More Crack Reporting about the Masons

I mean, really, why did they even bother?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2010/03/29/nh_freemasons_invite_the_public_in/

Can we please stop giving quotes about how we don't have any secrets to the press? At this point they have clearly taken the "Masons are trying to shed their mystique and seem more mundane" ball and run with it. They don't need our help anymore.

The Importance of Traveling

If you become a Mason, chances are good that a Brother will stand up after one (or all) of your degrees, congratulate you, and then proceed to exhort you to get out and visit other lodges, in and beyond their district. Sometimes they'll go so far as to say, "Visiting other lodges is what it's all about!"

Because many of these Brothers are old-timers, they get tuned out by the other members of the lodge who have heard the same spiel dozens of times before. You, who still barely know the names of anyone in your own lodge, will think to yourself "First things first! I don't even understand what just happened to me. I don't want to go to some other lodge full of guys I don't know."

But here's the thing: if you join your local lodge and find that it's not a good fit for you (membership too old, membership too young, personality conflicts, whatever) how are you ever going to know if there's a lodge in the next town over that's everything you're looking for if you never go and visit them?

If you've joined and are getting everything you need from your mother lodge and see no reason you should ever visit another, that's great... but if you've joined and feel let down, or puzzled at what the big deal is, get out and travel! It's one of your rights and privileges as a Master Mason. Don't be hesitant about setting foot in a room full of total, or near-total strangers; they're your Brothers, and you may meet among them Masons who embody whatever particular aspect of Freemasonry attracted you to the fraternity in the first place.

The problem is that it can take a while to determine whether a lodge is merely suffering from typical generation gap issues ("We've always done it that way!" "$8 is too much for dinner as it is!") or if there's a deeper dysfunction at work, and because new candidates look to the rest of the lodge to show them the ropes, they may assume that the microcosm of their lodge is "just the way Freemasonry is," wonder what the attraction is supposed to be, and stop showing up.

Question for my Massachusetts Scottish Rite Brethren

If a Brother wanted to join the Scottish Rite in Massachusetts and go sequentially from 4º to 32º, is that even something that can be done anymore? Just join a Lodge of Perfection and work from 4º through 14º, move on to Princes of Jerusalem, and so on? I've looked at a few different Valleys over the last 2 1/2 years and get the impression that there are some degrees that get performed rarely, if ever... and not sequentially, either.

A corollary question: If you joined the Scottish Rite by way of a one-day class, did you find the degrees themselves fulfilling, or is your enjoyment of Scottish Rite drawn from your participation in one or more of the bodies that make up your Valley? I live prohibitively far from any of the Massachusetts Valleys to get anywhere near as involved as I have in my Blue Lodge, so my main interest in the Scottish Rite (at least, right now) would be in experiencing the degrees themselves. I know the degrees don't need to be taken sequentially, but I'm not in a rush.

Under whose watchful care even comets perform their stupendous revolutions

“A universe simple enough to be understood is too simple to produce a mind capable of understanding it.” — Cambridge cosmologist John Barrow

(Via Futility Closet)

Building Costs

This would make an excellent research paper, and someday when I develop some research chops and perhaps when I'm out of the officer line I'll have the time to pursue it, but in the meantime, I have found myself wondering lately:

Has anyone done a financial analysis of the following data points:

• Membership numbers in the early 20th century
• Dues costs relative to the currency of the time
• Money spent to build the magnificent, reverent temples that we can't afford anymore
  

I find it hard to believe that Brethren alone could have chipped in enough money to build grand edifices like the Temples at Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts, even with double our current membership or quadruple the dues we currently pay (adjusted for inflation). Were building corporations able to secure large construction loans for these projects? Did wealthy Brothers act as patrons, donating thousands of dollars? How did they get built, really?



And the age-old question: Why does nobody care any more? When I talk to old-timers who had the privilege of meeting in some of the beautiful old buildings that have since been abandoned, the old temples are usually spoken of with a shrug, not the wistful sadness I feel when I look at them. And the follow-up question: Why are the new lodge buildings that do occasionally get built so utterly uninspiring? I know that they simply "don't make 'em like they used to," but surely we could do even just a little bit better than the white clapboard boxes that seem to be the norm for newer lodge buildings in New England.

Politics

The age-old policy of Masons not to discuss religion or politics in Lodge is a very good one, but after living through last year's Presidential campaign and the current special senatorial election in Massachusetts, I find myself a little bit disillusioned.

Even if members of a lodge observe that policy (and many of the older, conservative Brothers in my neck of the woods don't), what if you've added them as contacts on Facebook? There's no Masonic code of conduct that says you can't talk politics around other Masons outside of Lodge, so watching Brothers (liberal and conservative alike) let fly on Facebook can be eye opening.

It doesn't bother me that a Brother might have a political difference of opinion with me, but it absolutely bothers me when I see a Mason making false logic or ad hominem attacks against the ideas, members, or candidates of another political party... because when I shake a Brother's hand in Lodge, I don't want to be wondering if he secretly holds me in contempt, too.

All Dressed Up

From the Onion: Man Unable To Wear Nice Clothes Without Everyone Asking Questions

I can't speak for other parts of the world, but here in north-central Massachusetts I get a lot of funny looks whenever I duck into a convenience store to grab something on my way to or from a lodge meeting, dressed in a suit.

People really just don't dress up for anything any more... when my wife and I made our first visit to our local UU church last year (my first visit to an organized church in a number of years), the high school kids were wearing jeans and logo sweatshirts. Adults asked, "Why are you all dressed up?"

It really blows peoples' minds when I'm wearing a tuxedo.