MASONIC CHARITY

Sir,
    As Lodge Secretary I have just received a letter from one of our widows. It gives me an up-date on her family and her present circumstances. It is nice to know at Christmas time that she is doing well and that the three children are a credit to her, and indeed Freemasonry. It was tragic that her husband, a self-employed stonemason, died suddenly from a heart attack. He had just completed his First Degree, was only in his thirties and with three young children and a house in the middle of being renovated. The youngest was about six or seven at the time, hyper-sensitive, with problems at school, not helped by the death of his father. We thought they needed help and Grand Lodge stepped in with a Mentor and financial help, providing private education in a specialised placement for the youngest. Over the years we have learnt from the widow that Grand Lodge has assisted the other children as they have been growing up, one being a substantial Bursary for educational travel. The widow now tells me that she has obtained an Open University 2:1 Degree in psychology.
    It is marvellous to see Freemasonry’s charity at work - so often the masonic charities cannot say what they are providing because it is confidential and that is why I have not given her name.
    Tony K. Langmead, Operative Masons Lodge, No. 9044, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

AN ALTERNATIVE RITUAL?

Sir,
    I think most would agree that the ‘Ritual’ is the core and soul of English Freemasonry but, it must be said, it is a product of the eighteenth and nineteenth century society reflecting their language and thinking. In order to survive, Freemasonry must adapt to a changing environment and society and although there are some fifty-three Craft rituals in use and over 100 chapter rituals, they are all couched in a similar way.
    In this day and age, with lodges and chapters evermore reading the ritual, would it not be possible for Grand Lodge to institute a ‘Ritual Working Party’ and produce an ‘Alternative Ritual’ in modern language which would be permissive with each ceremony taking no longer than forty minutes?
    Our society is not one which shows a linear evolution but, every now and then, it has a paradigm shift thus enabling us to move with the times. Surely this time has come and the twenty-first century should be marked in such a way that all the Brethren, both now and in the future, will benefit.
    I am sure that an ‘Alternative Ritual’ would be welcomed by the younger Brethren and the old ‘die-hards’ like myself can sit back and ruminate on the past.
    C. B. Wyatt, Thorpe Bay, Essex.

OTHER MASONIC DEGREES

Sir,
    I should like to discuss the joining of degrees after the three Craft degrees. When I had been raised I was told about the Royal Arch. The more senior members of my Lodge then told me not to join the Royal Arch for several years but to learn the Craft ritual first and, besides, that there was nothing I could do in the Royal Arch until I had been through the chair of the Lodge. Fortunately, there was one member of my Lodge who said ‘Join if you want. There is plenty for you to do’. How right he was. Over the next few years I learnt not only the Craft ritual but took all the offices in the Royal Arch available to me which prepared me to take the Chairs in due time.
    My point is that too many senior members advise younger members not to join the Royal Arch until after having been through the Chair of the Lodge. Is this why only a minority of Craft members join the Royal Arch? As soon as members have been raised they should be actively encouraged to join the Royal Arch and other appendant orders.
    Having retired early on health grounds I found myself in my early fifties with some time on my hands. I therefore decided to look into the other degrees and orders available. The Mark degree should be actively encouraged for all masons to join. It is, in my opinion, an integral part of the Solomonic degrees and should be taken before the Royal Arch to help prepare the candidate for exaltation in that degree. The Royal Ark Mariner degree, being an offshoot of Mark masonry - most Mark lodges having a RAM lodge attached to them – has a beautiful ceremony filled with mystic and symbolic teachings.
    Once you have the three parts under your belt it opens up the Knights Templar, a prerequisite being that of Master Mason and Royal Arch Companion. This ceremony is very spectacular and for pure masonic students, a veritable treat of masonic symbolism.
    I joined the Rose Croix many years ago and for pure symbolism and Christian teachings this is the degree for all masonic enthusiasts. I received my 30th degree in a ceremony which was presided over, and carried out, by the Supreme Council members which made it a more poignant and meaningful occasion.
    The secret to belonging to all these degrees – and others – is to choose lodges and chapters of different provinces and at different meeting places. This way you meet a greater variety of Brother and enjoy a different and varied aspect of masonic life.
    After a recent lodge meeting I was singing the praises of the various degrees and orders when the senior member who had originally advised me against joining the Royal Arch stated that I was in too much of a rush to join these ‘side’ degrees. I am about to celebrate my twentieth year as a mason. Am I really rushing? Are these senior members right to put down us less senior members who like to experience all that the masonic avenues can provide? Is this Grand Officer giving the Grand Lodge view of appendant degrees?
    We should all encourage new members whatever the degree or order so that Freemasonry can continue to flourish and its teachings reach a larger audience.
    W. H. Phillips, Hanwell, London.

UNITED STATES ONE-DAY CLASSES

Sir,
    As an English born mason who is still a member of the United Grand Lodge of England but who has now lived in California for three years and has become an affiliated member of a blue Craft lodge under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of California, I offer some impartial points of view on the ‘One-Day’ classes.
    I should like to comment on masonry in California where the dues-billable membership has dropped nearly 17% in four years. This is serious. Facts can be ignored but their consequences cannot be escaped, especially, the fiscally driven necessity for all Grand Lodges to maintain revenues. At the Annual Communication in San Francisco, held in October 2003, a recommendation to allow the Grand Master to hold a ‘One-Day’ conferral of all their degrees at his discretion received 61% support. Although it failed to reach the two-thirds requirement for success it will be voted on again in 2004.
    The legislation proposed would not require lodges to participate if they chose not to do so, nor would it require any candidate to take all the degrees in one day if he were not interested. But it would allow an alternative way of conferring the degrees at the discretion of the Grand Master for those whose needs could be best met by such a conferral.
    Another resolution that did not make it would have allowed members of lodges to nominate men for membership and ballot for them before the man submits an application. This one does seem an act of desperation unfortunately and deserved to fail.
    It is sad that pressure of time on those individual younger men who might choose to become masons is a factor in the motivation for becoming part of the ‘One-Day’ classes. It is most definitely fair to say that the memory work required of a Fellow Craft and the proficiencies demonstrated before one can be passed to the degree of a Master Mason is far more than that mandated by the ritual of the United Grand Lodge of England. Also, the proficiency tests overseen by District Inspectors (similar to a Provincial Grand Master) for an Officer to make the next progressive step up are more rigorous. This aspect of the ritual is not being relaxed at all and to some extent is partly responsible for some members never reaching the East.
    In conclusion, it appears that the shortened ‘One-Day’ classes and the removal of the memory work to become a Master Mason are important deciding factors for candidates. Whether this is right or wrong is a matter of opinion. These changes may only need to be temporary to address the current membership problem although I appreciate it may never then go back to the regular method of making a mason. Only time will tell if this innovation was only a short-term quick-fix of an example of United States ‘drive through’ masonry.
    What a calamity for the fraternity but in the twenty-first century the problems in the United States could easily, in the future, be experienced in European jurisdictions. My hope is that the foreign Grand Lodges who view any of this as ‘irregular’ do give very serious consideration to the overall situation that masonry faces on this continent. I know that it is too easy to condemn but you are only asked to reconsider it with the full knowledge of all the facts before arriving at a final conclusion. As the Membership Chairman of my United States lodge I am experiencing the problems first hand.
    Nigel J. D. Gallimore, Wiltshire Summer Lodge, No. 9548, Chippenham, Santa Barbara Lodge No. 192, California.

Sir,
    I am in an interesting position to comment on the various ‘One-Day Master Mason’ movements afoot in the American Craft. Travelling as a Naval Reserve Officer I have experienced ‘One-Day’ classes in Hawaii during one visit and, returning on subsequent visits, have met with, and inquired about, masons made during these classes. Also, visiting a Brother in Maine, I have listened to arguments both for and against the concept in that State.
    My lodge, in Texas, has a close relationship with another in Arizona and we have exchanged annual visits for over five years. During the visits it has become customary to bring a candidate and confer the individual’s degree in the other lodge, exposing Arizona Brethren to the Texas ritual and vice versa. Arizona has begun to use the ‘One-Day class’ concept and I have participated in several excellent discussions.
    In my home state of Texas, the Grand Lodge voted about five years ago to remove a fixed minimum time between degrees - previously set at one month - using the argument that ‘the lodge is the best judge of when a candidate is ready to advance’.
    One lodge in Forth Worth decided to raise a small group of men in a single day. Simultaneously using several lodge rooms co-located in the downtown Masonic Temple, each man was individually initiated, then they were brought together for the post-degree lecture, given half an hour of instruction in giving the grip and then shepherded through a demonstration of proficiency. The lodge accepted the proficiency of the men and the Brethren and candidates dispersed to begin passing the candidates. I acted as Master during one of the initiations. I had mixed feelings about the affair.
    The reason for the effort is simple: in the 1840s a convention met in Baltimore, Maryland, in an attempt to form a National Grand Lodge of the United States. While failing in that task, the convention did produce a set of recommendations. One of these, that of executing the business of the lodge in the Third Degree, was adopted by all United States Grand Lodges before the Civil War started and was - I presume - embodied in every Grand Lodge Constitution.
    As a result, First and Second Degree masons are largely excluded from the lodge’s affairs. They do not hear committee reports, lodge discussions or business. In Texas, the result is a rushing emphasis to bring a candidate into the Lodge Room as quickly as possible, to engage their attention and interest before, feeling ignored and unappreciated, they walk away from the lodge and the Craft.
    In my opinion, American masons are treating the symptoms of an illness (the failure of First and Second Degree masons to advance) and are ignoring the disease (institutional rules that exclude First and Second Degree masons from business and the fellowship present in the Lodge Room). This condition has existed since before living memory and, as such, is considered a landmark by many.
    Masons in the United Kingdom and elsewhere who are accustomed to ‘business in the First Degree’ can do their American Brethren a great service. Remind us of our own history. Remind us of the value of new Brethren who ‘aged to perfection’ become Master Masons in fact rather than in name only.
    David Terrell, Smithfield Lodge, No. 455, Fort Worth, Texas.

Sir,
    I write this letter because I am a proud member of Paumanok-Port Washington Lodge, No. 855, State of New York, and Sulgrave Lodge, No. 9462, Rushden, Province of Northamptonshire & Huntingdonshire, England.
    If nothing is permanent in this world except change - as Heraclitus noted in 500 BC, why are we so easily threatened by it? William James (1842-1910) observed, ‘A new and easier method is hard, simply because it is a departure from the old’. How many times have you observed this in your life-time? The world hates change but this is the only process that has ever brought about progress.
    Whether or not I am for, or against, the Grand Master ‘One Day’ class is inconsequential not that the ‘One Day’ initiation is over with and those candidates are now Brother masons. It is now the obligation of every mason to present his right hand in token of friendship and brotherly love and welcome them into our lodges. We must extend the same courtesies to them as we want extended to us.
    Each and every candidate was investigated by an investigating team from the lodge to which they were making application. On receiving a favourable report by the investigation committee, each candidate was then voted upon for election into the lodge. Then, and only then, were they enabled to undergo the ‘One Day’ classes. It is now the responsibility of the Master, Officers and Brethren of the lodge to teach these new men what we know. We must apprise them of the resources available so they too will become intelligent and knowledgeable masons.
    The advantages or disadvantages of a ‘One Day’ class, at least here in New York, will not be known for at least a couple of years. After two or three years we must see how many are returning on a regular basis to lodge meetings and how many are in line as Officers. Then, and only then, will we know the advantages or disadvantages of a ‘One Day’ class.
    It is now time for us to put our differences of opinion aside and strive to make Freemasonry appealing to one and all. Whether it took a man one day, ten months, or even a couple of years, he is now a Brother mason and entitled to all the rights and privileges due him.
    So let us welcome the need to try something new by boldly embracing change. This accommodation to change will prove fortuitous if it enables us to attract to our number more quality men of high principles who have much to gain from - and much to offer - this fraternity of ours.
    In conclusion, we must make masonry attractive to the current membership by enhancing masonic life, by turning masonic proceedings into meaningful, stimulating and relevant experiences in our lodges and masonic associations.
    Jay L. Austin, Former District Deputy Grand Master, 3rd Manhattan District, Grand Lodge of New York.

BAN ON FREEMASONS

Sir,
    Like most Freemasons, I am horrified by the ignorant and bigoted prejudice of the Sydney Anglican Synod (‘Sydney Anglicans ban Freemasons’, Freemasonry Today, Winter, 2004). The Anglican Synod has actually prohibited Freemasons from attending church services, an unprecedented move against any group unless it is antagonistic or deliberately disruptive, which Anglican Freemasons most certainly are not.
    The Rev. Bill Winthrop, who instigated this campaign of persecution, has effectively placed himself alongside political and religious dictators who somehow feared that allegiance to, or support of, anything but their own strict agenda threatens their positions.
    Robert Child, Balljura, Western Australia.