Oh, where, oh where can we be?

If there is one word that encompasses the internet and innovation, it has to be Google. The search-engine turned numerous-web-tool company developed a fantastic set of mapping applications a few years ago. The two most important apps are Google Maps and Google Earth. At face value, Google Maps can be compared to mapquest, however there is much more under the hood. Google Maps is a web-app that allows users to view street maps, plan routes and look at aerial photos. But the true power of Google Maps is the ability to make your own maps. A user can place a series of locations, both points and areas, over existing maps and share these maps with other people over the web. Google Earth is a client side piece of software that has the same abilities as Google Maps in addition to GPS mapping and 3D topographical and structural mappings. The functionalities I stated here are just the tip of the iceberg. These two software packages are very dense and have much to offer. Go try them out for yourself.

Now what does mapping software have to do with Masonry? Well, if you have an electronic address list for all the brothers in your lodge, you can easily import this list into Google Earth and create a map of where your brothers live. Now creating action plans that are geographically dependent are simple. If you have refreshments that need to be picked up from a specific location, bring up your map, see who lives nearby and have him pick it up on his way to lodge. If some of the younger brothers want to give some of the older brothers a hand with shoveling snow, they can map out their course of action using the membership map. If a brother needs a ride to lodge, check the map and see who lives nearby. You could map out all the lodges in your district and get a better idea of which lodge is where. There are an endless number of jobs this software can do. If you think of more, please add a comment and let the whole Masonic Community know!

Here is an example of a user-generated map. I created this map with the locations of a few of the Masonic blogs I frequently read. This map is nowhere near done, but I figured you'd get a good idea of its capabilities.


View Larger Map

To-do list item #8 - Completed

Since writing the To-do List Craze article, I have made some headway in terms of my to-dos. Each of these to-dos are larger projects and I have spent some time on each of them. However, it seems that I have actually completed one. To-do #8, aka "Convert lodge website into the new template supplied by the Grand Lodge" is complete and can be checked out at adelphi-momauguin63.org. Tell me what you think. Given that I have the next week off, hopefully I'll complete a few more.

The To-Do List Craze

Sometimes the best way to find ideas for Masonic lodge productivity and organization is from non-Masons. If we constantly look inwards, without looking to the outside world, we will grow stale. Keeping with this idealogy, I'm always looking to expand my herizons and find new and interesting things. When I find something of note, I try to apply it to my "Masonic Life."

Today, I came across the To-Do List Blog by Sasha Cagen. I'm no stranger to To-Do lists. I have them everwhere (including in my now deceased Mac laptop :( ). I have shopping lists, christmas lists, long term goal lists, home renovation lists, all sorts of lists. I like them. I forget things. The lists keep me from forgetting things. Pretty simple system.

Sasha Cagen's blog and book, brings together people's love for To-Do lists. Needless to say, I was instantly hooked. Her blog was funny and cute, yet practical and thoughtful. As I was reading her blog, I was going back and forth between the recent developments in the Halcyon Lodge situation. This jumping between the "real" world and the "masonic" world got me thinking. What would my Masonic To-Do list be? What are the things I want to get done to help my lodge?

So, I decided to take a moment and write down what I want to do for my lodge to make it better. It will immediately follow this post. I invite all my faithful readers (this number may be up to 4 by now) to create their own list. Focus on the practical and keep it focused towards your lodge. This isn't supposed to be a spiritual or philosophical list, although I encourage these as well. Simply and quickly, write out what you would do to make your lodge a better lodge. Limit it to a small number and try to act on it. Remember, a building is made brick by brick. Find your bricks and build your lodge. Here I go:

1. Scan in all the Past Masters and Officer photos into the lodge computer and post it on the internet.


2. Complete the report of the Strategic Planning Committtee.


3. Create my presentation for "Freemasonry and the Nazis", including Powerpoint.


4. Organize the Lodge Library and finish the checkout system for book borrowing.


5. Create the DVD for the Installation of Officers 2007 and distribute it to the brothers.


6. Gather the names of all brothers who would like to receive electronic copies of the Treastleboard instead of snail mail versions.


7. Ask for a vote on the lodge paying for the Masonic Education Course for all brothers who would like to take it, then sign brothers up for the course. (Updated - 2008-01-17)


8. Convert lodge website into the new template supplied by the Grand Lodge.
   (Updated - 2007-12-30)


9. Create the outline for next year's Candidate Education Program.


10. Update the lodge history for the past ten years.

Many Masons want change. Change only occurs through action. Action begins in thought. A To-Do list is a vital bridge between thought and action.

A Certain Point within a Circle

"Obligation", "Freedom", "Loyalty", "Blind Obedience", "severed ties", "broken oaths", etc! These are the buzz words being thrown around in several Masonic blogs and forums this week. For those of you who are unaware, Halcyon Lodge of Cleveland, Ohio turned in their charter to the Grand Lodge of Ohio and are now operating under an unnamed jurisdiction. In the past, Halcyon lodge was known to be a very progressive lodge with positive results. I would be remiss to say that many ideas that I stated on this blog were gained from the brothers of this lodge. More information regarding their activities can be found on their web site.

This blog, Masonic Renaissance, is fairly unique in the world of Masonic blogs. I do not focus on my personal opinions regarding current Masonic events, although my readers could gain a general understanding of my leanings. I also rarely talk about my personal experiences in my lodge. I tend not to focus on the philosophical aspects of Freemasonry. My posts usually focus on organizational structures or leadership principles. I also discuss new technologies being applied to Masonry.

With that being said, this post will be slightly different than my typical writings. I believe that the current events regarding Halcyon lodge reflect a general trend in Masonry, which I feel my blog attempts to dissect and analyze. I call this trend the "saddle" effect. Masonry lost the generations of the 70's, 80's and 90's. Freemasonry gained few members who were part of the Vietnam Generation, the Me Generation or Generation X. However, the beginning of the 21st century has been more positive in terms of Masonic membership. There has been an upswing in members that are currently in their 20's. Many lodge's membership distributions look like saddles with many brothers in age range of 20-35 and 60-80, and few brothers between 35-60. Many of these young brothers did not discover Masonry through their fathers or by its general effects. They discovered Masonry through the Davinci Code, the History channel and the Internet. They expected to find Warrior Monks, Enlightened Souls, World Rulers, Secret Knowledge and much, much more. However, they didn't find these things. They found an organization filled with normal people and normal problems. They found an organization filled with older members, who felt like they were the last captains of a sinking ship and were not open to change. The older brothers didn't have what the younger brothers were looking for. So many younger brothers turned to other sources. They read Pike and Mackey. They looked to the old landmarks and Anderson's Constitutions. They looked across the seas to European Masonry and their traditions. They looked to the Internet and the new ideas being generated by brothers across the globe.

In summary, the perception these brothers had of Masonry did not match reality, so they focused on changing reality. These new brothers wanted a different kind of Masonry, a more idealistic type of Masonry. In many lodges, this conflict between perception and reality created an "us vs them" mentality. I have seen lodges where the young guys sit on one side and the old guys sit on another side. One side votes one way and the other side votes the opposite. This is a typical expression of the age old conflict between innovation and tradition. This is not an isolated problem in an isolated lodge. It is occurring across the country. One side purports to be defending the principles of Masonry and so does the other side. Both sides believe that they are in the right, because they have different opinions of what are the true principles of Freemasonry. Is Freemasonry a philosophy? a social club? a service organization? Does the authority of masonry reside in the individual lodge or in the Grand Lodge? Is it important that Masonry has a board membership that has had a topical interaction with the lessons of the degrees or a selective membership of well educated brothers who are experienced with archaic Masonic writers?

Unfortunately, Masonry is reflecting the general trend of our nation. We're living in an increasingly polarized nation filled with radicals. We have Republicans vs Democrats, liberals vs conservatives, young vs old, rich vs poor, one religion vs another religion, homosexuals vs those who believe homosexuality is immoral, technologists vs traditionalists. For me, a radical is a person who is so set in their ideas and opinions that they are unwilling to listen to the ideas and opinions of others and will not accept that the ideas and opinions of others are valid. Using this definition, I believe that Freemasonry at its core is anti-radical. Masonry is built on the belief that people are different and believe different things, but they can come together to form a better world. Members have different religions and different political beliefs, yet they are all brothers. However, we now have more and more Masonic radicals, brothers who are unwilling to listen to the ideas and the opinions of their brothers. These brothers sit on both sides of the lodge room. We have young radical masons and old radical masons. This radicalism will destroy us. If we can not be brothers in the lodgeroom, how can we be brothers in the outside world and how can we spread the principles of the brotherly love, relief and truth?

People are inherently different. The principles of Masonry accept this fact. We are not meant to be homogeneous. We are meant to be brothers in spite of our differences. We don't have to agree, but we should accept our disagreements as disagreements and move on. Some of our brothers during the Revolutionary, Civil and World Wars were able to push aside their political differences and embrace each other as brothers. Why should the relatively minor disagreements of today divide us? To be cliched, can't we all just get along?

Our degrees teach us to be a certain point within a circle. This shows us the due bounds drawn by the compasses. On one side of the circle is St. John the Baptist and on the other is St. John the Evangelist. These two saints represent two radical sides of Christianity (innovation and tradition). We, as masons, are taught to stand in the center as the point. Masonry is about balance, not radicalism. Balance breeds understanding and tolerance. Radicalism breeds hate and division.

I hope that the brothers on both sides of this argument can see the positive benefits of balance. May brotherly love prevail and ever moral and social virtue cement us.

The Masonic Spectacle...

For the candidate, masonic ritual is new and exciting, filled with wonders and thought-provoking allegories. For the newly initiated brother, seeing a degree on the sidelines gives them a different view of the experiences they just undertook and allows them to reflect on these important principles. For the masonic officer, performing in masonic ritual is exhilarating and allows them to discover the lessons that teaching can only bestow. But what about our other brothers? Sitting on the sideline for degree after degree can grow stale and placid. This lack of excitement can quickly lead to lack of interest, which will yield a lack of attendance.

Any brother who has been active for more than five years and says that he has never been bored by masonic ritual is lying to himself. This point of boredom may occur long before the five year mark, I stated, depending on the activity of the lodge, but it will most likely occur.

Now, I don't want brothers to get angry with me. I can hear it now. "Masonic ritual is the greatest thing in the world. No one can ever get bored of it!!!" Come on! Let's be real here. If the portrayal masonic ritual was always extremely exciting, why do most lodges only have a 10% active retention rate? Why do so many brothers seek further light in the apendent bodies, so quickly? Why don’t brothers volunteer in droves to perform in degree work?

The answer is our brothers are bored. Many of our brothers have seen dozens or hundreds of portrayals of the exact same degree, performed in the exact same way and with the exact same level of enthusiasm. This is the killer of our fraternity, boredom! But how do we fight boredom? Simple, change how we do ritual!

Once again, I can hear the screams of our brothers, “Masonic ritual is sacrosanct, we can’t change anything. It has always been done this way and must always be the done this way!!!!” Hogwash! First of all, I’m not suggesting an all out change to the ritual, I’m suggesting we change how we do ritual and to expand the ritual. There is a huge difference. Hamlet has been performed in thousands of different ways, but it’s still Hamlet. Second, Masonic Ritual is not sacred. It was not handed to us by God, that is a claim for religions. Masonic ritual was made by man and therefore can be changed by man. As long as we stay within the rules and regulations of our Grand Lodges, changes can be made. Finally, Masonic Ritual has been a dynamic organism over its several century development. The rituals performed for Washington, Pike, Kipling and Garbaldi were all very different. Ritual from one country will be different than the ritual in another country. Diversity is one of our greatest strengths.

Now, prepare for some Masonic Heresy. Masonic Ritual is like sex! Sex is great and wonderful. When it’s new, it’s exciting. But it can grow stale, if you do it the same way every time. Talk to any long term married couple and you’ll discover that sex can grow boring, even for people who love each other very much. So what do they do? Marriage Councilors and Sex Therapists have many suggestions to spice up a sex-life. Some of these suggestions are role-playing, bringing food into the bedroom, special costumes, change of location, different positions and acting excited to foster excitement. I will now prescribe the same solutions to help masonic ritual.

Now, get your mind out of the gutter. There’s no sex in the masonic ritual room (a pun on Chris Rock’s song “There’s no sex in the champagne room.”) All the aforementioned solutions can easily be adapted for masonic usage. Let’s begin:

Role-playing - I have heard too many brothers perform ritual like a robot. There is no emotion, no inflection, no change of tone, no acting. Masonic ritual should be exciting. Don’t be afraid to “ham it up.” I enjoyed acting in High School and now I attempt to add some of that acting to my degree work. You should act the part. When you do degree work, you’re no longer John Smith. You’re the Senior Deacon. So, act like the Senior Deacon. A prime example of this is the second half of the Master Mason Degree. This part is not ceremonial, it is a drama, so we should act dramatically. Add emotion to this section and the newly made Master Mason will surely remember this experience for years to come.

Bringing food into the lodge - The fellowship that occurs before a degree can make a huge difference. This fellowship can be amplified by food. Breaking bread with your brothers creates a type of bond that is truly unique and this feeling will only help the bonding occurring during the ritual. My lodge has been introducing a large dinner before many of our degrees. The smiles and laughter during this time sets the mood for the work we do upstairs. Also, the food doesn't have to be boring. I have been to too many meatloaf dinners at lodges. Try something interesting, like an international night, where all the brothers bring a dish from their families ethnic background. An Octoberfest dinner can easily be made or Creole food for Mardi Gras.

Special Costumes - The traditional dress for degree in my lodge is tuxes. However, I have attended ritual done in police uniforms, Scottish kilts, ancient builders dress, colonial garb and york rite aprons. There are many other variations of dress that Masonic Ritual can be done in. As long as your Grand Lodge's rules and regulations are followed, be creative! Visually changing the appearance of the ritual can make a world of different to the level of excitement that occurs. Check out Levant Preceptory for an example of interesting costumes for degree work. These brothers dress as original Knights Templar for the Commandary Degrees in the York Rite and I'm sure they have a blas doing it.

Change of Location - Lodges don't have to meet in lodge rooms! With dispensation, lodges can change locations. This opens the doors for a wide range of options. A lodge in Moosup, CT has a Quarry Degree, where the brothers hold their degree in an operative masonic rock quarry. My lodge over the past weekend, held an Outdoor Master Mason Degree. This simple change of location energized my lodge brothers in a way that I had not previously seen. Everyone had a wonderful time and we hope to make it an annual event. Joint degrees can also be held with a neighboring lodge, so your lodge can visit another lodge in their building. A change of place can yield a change of mind.

Different Positions - Many lodges have "Step-up Nights", where all the line officers step up to the next chair in the line. This gives these brothers a chance to experience what their next years will look like. Many lodges also have Past Masters' Nights, where the Past Masters of the lodge perform all the degree work. There are also Purple Apron Degrees, where all the positions in the lodge are filled by Present and Past Grand Lodge Officers. A lodge in my area has an EA degree called the Kiddie Corner, where the newly raised brothers of the lodge perform the degree. Degrees don't have to be done by just the officers of the lodge, everyone can get active.

Another change of position is what degree work is done. In my jurisdiction, we have many extended lectures that can be performed. The first lecture I learned in my lodge is the extended apron lecture. I throughly enjoyed learning a piece of lecture that added to the degree work of the lodge and my brothers enjoyed hearing it. There are many other additional lectures that can be learned, such as "The Bridge Builder" poem, the extended Middle Chamber lecture, charges from other jurisdictions, the Beehive lecture and many, many more. Another change to a lecture is the Walking Stewards lecture, where the brothers who perform the Stewards lecture, act out the responses to the questions being asked. This is a great way to recap the entire degree in short form. Once again, make sure that the rules and regulations of your Grand Lodge are checked before making these changes.

Acting excited to foster excitement - This is the most important change that can be made to Masonic Ritual. Act Excited! If you want people to enjoy themselves, enjoy it yourself and show it. Excitement is contagious. Always stay positive if you want to get other brothers involved. Don't speech negatively about other people's degree work or lack of participation. Guilt and talking behind someone's back will only yield resentment. Negativity will only sour the pot. One of the most important roles for a Masonic Lodge Officer is to be a cheerleader.

One of the draws of Masonic Ritual is seeing something new and interesting. A spectacle can be defined as " Something that can be seen or viewed, especially something of a remarkable or impressive nature." So make your degree work into a spectacle. Make it remarkable and impressive. Once this is done, you brothers will naturally want to attend more meetings.

These are the things that I have seen to make masonic ritual more exciting, but there are many other ways. I would love to hear what other brothers have done to make their degree work more interesting :)

Birds of a Feather

Worshipful Brother Tim Bryce posted a great article on using recent internet technologies to form online discussion groups and networking for masons. Check out the post here.

The website this article is hosted on is also a huge wealth of masonic knowledge, so I would also suggest checking out www.freemasoninformation.com.

Actions speak louder then words

This is a post that a lodge brother and old friend sent me about what he feels is important in masonry. Brother Tom has a huge heart and uses it often. There is a difference between being a mason and living masonry. Brother Tom does both. I would suggest we contemplate his words the next time we're arguing over minutes or wasting time on bills. Masonry should be about what masons do, not what masons say.

"One of the things that I would change about Freemasonry is our level of community involvement. All to often, it seems like when a brother first enters the Fraternity there is a lot of talk about how we give so much money away. Now I’m not disputing this, but I think as a whole each lodge should and could do more. For example what’s to stop each state from having an annual or monthly soup kitchen run. We could assign certain members of each lodge to donate their time once a month for a period of 4 hours to help run a soup kitchen. We could do things like this and many other activities. For example it’s not just donating money that allows “Masons to help make men better ” Time is also a valuable asset. Many of us can donate time at the Shiner’s hospitals by just reading, educating and entertaining the kids that are in the hospital. I would gladly be willing to put more of my time doing something like, rather then waiting in lodge to hear the minutes read. There is also a lot of preparatory work that can be done on nights where we have meetings.

In our lodge we have an event called breakfast with Santa for the kids. Every year there are two of our lodge members slaving away the night before wrapping present for hours? Why? Why not have the whole lodge help out after the Stated Communication and wrap a couple of presents. Our members are there why not put them to work. We could help organize a phone-athon wherein we call other masons and family members to see if they would donate money for one of the many walk-athons. We could act on behalf of companies such as Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, or even help our own circle of brothers, like the Shiners Hospitals. We should be calling up big fortune 500 companies and small ones and getting them to donate time, money or both.

When you ask people about community service many say they would love to perform some but often never follow through with it for two reasons. One of the reason is people have never been shown the harsh reality that some people experience, such as elders eating cat food because it’s cheaper. Second, people are a bit intimidated by the fact that they don’t know how they can help. Just imagine for a minute if we could change our lodge dues to also include 12 hours of community service every year. That is just one hour a month. The lodge I currently belong to has 110 members that are dues-paying members. So if those 110 members did 12 hours of service each, that would leave you with 33 weeks of 40-hour community service workweeks. We also share the same building with another lodge. If we teamed up, it would amount to over one year of 40-hour community service workweeks. It’s one thing to say, “making good men better”; and another thing to see it put in action.

I understand that we must have ritual work and stated communications. I’m not disputing that. But I would much rather put some energy and effort into feeling as if I’m making a difference in the community rather then have to sit and listen to minutes read and people arguing over insignificant details.

What really bothers me is that we say we are so great and that we do all these great things. We do give a lot to in comparison to most. However, I think on the local level there are a ton of things that we can do with very little change. But it all starts with our ability to put these plans in actions rather then sit and rant about minutes from the last meeting.

My lodge’s Fellowcraft Club has a game night about once every other month. What’s to stop us from having these game nights at hospices or other community centers where we can interact with our elders? In high school I used to leave school during my study hall just to visit a local elderly care place. I often would be the only visitor some of these people would see for months.

In closing I’m not saying that we should denounce our current system. I just would like it if we did less talking and more action. It shouldn’t take us 30 minutes of arguing to deciding the condiments at a family and friends BBQ. Instead if we should put those 30 minutes to good use. We could spend that time creating something positive and avoid situations were two members are stuck wrapping presents for hours."

Brother Thomas Hardy

So mote it be!