Master's Message
Napa Valley Lodge brethren, family, and friends,
Stated meeting is Jan. 5, dinner at 6:30, meeting at 7:30.
The history of Freemasonry advances with the annual tick of a clock when lodge leadership resets. Installation of Napa Valley Lodge's 2022 officers will be on Jan. 15, dinner at 5:30, installation at 7:00, at Napa Valley Lodge in St. Helena.
I have often taken the liberty in this column to reflect on what I understand the outer teachings of Masonry to mean. In my monthly Esoterica column I have shared my research into the inner teaching aspects. Through this process I have educated myself on what it means to me to be a Freemason, and I hope that every now and then I've hit on something that resonates with your own personal understanding of what being a Mason means to you.
As I read other Master's columns in other lodge's Trestleboards, I see the sentiments and concepts I have shared here are not unique. I am not special or different than any other master from time immemorial when it comes to our deep love and commitment for our Gentle Craft and our fraternity of brotherhood and sharing what that means to us in the Master's Column. The Trestleboard exists as an opportunity for the Master of a lodge to form thought among our brothers that goes beyond announcements of degrees and dinners.
I encourage all Masters to create a culture that involves Masonic education at stated meetings, and thoughts from the east in the Trestleboard about what being a Freemason means to you or our forebears.
It is interesting to me that there should be an organization like ours that engenders deep conviction and commitment and yet is not a faith based religion. Our commitment to our fraternity stems from the understanding that we are collectively repositories of a set of great secrets that hold the salvation of our very existence as humans on this planet. Knowing this information, we can't help but work towards the enlightenment of the entire human species that we may live in balance with our planet and see to the health and prosperity of all humans so that each may have the same opportunity to become awakened to our True nature. The goal of Masonry to achieve civility around our realm can be achieved.
But in order for us to continue our work towards our centuries long mission objective we must first and foremost grow our membership. I don't know the number, but I'm sure it is a small percentage of the men that become Masons that continue their Masonic education in the York and Scottish Rites, perhaps join a research body and write papers, and really become educated on what being a Freemason is all about. These few are often powerful men. Some of them become the Esoteric Elite that actually influence change in the world.
It's a numbers game. We need to make a lot of men Masons. We need these good men to be officers in our lodges and in their turn do the work of making good men Masons. We need to proactively mine our local society for good men. We need to make Freemasonry sound relevant, which isn't a hard sell if articulated; in other words, spoken about.
I am quite sure Freemasonry will never die per se., but if we don't become engaged with growing our membership we will dwindle to insignificance and fail in our mission of bringing about a global civilization that lives in harmony with nature and civility with each other. Gone are the days when all we had to do was quietly do good work in our community and thereby attract good men. Today the rate of membership growth from that marketing method is not keeping up with declining participation from existing membership. I conjecture that there may be a root reason for both.
This challenge is not unique to our Fraternity. Membership of the church I attend has fallen to the point of barely surviving, and we were recently told that active membership has fallen precipitously globally. Rotary is struggling with active membership, hobby clubs are struggling. A reason might be the motivation behind the Great Resignation. I think people have learned that free time is more valuable than money and instead of asking "how much can I earn despite the commute and effort" they're asking "how little do I need in order to live somewhere inexpensive and have free time?". To actually have to, like, go somewhere to a meeting is maybe a rough sell today. The reason had better be compelling.
And Freemasonry's reason to join and be active is compelling. I am convinced we are relevant and can attract good men. But we need to articulate our message and we need to broadcast ourselves. I think we need to pull out all the stops in order to grow our membership in a sustainable way. To this end I encourage our lodge in the coming few years, and by extension all the other lodges that read my missives, to increase your marketing efforts. Some ideas:
Buy a year of a classified ad in the local newspaper.
Attend Chamber of Commerce mixers, and when in public please unabashedly advertise yourself as members of one of our world's most ancient and mysterious organizations by wearing your lodge jacket.
See if you can have your lodge's logo art on file with an embroidery service so that a brother can go have his own choice of clothing embroidered rather than doing an expensive bulk buy of matching jackets. We need our colors out there in public, and the style of the jackets or shirts we wear do not have to match, so long as there's a nice big square and compass on the back with the lodge name.
Have a booth at fairs, whether it be the fair at the fair grounds or street festivals. If Child ID is no longer a need with the advent of cell phone apps and Covid concerns, then just have an information booth with a candy bowl.
Those of you that are already checking in on Facebook when at lodge events may be the ones to step up and show others how to do it. Post special events and dinners on Facebook so that followers will see the notices. Consider advertising on local listing type pages like Next Door and Facebook Marketplace.
Hold a once a year public lodge tour and education day/evening/hour. Choose a day that can be the same day every year so that it becomes a regular local event.
Make sure some brothers attend the youth sports your lodge buy signs at. In your lodge jacket of course.
PUBLIC BREAKFAST: I encourage our lodge and all lodges to consider a once a month public breakfast and advertise it with a permanent banner or sign in front of the lodge and in the lodge's classified ad and on social media. People may love your old building but have no idea it's a Masonic lodge. A banner from the second floor: "Masonic Breakfast Every Second Sunday" let's everyone know. I believe the concept of a Sunday breakfast used as a marketing tool is as ancient as our very institution. There is nothing wrong in giving it a try. If a lodge can afford to hire out the cooking, great. Breakfasts are not expensive, and the investment is worth even one new active brother every now and then.
Of paramount importance at such an event is the lodge officers must speak, no matter how briefly, with guests. Don't flood them with information about Freemasonry; just be friendly and welcoming. Make being a Freemason look inclusive. Make us look like Masonry attracts normal, healthy men. Masons are good, sane, safe, sober, moral, prudent people. Not everyone looks for drinking buddies when considering joining a fraternity, and there exists other clubs for better fulfill that need, so keep the booze on the down-low; let's first make our guests friends. I'm not sure the promise of good times at the bar after a Masonic meeting is as powerful an attractant to join Freemasonry as the promise of saving our planet's human population from strife, so share our mission. Share why you are commited for life as a Freemason. Share what wearing your ring means to you.
Pull out all the stops. Everything we currently are doing to market ourselves needs to be taken to the next level.
Remember that while we can not ask anyone to join Freemasonry, there is nothing wrong with telling a good man that he is the kind of man that would make a good Mason. Let them know that no one will ask them to join our fraternity, that if they have interest they themselves must ask. People don't know what they don't know.
Masonry strives to achieve civility in the world, not by preaching or teaching about it, but by bringing about the enlightenment of mankind so that civility is the result. Masonry brings to the world a method by which we can accomplish this goal. The method involves the recognition, by personal experience (not a belief), that we are, at our core, collectively a single awareness. The hundred monkey model shows that when enough members of a species learn something new, knowledge of that thing becomes accepted, recognized, and known by the entire species. When the preponderance of the human population realizes who we really are, the Masonic goal of civility in the world will be immediately created.
We need Master Masons. We need a ground swell of growth. The world needs our message to become integrated with society, and that takes numbers, not a dwindling club from a soon bygone era. Let's make the square and compass widely recognized as an organization of good men that supports their community, and which, pssst, happens to hold at it's core some of our world's most enduring secrets.
It's been fun writing all of you the last two years. Each month's columns takes me 2-3 days to write, despite being just in time each month. I hope you've enjoyed my work. If you wish to be included on my personal eblast list please send me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or you can follow my research at www.masonicesoterica.com.
