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Mediocrity in Masonry

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By: ROBERT G. DAVIS, 33*, GRAND CROSS

One of the questions that occasionally eats at me when I am driving home from a Masonic event, degree, or function that has been woefully mediocre is how our members can sit through such Masonic happenings month after month and still believe our fraternity is relevant and meaningful to men’s lives? How honest are we in claiming we make good men better while persistently repeating practices and behaviors which are so distinctively average, or worse? Self improvement involves some form of positive change. It requires some level of progress; entails some elevated sense of being. Explain to me how a lodge facilitates self improvement by offering its members a venue that doesn’t “feel” any different when they are inside the lodge than outside of it.

Perhaps many of us come into Masonry looking for nothing more than fraternal association. But, if that’s the case, it ought to be the best fraternal association we have ever had!

Once we encounter the preparation room, or make our progress through the degrees, it is hard to dismiss the awareness that we are engaged in something wholly different from our other community experiences. We quickly learn that Masonry has a higher calling which requires that we make an ascent into the very center of our being.

An endeavor of such high importance and due solemnity is not a run of the mill undertaking. It becomes clear there is nothing mediocre about Masonry. So why do we make it that way?

Here’s the problem. Accepting mediocrity in our lodge practices is the same as living a mediocre life. By making un-extraordinary acts and behaviors our ordinary practice, we entrap ourselves from knowing how precious life really is. We don’t use opportunities that come our way as a means of expressing how special we really are. Instead, we walk the walk with the rest of the herd and soon find ourselves in such a deep rut of limitations we lose sight of our own value. We become trapped in mediocrity.

Regrettably, this too often seems the condition in which lodges, Scottish Rite Valleys, York Rite Chapters, Councils and Commanderies find themselves. When nothing extraordinary, educational, insightful, compelling, intellectual, contemplative, spiritual, or fraternal occurs in our private, sacred, fraternal spaces, then we become only another ordinary, average, run of the mill, dime-a-dozen organization. It is hard to see how this kind of Masonry takes good men and makes them better.

It is not the kind of Masonry we should want to share with our friends.

I believe that if we truly want to move “from the square to the compasses,” we have to dare to be different. And we can’t dare to be different by following someone else’s expectations. When a lodge does the same thing year after year, it is accepting by default someone else’s expectations. There is nothing creative, inspiring, or different about parroting ritual, paying bills, and going home. That’s doing only what many others have done before us.

To distinguish ourselves among men and organizations, we first have to perceive in our own minds that we have something to do which will ultimately set us above the average. We start by thinking about the choices before us.

Do we choose what is safe rather than what is right? Do we only do things right, or do we do the right things? Do we set out on a new path, or take the same old, comfortable way? Do we bring credit to our teachings, or debit them as ideals of the past? Do we become the examples that young men want to emulate, or do we seem to them as just another group of ho hum guys?

You see, the choice always controls the chooser. To be exemplary men, or an exemplary organization, we have to be exceptional in our awareness of who we are, what we are here to be doing, what we know, and how we practice what we know. We have to have the courage to be different from the rest of the crowd—nobler in our expectations and more refined in our state of mind.

Because that’s just the way Masonry is.

He who wants milk should not sit himself in the middle of a pasture and wait for a cow to back up to him.
 
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Roscoe Urson

Guest
I keep thinking how my lodge can accept the conditions of the building itself. I also wonder why once a month is the only time I hear from them. Like p.m.s., my brothers only meet once a month and go out of their way to avoid contact until lodge night. There is no getting together and coaching or conversing about Masonic matters, which I want to do. Also, there is no desire to advance or to "better themselves". The reasons for doing so is spoken at opening and closing at every meeting by the Senior Warden. Lo! I see none of this brotherhood but once a month. Something doesn't seem right. Now, take into consideration there are only a few older gentlemen at this lodge, but they are not the majority. They've done and seen it all I suppose. I hate calling brothers or sending them a message on Facebook, seeing that they saw the message but never bothered to reply. And I will jump on someone for that. Don't ignore a brother. That is very anti-Masonic.
 
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Ressam

Guest
Greetings, Mr.James!
Freemasonry is not "mediocre".
It's just not "salvation"!
And it's OK!
It's function of Christ!
Not of Masonry.
And yes!
The Ritual is adorning.
The Real Spiritual Development(Making yourself better) is occurin' with -- day-to-day activities, when interacting with surroundin' people, not in The Lodge.
 
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Roscoe Urson

Guest
When the building holds pathogens, mold and mildew and nobody wants to hear about it during lodge, it has a lot to do with that as well. I put myself in the position for another respiratory infection and risk breaking more ribs from coughing which makes me mad. Like the Hulk.
 

Ripcord22A

Site Benefactor
Greetings, Mr.James!
Freemasonry is not "mediocre".
It's just not "salvation"!
And it's OK!
It's function of Christ!
Not of Masonry.
And yes!
The Ritual is adorning.
The Real Spiritual Development(Making yourself better) is occurin' with -- day-to-day activities, when interacting with surroundin' people, not in The Lodge.

How many times do you have to be told not to comment on things like this....how do u know its not mediocre? That its not salvation? That the ritual just adorns it? Again...u don't. You have no clue!
 

Warrior1256

Site Benefactor
How many times do you have to be told not to comment on things like this....how do u know its not mediocre? That its not salvation? That the ritual just adorns it? Again...u don't. You have no clue!
He's just trying to pull our chains Brother. My advice? Either laugh or ignore him.
Speak for ur own GL JAMES. My lodges are not Mediocre. My Freemasonry isnt mediocre and Im offended that you suggest that my gentle Craft is mediocre
Same here. Could we do things better? Sure, there is always room for improvement but I certainly don't consider my lodges or GL mediocre.
 

Bloke

Premium Member
Second degree test question:
WM: Why were you made a Freemason?
Candidate: For the sake of obtaining the knowledge and secrets preserved among Freemasons.

So what knowledge and secrets do Freemasons preserve?

Shall we claim they are ineffable?

Shall we claim they are the substitute secrets - recognition signs freely available on the web?

Shall we claim that if only you go to a yet higher degree then you will have them?

Also not a question here..
 

Bloke

Premium Member
When the building holds pathogens, mold and mildew and nobody wants to hear about it during lodge, it has a lot to do with that as well. I put myself in the position for another respiratory infection and risk breaking more ribs from coughing which makes me mad. Like the Hulk.
A wise freemason once challenged me - "if it is to be, it is up to me"... I took the challenge and we have a team of three which transformed our building. I've saved two buildings from being lost..

As to the brotherhood, it is the same, dont focus on any failings of others but what you can do and what change you can effect.
How will you write your name into the history of Freemasonry ?
http://www.myfreemasonry.com/threads/write-your-name-into-the-history-of-freemasonry.27478/
 

Ripcord22A

Site Benefactor
So has your Grand Lodge made any efforts to recover the genuine secrets?

We have been waiting for centuries and on present trends yet another generation will die without them.
your always talking about these "Genuine Secrets" like they are a tangible thing. The genuine secrets are what you as a man are capable of once the rough edges of your ashlar are chipped away. The 3rd degree provides a "substitute" word and later in the AASR the true word is discovered. this has never made sense to me either as not only did KS and KHoT know the word but so did ever MM working on the Temple. How was it lost just because on man was lost?
 
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