jug that is left over from the last stated meeting.

We need to ensure that we do not cheapen Masonry, or cheapen our new Mason’s Degree experience. Get the good stuff, spirits and non-alcoholic. We can afford it.

After we have toasted our new Mason, and each of us have sincerely welcomed him into our Ancient Craft, men will begin leaving for home.

When only a few are left, that is when we can impart something to him that will get his Masonic journey started down the right path.

The accepted definition of Freemasonry, at least in my part of the world is: A peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory, and illustrated by symbols.

In other words, the lessons of Freemasonry, properly understood, the secrets of Freemasonry are hidden within our ritual. They exist behind a veil. They exist behind the words of our ritual, and are there for every Mason who looks to find.

We need to stop telling new Masons that Freemasonry doesn’t have any secrets. That just isn’t true. Freemasonry does hold secrets.

We need to stop telling new Masons that the only secrets within Freemasonry are the signs and words of recognition. That isn’t true either. Freemasonry holds vast secrets, the meanings behind the words of our ritual, and our symbols.

I think that these two untrue statements are repeated so frequently, because men who have never studied Freemasonry have as a result never found the wisdom within it. Rather than admit that they didn’t do the work to find that wisdom, they find it more comforting to just claim that there is nothing there. Nonsense, but oft repeated nonsense.

We must however address the fact that Freemasonry veils its knowledge.

The reason we must address it is because our new Mason has most likely spent a great deal of time reading about Freemasonry online, long before he ever petitioned our Lodge. He knows that Freemasonry contains a hidden wisdom. If we don’t explain to him that it is veiled, he will assume that it will be given freely to him as he goes through the Degrees.

When he assumes that, and we don’t give it to him freely and openly, he will naturally be dissapointed.

If however we explain to him that the true secrets of Masonry are veiled behind the words of our ritual, and our symbolism, and that he must find them for himself, well then we will have a new Mason who is interested and excited to learn more.

We quite often tell our new Masons that Freemasonry is a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory, and illustrated by symbols.

But we almost never tell them what that definition of Freemasonry actually means.

We need to stop doing that. We need to explain it to him.

I related recently in one of our Emeth discussions that very shortly after my own EA Degree, a couple of elderly Masons took me aside and explained this to me. That as a part of that they taught me what they believe The Perfect Points Of A Mason’s Entrance to mean.

This is also the perfect opportunity to tell our new Mason that every man is encouraged to interpret the ritual and symbols of Freemasonry for himself. That what a particular symbol might mean to one man, can well mean something different to another. That the right answer is the answer that speaks to the individual Mason, and helps him in his own life.

Those two elderly Masons put me on a path of exploration within our ritual and symbolism that has nourished me, and my interest in Freemasonry, for many years now.

Eventually our new Mason is going to head for home. He’s got to go to work the next morning after all.

But we aren’t done with his EA Degree yet.

We aren’t done because he hasn’t seen it yet. We need to get him out, certainly sometime within the first week or two of his becoming an EA, to see the Degree conferred on someone else.

This might take a bit of driving to a Lodge holding a Degree, but it is a necessary step. For it to be an effective step, we can’t let so much time pass between his receiving the Degree, and his watching the Degree, that the feelings he had while going through it start to fade.

If we do each of these things, we will find that our new Mason’s first Masonic experiences are superb, and we will find that our chances of retaining him within our Fraternity for life are greatly increased.

We can either choose to do these things, or we can choose to accept our current dismal retention numbers. The choice is ours, and up to each individual Lodge.

I should end this essay here.

But I won’t.

I have one more thing to say.

When we gave our new EA his ‘lambskin or white leather apron,’ was it lambskin? Or was it some kind of plastic?

What is the right thing to do?

What does our Lodge do?

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Rummer & Grapes No. 1

Now that Freemasonry is reopening widely, it is time to remove the time limit on our weekly gatherings via Zoom. I’ve done so, and tonight will be our first non time limited Zoom gathering, renamed Rummer & Grapes, in honor of one of the Lodges that formed the world’s first Grand Lodge.

Like every Sunday, I’ll open Zoom at 7:30 this evening. Login information will go out via email to those with a paid subscription to Emeth at 3:00 PM Pacific time.

If you would like to join in this Zoom gathering, but need to upgrade your subscription to do so, please do it before 3:00 this afternoon to ensure that you receive the information.

As in previous weeks, we can talk about what was discussed on Emeth over the past week, talk about what we would like to discuss in the future, and of course toast each other and our Ancient Craft. Please have your favorite toasting glass, and something good to put in it, for as always, Masonry is a celebration of light, and we shall toast!

The meeting agenda will be informal, but it will be interesting! It always is.

I look forward to seeing you this evening!

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Please Forward

If you enjoyed this week’s essay, will you forward it to your Lodge contacts with your recommendation of it?

I believe that it can help our Lodges to succeed and thrive. If you agree, then I ask that you help me get these ideas out by forwarding it to our Brothers.

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Discussions

We have had a lot of excellent Masonic discussions over the past two weeks. All of them are still open, if you missed one or more of them, but would like to add your own comments to our discussion please do.

We can all learn a great deal from each other, and these weekday discussions are a superb way of doing just that.

Ah, the tinfoil hat crowd in Let’s Discuss Nuts.

We are reopening, so Let’s Discuss Opening Lodges.

Do stories need to be factual to have value? Let’s Discuss Myth.

Our Charges talk about it, so Let’s Discuss Obedience To Government.

I talked about it in detail above, Let’s Discuss The Perfect Points Of Your Entrance.

Let’s Discuss The Good, what we like about our Lodges, and Let’s Discuss The Bad.

Freemasonry is putting itself in the poorhouse, so Let’s Discuss Lodge Dues.

Zoom is here to stay in Masonry, so Let’s Discuss Zoom.

I loved SD and WM, how about you? Let’s Discuss Officer Positions.

In addition to these discussions over the past two weeks, Emeth had a number of other posts, and two Live Open Threads. All are available in the archives.

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Plain Talkin’ Thank You

It is my belief that this newsletter, Emeth, offers tremendous value to Freemasonry. I believe that the essays and discussions offered here are, taken as a whole, tremendous and wide ranging Masonic education. Something very badly lacking within Freemasonry today.

I believe that individual Freemasons can learn a great deal by reading Emeth, and even more by participating with it.

I believe that our Lodges can use Emeth to supplement their Masonic educational programs, or even completely base those programs on Emeth discussions by taking those topics and perspectives into the Lodge, for discussion by the Brothers assembled.

I believe that our new Masons, and our candidates going through the Degrees can greatly benefit from the information Emeth contains, which will increase retention of these new Masons, and strengthen our Lodges. I’ve created an easy process whereby these new Masons and candidates can receive all the benefits of a paid subscription, without any cost.

In total, I believe that Emeth is good for Masons, and good for Masonry.

All of this is a very long way of saying Thank You!

Thank you to each and every one of you who have signed up for a paid subscription to Emeth. Without your financial support, none of this would be possible. With it, we are going to make a massive and positive impact on our Ancient and Noble Craft.

And Thank you to all of you who take the time to leave detailed and meaningful comments on Emeth’s posts. I know how much time it must take for you to do so, and I know that each of you are making a positive contribution by sharing your wisdom and experiences with our readers. You are helping to improve Freemasonry.

Thank you all.