Ouch! They threw the second heaviest load on your shoulders Brother. Not fair to throw the SD chair at an unexposed brother. But there it is.
Okay. You're going to have to bone up on your work! Know your opening (there is one if sanctification cannot be obtained) and closing duties. Know who you actually report to, and what are your duties with visitors and candidates. Heavy work, unless you can pass it off, in degrees. You should learn and perform your work in the degrees. It will teach you everyone else's esoteric work, save your consummated buttock as the work grows heavier in the higher chairs, and not leave you wishing you could participate in the degrees. Honest.
Duties include making sure visitors are identified, tested, and vouched for. Get with a learned brother and learn how to screen visitors. If you are in Texas, you will have a special duty to TMWPHGLoTx and TMWGLoTx. You cannot let a clandestine or expelled mason into the lodge room. Spend lots of time learning this duty. It is critical to your lodge and jurisdiction's sovereignty.
If you aspire, or expire in my case, to move up the line make sure you are at lodge each time the door opens (or as close to that as possible.) You must "learn the ropes" from the Master, SW, and JW. Senior Deacon is a serious position and should be taken as such. Learn it, realize that you are beholding to the Master and the lodge for the next four years of your life. If you can't comment, get out of the way the next year. No need compounding a mistake. It may be that you can't devote the time, or, that you don't have the experience as a mason to fulfill the post. If either be the case, don't fail your lodge and brethren, get out of the line of fire as soon as possible. Take another shot when you are better prepare and, or, can enjoy it.
Are you ready? Find out yourself by pouring over your Monitor. Study your duties and those of the WM, SW, and JW. If you are not ready to take them all on with much study, learning, and growing, don't make a bigger mistake pushing forward. Remember, the lodge, district, and jurisdiction will be counting heavily on you.
Growing? No, I don't mean in belt size like myself. Brother you better get humble if you aren't humble. Anything less smells to high heaven and will be resented by others. Though there are those who are too small to notice, it makes the journey tougher on a man aware of his surroundings. How soon? Sometimes getting off on the wrong foot is the last opportunity. The peanut gallery can be callus.
Finally, if you are new to masonry, you must know that being thrown in halfway up the line will leave you unfulfilled once you've stepped down from the East. You will then realize that you missed several learning experiences further down the line. Don't think so, wait and see. Happens too often to be only "plausible."
Don't get me wrong, if you have to you have to. But make the sacrifice because the lodge needs it at this critical time. Skipping around in the journey leaves gaps that you may not be allowed to go back and experience. Learn your work, grow in masonry, and become a learned brother among us. Enjoy the road. You will find out that it goes much too fast.
Get some sleep Brother. But just before you nod off tonight, think of the toughest, smartest, brother in that lodge of yours who carries most, if not all, of these values just listed. Yeah, you might even call them a combination of WISDOM. You're going to need his selfless help over the coming months. You might have to bribe the old fart now and again but it promises to be worth it for you and the lodge in the end.
GIT ER DUN!