Monday, April 6, 2009

Our Masonic Profiles

I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of Masonic profile I present to the profane world. Not so much in terms of being a good representative of the Craft (I like to think that I don't have to alter my default behavior to do that) but the extent to which I "promote" it. If I re-post every new item on my lodge website to my Facebook account, or constantly re-tweet my lodge on Twitter, what purpose am I serving? Am I raising public awareness about Freemasonry in my community, or am I just spamming (and potentially weirding out) all of my contacts?

It's no secret to any of my closer friends & family that I'm a Mason, but the fact is that many of them don't seem to care much one way or another. It's been nearly two years since I decided to petition a lodge, and I wonder if I'm reaching the end of a typical cycle that active new Brethren go through, where the initial excitement and pride give way to personal reflection as they begin to really absorb the ritual & symbolism of Masonry, and figure out where they're headed.

To put it another way, I'm all for elevating my lodge's public profile and I am no less proud to be a Mason than I've ever been, but I don't want to do Freemasonry the disservice of making it seem too commonplace by posting every little event or announcement into my social media stream; so many of them are really interesting only to Masons (and local Masons at that) that I feel like my profane contacts will either just tune them out, or figure that I've gotten all cliquey (at best) or culty (at tin-foil hat worst) now that I've joined a lodge.

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