6229 MAC
Registered User
[FONT="]Masonic Recycling[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
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[FONT="]Our nation’s resources are being depleted at such a rapid rate and our landfills and atmosphere are becoming so quickly saturated with our thoughtless progress, that it has become a national priority … no, a global priority to find new ways to conserve, recycle and find a more earth friendly means of supporting our commerce and daily lives. Is there a lesson to be learned here as Masons? Like the consumer who found no further need for his aluminum soda can after drinking its contents and tossed it in the trash, have we tossed our Working Tools in the trash bin after they had served their purpose during the degrees? Like the wife who tosses the grocery bags into the trash after she puts away her purchases, have we quickly forgotten the continuing usefulness of our Past Masters when their year in the East is over and relegated them to the sidelines with not so much as a committee appointment or an occasional phone call to see if they had some ideas to contribute to the new challenges faced by the lodge? Like the driver littering a paper cup out the window of his automobile when he was done with it, have we accepted the benefit of a good deed done to us by a Brother and not reciprocated when they found themselves in need?[/FONT]
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[FONT="]What can the worlds focus on recycling, teach us about how to preserve our fraternity and prevent our Masonic landscape and fraternal atmosphere from becoming uninhabitable? What can we, as brothers, do to keep the landscape of our life, the waters of our mind, and the atmosphere of our home healthy?[/FONT]
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[FONT="]I submit to you that we can recycle our Masonry and let nothing go to waste.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Let’s go back to the beginning of our Masonic journey, when all was new, before you may have crumpled many of our precious lessons and tossed them into the wastebasket of neglected memories. Do you remember those early lectures?[/FONT]
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[FONT="]In the first degree we were presented with a 24 Inch Gavel and instructed how Masons should use their time. We learned that there is a time and place for all things and chief among these should be service to a distressed worthy brother and devotion to God. We were taught how the common gavel can illustrate that we have the means at hands to rid ourselves of those bad habits and vices that stand between us and happiness.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]The plumb, the square and the level were presented to us in the second degree and a Masonic Mentor taught us about the responsibilities we have in our interactions with each other as men to be a contributing member of society and a well regarded member of the human family.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Having absorbed much and traveled far, in the third degree we were taught the frailty of human life and the awful destructiveness of blind ambition and impatience. We were taught to bide our time and receive all that life has to teach us at its own pace. We were rudely brought to maturity when accosted at the East Gate and taught to recognize our poor ability to overcome life’s challenges without divine inspiration. The trowel was given to us as a symbolic reminder of how the trials of our rough and rugged journey should bind us together with in dis-solvable ties.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Perhaps your interest was at a peak during the lectures about the Working Tools. Perhaps it refreshed you and gave you pause to think, which was the goal of each of the degrees. But what did you do with the “container†of those ideals after you had consumed them? Did you toss it into the Masonic garbage bin like the discarded soda can?[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Perhaps the orator who gave you those lectures sadly doubted his words were going to ever take root in your Masonic heart. That concern may have been shared by the lecturer who gave you the “On Yonder Book†lecture when he asked, “Will you be worth anything to Freemasonry and will Freemasonry be worth anything to you?†The answer then and now continues to be found in your heart.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]The choice to recycle the Working Tools is ours to make and it continues to be within our power to use our Masonic working tools for the construction of that spiritual temple …. that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Have you been stirred enough to commit to “Recycle� Then here are some tips for you:[/FONT]
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- [FONT="]Recycle Your Traveling Credentials [/FONT][FONT="]– Did we not become a Master Mason where we would travel in foreign countries? Dust off the Tyler’s oath and recommit it to memory where you can travel in foreign lodges and feel again the refreshing fire that kindles when you are among the greater Masonic family.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Recycle your Role As A Master Mason[/FONT][FONT="] – Entered Apprentices are learning the work. Fellowcrafts are doing the work. Masters are teaching the work. Learn one of the lectures or parts in one of the degrees. Help a candidate become a Mason. Coach. Mentor.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Preserve Our Masonic Resources [/FONT][FONT="]– Evaluate your friends and determine if their innate and unrealized potential could be better fruition by setting them on a Masonic path. There are great ways for the question to arise without your having to ask.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Keep Freemasonry Beautiful and Green [/FONT][FONT="]– Enhance the human landscape with your personal joy. Smile wherever you go, provide a friend with encouragement, boost the self-esteem of a young person with praise or a compliment, bring cheer into someone who is sick by visiting them or sending them a card to let them know they matter. Extend a random act of kindness to a perfect stranger. It will enrich you both.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Clean Up Any Toxic Dumps In Your Mind [/FONT][FONT="]– You are identified by the company you keep. He who runs with the dogs gets fleas. These sayings have become clichés because they contain truths. Avoid toxic places and people. There are some places that a Mason just should not go.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ask yourself[/FONT][FONT="] “What can I do to provide a cleaner, healthier environment for my lodge�[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Here is my answer[/FONT][FONT="]: “I will strive today to recycle my obligations as a Mason and honor my God, my family, and my friends.†If you do likewise, it will help your lodge to be perfected.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]To fuel our lives with an eternal, infinite source and not depend on the profane.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To produce more than we consume, always helping another to succeed.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To eliminate that toxicity from our lives that pollute us no less than chemicals pollute the air and water.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To nurture the soil of our heart and keep it tilled for the growth of charity.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To partner with others in this great mission; Masonry was never intended to be performed alone.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To bind ourselves together with cords that cannot be broken.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Mac McGee, PM- DOW Hampton Lodge #70[/FONT]
Very inspiring, thanks for sharing.