"It takes all sorts to make the world"

We use that feeble line as some sort of justification for those who are disruptive or even damaging to society in general. There are nasty people about, they exist and there's nothing we can do about it except come up with platitudes. One of the joys of a Masonic meeting is to escape from "normal" society and enjoy the company of warm and friendly brethren, free from an atmosphere of stress. So it may shock some brethren to learn that we have nasty people within our fraternity. How do we know? Because they make themselves known, that's how.

People who work in Freemasonry have to handle phone calls from - or serve drinks and food to - members who are almost without exception polite and charming, a pleasure to deal with. But they also have to deal with a small number of foul-mouthed and abusive people who would bring shame even to the dregs of society. It cannot be acceptable in Freemasonry that members of the "Gentle Craft" behave in such an awful manner and they should not need to be told that. However, it seems they do and so it is up to the rest of us to make our displeasure known whenever we come across such instances.

Technology to the rescue

Technology continues to amaze. Have you come across www.justgiving.com? It's an amazing site, it lists more than 2600 official charities which you can select from to create an on-line donations page. There is a USA site as well at www.firstgiving.com which has pretty much the same deal. It is easy to use and within a couple of minutes you can have your own web page that you can tell friends and contacts about. They can then use it to donate to your chosen charity. You might want to do this if you are running in a marathon, or doing some other fund-raising stunt for example. Or as we have done - just to show you how - a general appeal page for your chosen charity. We have set one up here in aid of the RMBI;

www.justgiving.com/royal-masonic-benevolent-institution

The money gets paid straight to the charity concerned, and if you are a UK taxpayer, they automatically get an extra 28% Gift Aid on top. Go on, give it a try and be amazed.

Life is a rehearsal

Most of us in English masonry have a long summer break, perhaps four or five months when all activity ceases. There is a very definite "end of term" feeling at each final meeting that I have come to enjoy more and more over the years. But then as the summer itself draws to an end, there is the sense of anticipation of the coming masonic season to look forward to. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. In my more reflective moments it causes me to think of the cycle of life. The new season reminds me of birth, or rebirth if you prefer, the start of the new. It helps that my mother lodge starts the season by Installing a new Master. In that way we all face new challenges and new opportunities, and it's up to each of us what we make of them. What I do matters because the more I put in the more I get out. The final meeting, therefore, very obviously reminds me of death, the fate that awaits us all. It should also be an opportunity to reflect on how well I have served my lodge, and how well I have fulfilled my obligations, before I make peace with and bid farewell to my brothers. Then I can face the summer with a clear conscience. What a useful rehearsal for death.

Dress Code

The last lodge meeting of the season before the summer break always reminds me how the last day of school felt, before the long, idle summer holiday. My school days were a long, long time ago of course, but that particular memory lives on. I get that same feeling now on Friday afternoons with the anticipation of the weekend's fun and games. Unlike work, however, I never get Monday morning blues when I attend my first lodge meeting of the new season. Perhaps that is why dress-down Fridays are such a hit at work, it chimes with the mood of the day. Perhaps, for the same reasons, we could have a dress-down policy for the last lodge meeting of the season. If that meeting is an installation meeting it could apply to the first of the new season. There could be several advantages. The evening would be more relaxed, almost with a party mood I would imagine, and we keep being told that Masonry should be enjoyed. Working brethren would not have to sneak away from work in order to rush home and get changed, they could attend lodge in their normal working attire. We might learn more about each other. However, those working night shifts and sleeping during the day should not expect to attend lodge in their pyjamas without comment. But the single most important reason for suggesting the change is that I no longer fit into my suit. I would love to attend lodge and be comfortable, even just once a year!

Fame in Five Minutes

Internet Lodge seems to be on a roll these days. After securing loads of publicity for installing Charles Lewis, Past Grand Master of North Carolina as Worshipful Master, they have now launched a Short Papers Competition with the sponsorship of Lord Northampton, ProGrand Master of UGLE. If you want to write a five minute presentation on any subject suitable for delivery in a lodge then you should visit their web site:
http://www.internet.lodge.org.uk/shortpaperscompetition/

Thieves are about

We were laughing and joking, enjoying a very good festive board after our meeting when we became aware of a distant sound, something like a car alarm. After a short while the worshipful master, curiosity aroused, rose and went out to investigate. He went out and found his car had been broken into and his laptop computer stolen. He came back in to report that he'd also found four other cars had been broken into. Toasts and speeches were abandoned, and the sight of distressed brethren lamenting the loss of their regalia and phoning banks to cancel credit cards ruined a very pleasant evening. Many brethren had taken their regalia cases out to their cars after the lodge meeting, and returned for the festive board. They were seemingly observed, and when we were well into our meal, the thieves struck. There is no realistic prospect of recovering any of the stolen property, or of apprehending the villains, and the insurance companies are quite likely to deny cover if cases were not locked in the boot - and maybe not even then. Do not ever leave anything of value in your car, any time, any place, for any reason. Not at home, not at work, not out shopping and certainly not at a lodge meeting. Spread the word.

Undercover reporter at Grand Lodge

The Sunday Telegraph today carries a half-page article by an undercover reporter who recently attended an open evening. Shock, Horror, there was nothing sinister for him to report on. He found some reasonable men and to his astonishment he even found some women there. "Women have other orders affiliated with the United Grand Lodge," he was told. That's a very clever turn of phrase, I like it. He learned a little about charity but his preconception that half of us are policemen seemed to be reinforced because he met one. No doubt half of us are judges too, and another half are all lawyers. That tiny gripe aside, it was a fair and enjoyable article. Well done to Metropolitan Grand Lodge for organising the evening.

This link may or may not work depending on how long The Telegraph keep it available:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/14/nmasons14.xml

A Timely Reminder

Why am I surprised? Our Internet Help Center offers you some basic information on how to stay safe on the Internet, and the most important weapon you have to defend yourself is common sense. The recent plague of so-called pump-and-dump spams promoting worthless shares is a case in point. They purport to give us some 'inside' information that a company's shares are about to go through the roof and we should buy some immediately. That's the 'pump'. Incredibly, people do! An investigator at SecureWorks in America tracked one such operation in December. One Friday, 11.5 million shares were bought at 0.08 cents each in a company that was the chosen target. The shares rose to 0.11 cents as a result. On the following Monday the shares rose to 0.19 cents and then peaked at 0.25 cents. Yes, it peaked at a quarter of a cent. Then the 'dump'. Assuming the scammer sold his shares at their peak, and why wouldn't he since he was controlling market demand, he made $20,000 profit in one weekend. It's little wonder he continues to spam the entire planet and help fill our in-boxes with junk.

We all know spammers use illegal means to get their junk mail out, we know they are a plague, so why would anyone believe them, or worse still, give them their credit card details to buy goods from them? All spam has criminal intent behind it, so if you make one New Year's Resolution, please resolve to use your common sense and stay safe.

The Lost Art of Hospitality

Everyone knows how important visiting is in masonry, it is a continuation of a hallowed tradition, that of receiving and accommodating travellers. Many lodges would be sparsely attended indeed if visitors didn't swell the numbers. Plus it is instructive to visit other lodges and see how they work. Visiting is also an excellent way to extend your circle of friends, which is important because friendship is the cement that binds our Order. A thoughtful Master will welcome visitors before he opens the lodge, and afterwards there is always a toast and a short speech to thank the visitors for attending. But those fine sentiments are not always followed-through in action. Once the lodge has closed and the bar is open, it's every man for himself. It can sometimes take twenty minutes of patient queuing to get to the front of the crowd and catch the barman's eye. All too often because the brethren of the lodge are quite happy to jostle for position. At one unforgettable lodge I was quite literally elbowed aside. Thank you brother. Whatever happened to that old-fashioned tradition of visitors coming first? Are we not a fraternity that prides itself on honouring these old fashioned values? I think it would be nice if lodges made it the custom that their own brethren should stand back and allow visiting brethren to be the first at the bar. I've suggested that idea to a number of brothers and they all agree it is a problem and we would enjoy visiting more if it was addressed. So in my own way I run a one-man campaign, if I see a visiting brother behind me at the bar in my lodge, I invite him to go ahead.

Christmas is coming and the Grouse is getting fat

Well, it's that time of the year again, when trendy local councils celebrate 'Winterval' and, we have just been informed, three out of four employers have banned their staff from putting up Christmas decorations for fear of offending non-Christians. If ever society needed the benefit of some Masonic wisdom it is now. Masonry 'enjoins' us not to be a stupid atheist or an irreligious libertine. It is not about smothering one's religious beliefs, as British Airways has done by suspending a member of staff for wearing a small crucifix about her neck. Masonry encourages us to celebrate our religions, whatever they are. So celebrate.

Reconsidering

Recent news from the Vatican that they may reconsider the Church's advice on the use of contraceptives underlines how difficult it must be to bring about change in the Roman Catholic Church, even if you are the Pope. How much more difficult it seems to be to bring about change in Masonry. Yet the only change I would really like to see is in the Church's attitude towards freemasonry. Will it be too much to hope that as Pope Benedict works his way down his to-do list he might one day decide that we are not competing with him as a religion, we are supporters of religion. May we soon see the day when the Catholic Church ceases to persecute those who become freemasons.

The Keyboard and the Mouse?

When you think how the builders of old would start with stone hewn from the ground, shape it with the simplest of tools, and erect the most magnificent structures that can still take your breath away today, you have to be impressed. But nothing today is built using those methods. Modern buildings are concrete and steel shells, and who ever hears of a cornerstone being laid anymore? More than that, who can actually watch a new building being erected? For various reasons, modern building sites are shuttered off from public gaze. It makes me think that masonry is in danger of drifting away from its connection to everyday life.

A very long time ago, when buildings were made of brick and stone, you could walk past a building site and day by day watch the builders at their work. You would see workmen use chisels and mauls to prepare stone, use squares and compasses to check the work, use a block-and-tackle and a lewis to haul stone weighing many times their own bodyweight. These would be tools familiar to you in your everyday life. But no longer. Now they use power tools and welding equipment to fashion concrete and steel. A freemason's working tools which are supposed to be symbols illustrating points of morality need symbols themselves to explain them. "The chisel points out to us the advantages of education". What's a chisel?

There is no easy answer to that conundrum. At the end of the day freemasonry is about studying the building of King Solomon's Temple, using it and the tools used in its construction to explain concepts such a wisdom, truth and beauty. These and all the virtues should be part of our everyday lives. However I'm not saying we should abandon the symbols we use to teach them, just that we should endeavour to use all the idioms and styles of the 21st century at our disposal.

Time is of the Essence

It is sad enough I think, when you have to recycle Past Masters on the ladder. But when you can't even twist enough of their arms that you have to leave some minor offices unfilled, it is too sad for words. That's the situation we were in last week in my Royal Arch Chapter when the newly-installed Zerubabble was unable to appoint two assistant Sojourners. I guess we shouldn't be too down-hearted, we do have two and possibly three candidates for Exaltation this year, so we do at least have a future. It is a fact that many Lodges and Chapters have to recycle Past Masters or Past Principals, but they are not always eager to take on the burden and we must surely risk turning them off attending.

So how do we get into this position in the first place? I was talking with one Companion and he said he wasn't joining any other side orders until he had been through the Chair of his Mother Lodge. He said he was just not ready for the extra commitment. And I know what he means. As soon as you join anything in Masonry, you are rushed onto the ladder. They need to rush you on because they need to fill all the offices. Our brighter masons soon realise what goes on, so they avoid joining other lodges or orders. I must be less bright, I keep joining and I keep being put on ladders and in truth I'm too busy for my own good.

We mislead potential Initiates like that as well. We tell them a lodge meets once a month for maybe six or eight months of the year. "That's not bad," they think to themselves. Then they join and find themselves shoved onto a ladder, attending rehearsals and Lodges of Instruction, and spending hours each week memorising what to them must be impenetrable and arcane rituals. And if they find themselves joining other Orders, the same thing happens. This would never have happened years ago. Years ago, we had so many masons and candidates that everyone had to wait years for an opportunity they were ready and waiting for when it came along.

We should back-off. Don't even get me started on the subject of banging candidates through the three Degrees in successive months, we should allow a new brother or a new Companion two or three years to get used to the institution they have just joined before gently encouraging them to take their first office. If we promise them that, I'm sure we would get many more brethren to take an interest in the Holy Royal Arch or any of the other very worthy Orders in Masonry. Until then, we all miss out.

Say it with Flowers

There is a certain inevitability in a fraternity where the older brethren heavily outnumber the younger brethren that there will be more Masonic funerals than Masonic weddings. In fact I've been to quite a number of funerals now but never to a wedding. The closest we get to a good-news day is that rare occasion when a brother announces his wife has had a baby. What must that be like for younger brethren? We have a steady diet of news about care homes for elderly masons, and hip replacement, heart bypass and other treatments for elderly masons, all very worthy of course. But how about we adjust the balance a little? How about we celebrate life a bit more? Wouldn't it be nice if it were the custom for every lodge to send flowers to a brother's wife on the occasion of a birth? Wouldn't it be nice if lodges organised childrens' parties for their brethrens' families? I'm sure younger masons would get more out of masonry if it was more relevant to their everyday lives. Let's send bouquets as often as we send wreaths.

What has Dan Brown Done for Us?

I found myself browsing through WH Smith this morning (a national newsagent and bookstore). It's only a small local branch in a small provincial town, so it doesn't have that many books. Nonetheless, I was amazed at what I found. In a History section that comprised five short shelves of books there were three quasi-Masonic titles: "Rosslyn and the Grail", "Bloodline of the Holy Grail" and "The Templars". Yes, I know they are just da Vinci spin-offs, but previously I wouldn't have found any such books on the mainstream history shelves. So I went round to where I usually find my Masonic reading, the Weirdo section (actually, that's my name for it). There amongst the self-development and astrology titles were three shelves of books called, "How to Make Anyone Like You", "Women who Think too Much", "Why do Men have Nipples?" (I don't know, I didn't read the book), a solitary copy of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", "Crystal Healing" and "Are You a Psychic?"

Over all I consider that a great leap forward. Thanks to Dan Brown the whole subject has more credibility. I hope in future there will be fewer Masonic titles in the Weirdo section and more on the History shelves. That could be a mixed blessing given the nature of some of the books we've seen about Masonry in the past, but still a hopeful development if we see more well-researched books and fewer trashy conspiracy theories. Perhaps the time is right to re-release John Hamill's excellent work, "Freemasonry: A Celebration of the Craft." The other section where I have occasionally found Masonic books before is True Crime. In this shop there was just one shelf and there were no Masonic-related titles there.

But just as I was about to walk out, I spotted something that stopped me in my tracks. There on the shelf for Religion, amongst different editions of the Bible - plain bound, leather bound, for children, etc - I was astounded to see a big glossy hardback copy of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", complete with colour illustrations throughout. Right next to it was a paperback copy of "The Messianic Legacy" and further along two paperback copies of "HBHG" (updated), and a paperback copy of "Secrets of the Code", another da Vinci spin-off.

So is that one step forward but two steps back? I looked in vain for any Masonic books on the Sports and Cookery shelves...

Dumber and Dumber

There's a new film out that you are not likely to see. Not because you will choose not to go and see it but because the studio has buried it. They released it to a very small number of cinemas in the States and then sent it to dvd. There's some controversy over why they did this and the studio is remaining tight-lipped, which is manna for blog-writers everywhere.

One writer says the film offers a stark critique of American culture and even a cautionary tale about "overbreeding amongst the stupid". The film, Idiocracy, is set in the future when everyone has become so dense and culturally low-brow that the film's hero, an average-Joe guy who accidentally travels from our time into the future looks like a relative genuis.

It's not hard to see where the film got its inspiration. Here in the UK we have seen stories in the media about the unfeasibly high pass rate for A level students, and we have seen comparisons of exam questions of today with the same exam paper from fifty years ago. That alone has to suggest we have already become a dumbed-down society, never mind all the anecdotal evidence we have from young people struggling to count out change, for example.

This isn't going to turn into a diatribe bemoaning the kids of today. They have the same brains as kids of fifty years ago and I'm certain they will find something useful to do with their brains that will benefit mankind. But right now, what does this all suggest for us as freemasons?

Here in England, Supreme Grand Chapter has already taken the first - and very brave - step in reviewing its ritual and been accused of dumbing down. That's unfair. But all the same, if the ritual is impenetrable for today's generation do we just say "that's their tough luck"? How many of us can read text messages they send each other? When we see young officers of the lodge struggle with even simple parts of a ceremony, how much of that do we attribute to changes in that generation's basic skill set?

What is actually important here? The message of freemasonry or the techniques used? Is freemasonry a spiritual journey to becoming a better person, or a finishing school to develop public speaking and other skills? Actually, the film and our own experiences suggest to me we need to do both. If we cannot get the real message across because of missing skills, then we need to make good that deficit.

I can hear the sharp intakes of breath now. Wouldn't that be a major upheaval in what freemasonry is about? Wouldn't that be tantamount to moving the lights of masonry? Not really, all it means is we should encourage younger masons to attend Lodges of Instruction and we should encourage older masons to act as mentors for the younger ones. Brethren, we already have the tools at our disposal, we just need to make greater use of them. Instead of pointing to them, pick them up and put them to work.

After all, I would hate to accidentally travel to a lodge meeting one hundred years into the future and find out I was a relative masonic genuis!

Beamish: Our Place in History

I went to Beamish Open Air Museum last weekend to see for myself the new Masonic Hall they have built. This has probably got to be my all-time favourite Masonic project, I think the Province of Durham have pulled off a coup and the whole thing is a great credit to Freemasonry.

The standard of construction of the Hall is very high, with great attention to detail, beautiful woodwork for example on the doors and window frames. It really does take you back to days of quality and craftsmanship, none of these softwood windows that rot after eighteen months. The Library and Museum at Freemasons' Hall in London have been very generous lending some fine furniture while the Province's own museum has loaned a good collection of Masonic artefacts.

The setting cannot be faulted either. The Masonic Hall stands fully in context right next door to an imposing Barclay's Bank of the same era, in a street of fine old shops and the town gardens. All lovingly rebuilt and staffed by trained volunteers in period costumes. Elsewhere on the site is a farmstead, a mining village, a railway station and a grand country manor house. They are all interconnected by vintage trams and busses.

If you are going anywhere near Durham or Newcastle, go out of your way and pay a visit to Beamish. Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous.

The Missing Initiate

Subtitle: A Tale of Cautionary Woe.

At last night's lodge meeting we learned that someone we Initiated late last year had not yet paid his Initiation fee, not paid his dues, not paid for his meal and not responded to any form of attempted contact. We therefore had a notice of motion that at the next meeting we would be balloting for his exclusion! This is uncharted territory for most lodges I think, you usually find yourself in this position with a long-standing brother after a couple of years of not paying his dues, but from day one?

Clearly there have been failings here. I'm embarrassed because the applicant walked into the Provincial office saying he'd seen the web site (which I had created) and was interested in becoming a mason. I was quite pleased at the thought I'd done something useful. I understand he was duly interviewed by a committee and in due course was proposed and seconded by brothers who had known him for one month, ie from the time he walked in.

Since we have had no response from him whatsoever we cannot say what lies behind this. Was he a genuine applicant or was he motivated by a desire to find out the truth about us and expose us as devil worshipers or whatever? Was he sincere but has since found that his friends and family have put him under intense pressure? It would be useful to know, but the bottom line is that where applicants come to us via the Internet I guess we ought to be doubly cautious.

As a lodge we are out of pocket to the tune of his Initiation and Grand Lodge fees, the Provincial fee and his dining fee. As masons we are without a brother.