My dear brethren, family and friends of Napa Valley Lodge, I am very happy to again be writing you from the pages of our lodge’s Trestleboard.
I love the early fall. This time of year plants are fooled into thinking the day/night cycle is spring, and those flowering vegetable plants that survived the summer are again flowering and producing fruit.
This month of course is Annual Communication.
At last month’s virtual stated meeting the officers decided to decide each month whether to hold the following month’s stated meeting virtual or in person based on conditions at the time. This month, October, will once again be virtual, at the same Zoom link as always, which you can find elsewhere in this Trestleboard, and on every group email that has gone out over the last year and a half. Winter dress please. We might be meeting virtually, but Freemasonry is one of the most important things we do in life, and we should dress to look the part.
That’s basically all the lodge news I have. Not much of a calendar, huh? How can we keep Masonry at the forefront of our attention when we have had so little physical contact with Freemasonry for the last year and a half? I am reminded that we first became Masons in our heart. This means we had an inner desire to become better men and to change the world to be a more civil society by our individual examples in our own communities and we found Freemasonry as a place to expand these internal and external efforts we were already doing.
We did not become Freemasons for it’s philanthropic opportunities. We did not become Freemasons because we desired to grow our individual businesses. We did not become Masons because some day in the future we might be able to sit in the East and wield the awesome power of the gavel and garner the undying respect from our peers (tongue firmly planted in cheek).
Some of us might have joined Freemasonry because we get to wear a cool ring once we are Master Masons. Our Master Mason ring reminds us of our obligations, and it allows us to meet brothers in surprising places.
But ultimately the way to stay connected in your heart to your original motivation to become a Mason is not through attending lodge, so it doesn’t really matter that we’ve been away from the metronome rhythm of lodge practices and meetings for nearly two years now. How do we stay connected to our original desire to become better men through becoming a Master Mason? Certainly most of us had been members of our fraternity long enough before the pandemic to realize that the lessons on becoming a better man are not really taught in the lodge room. Oh sure, there is some personal growth value in learning how to run a meeting through the civility afforded by Robert’s Rules. There is a personal growth thing that happens through our relationship of trust and love with our brothers. But it’s not like we get existential philosophic or even basic western psychology 101 education in the lodge room.
As Masons we desire a deeper connection with the Divinity and and to be better men, but regardless of the fervency of our desire, we are all human beings and are flawed at the outset by an ego that has been errantly trained in what things it observes means, and is usually wrong. So how can we utilize Freemasonry in our daily life towards our goal of being better men when we don’t learn it in lodge, and we can’t go to lodge (much) in the current situation anyway?
How can we learn to be better men, and maintain our love of our Gentle Craft, and yet keep our education efforts in alignment with Freemasonry, learn the main lesson, and not need to earn a psychology degree or meditate on a mountain for 20 years to do so?
Reading through the history of Freemasonry there is a great deal that has changed. Entire rituals and degrees are not as they once were. Even the very structure of the three degrees of entry into Freemasonry Blue Lodge has changed several times in history. Some degrees have been lost, some more modern ones added, and some moved to the appendant bodies. But there is one, single, undying, core truth to Freemasonry that has not been lost through the rigors of time. In the Scottish Rite the term “ineffable” is used to describe this one, single, Truth. Ineffable because this thing I’m referring to can not be spoken of in words. As soon as one tries to use language, one is already incorrect. It is also not something one can go “try to do” or “try to learn” because you are already experiencing this thing I’m talking about, but you are ignoring it.
The recognition, the realization, of this core aspect of Freemasonry that lies directly at the root of your own heart in this very moment is exactly that thing that will make us better men, and the path towards this realization also makes us better men. We can not recognize what is True in our experience if we are not honest with ourselves about all aspects of our behavior.
In Masonry we are taught to live a life of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. Temperance so we have a clear mind to be able to contemplate on what is Real. Fortitude to be strong enough to look at our failings as a human in an understanding and compassionate way and to grow from that recognition. Prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. By behaving and thinking with prudence we put the mind into a position to realize the core Truth. Justice teaches us compassion and the delineation of what is good for our spiritual health and the health of the world, and what is not.
Nearly every lesson hidden in Freemasonry’s ritual and symbolism speaks to this core point. But then so do many religions. Some Eastern religions speak openly and directly about the core Truth, but most western religions speak only to the outer teaching and do not instruct on the inner. In a sense so does Freemasonry. It alludes to the inner teaching all over the place, but speaks only to the outer. The inner teaching, the core Truth as I’ve called it in this article, has to be sought after on one’s own, not unlike one’s first entry into a lodge.
The difference between Freemasonry and a religion is a religion requires one to have a belief in the theology and they do not encourage direct personal experience of the Divine. Freemasonry is most distinctly not a religion for the simple reason that this core Truth thing is not of religion making stuff. It is something of direct experience, not one of belief or faith. As Masons we do profess in a belief in a Supreme Being, but we do not extend that further to say that we must also believe that if we do a list of certain things we will attain heaven in death.
Masonry teaches us to exhibit moral behavior. It teaches us to consider the human species as all members of one family stuck on a spaceship going endlessly in circles. Contemplation of the great moral teachings of Freemasonry will lead one to a realization of the Great Architect’s presence in every moment we experience, and most certainly to be on this path of awakening makes us better men, indeed better humans. By shifting our awareness to that of the unchanging presence of the Supreme Being in our every moment we will change the world. Not through a belief system, but rather through a deep personal understanding and recognition of who we really are.
Michael McKeown
