A recent email I received stopped me cold.
It came from a Brother in Europe who I have known for almost a decade. He is a very knowledgeable and respected Masonic researcher and someone who will shortly become one of our mentors for the Freemason Academy. I had emailed him asking how things were going on that side of the pond. His answer was to say the least, very dramatic.
“Our Masonic Academy is a great success and takes a lot of my time. As you remember it's totally different from what you call by the same name in the USA. There you tend to consider the "traditional" type of Masonic research as mostly related to studying the past, a post-mortem of Freemasonry as if it were a dead body.
“We are concentrating on an aspect of the Craft which has mostly been neglected. Carefully and intentionally and coyly neglected, I'm afraid. We consider Freemasonry as a living, developing, changing body endowed with a soul, with a philosophy, with a future. It's that soul, that philosophy that we're studying, that development that we're trying to understand and, if possible, to help.”
Well, perhaps my European Brother is painting a bleaker picture than the situation warrants. Freemasonry isn’t dead in North America it’s merely sleeping. However, it is long past the time when it should awake and go back to work.
What I have never understood is how we got in this situation in the first place, and now that we are here why aren’t we doing more about it? It is baffling to think about everything Freemasonry has to offer especially in these trying times and yet we are asleep at the switch. This is a time for people of honor and integrity to stand up and be counted. It is a time to be accountable for all our actions and to lead by example, not by exhorting others to do the work but by rolling up our sleeves and doing the heavy lifting ourselves. It is a time to serve not only our brothers but also our neighbors.
Brotherly love, relief and truth are not just clever catchwords we use in the Fraternity but the foundation upon which we have built for over 300 years. It still exists out there but it is harder to see when we are sleepwalking. No, Freemasonry is not dead. This is not a time for pallbearers but it is time for a wake-up call.
Have you ever wondered why so many of our founding fathers were Freemasons?
The men who first came to this country were seeking a better life for themselves, free of religious persecution and servitude to tyrants and despots. They fought and died for one country under God; not a Christian God or a Jewish or Muslim God but the one true God, the Supreme Being, the one universal creative force in the entire universe.
It is the belief in this Supreme Being that is the one common thread, which unites all of the people. It is the source of all our moral codes and laws including the Golden Rule; the Five Precepts and the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism; the ancient Egyptian code of Ma’at; the Hammurabi code of ancient Babylon; the ten commandments of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; the yamas and niyama of the Hindu scriptures; and the ten Indian commandments. It allows us to determine the difference between right or wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral. It is the code of Freemasonry.
For hundreds of years anti-Masons have depicted Freemasonry as a secret cult out to take over the world. Obviously that is not true. However when I think about it, returning to the same precepts on which our nation was founded, it sounds very appealing. Freemasons have been the driving force in many struggles for freedom in every part of the world during the last few centuries. The citizens of South and North America, the Caribbean, and Italy to name a few, all owe their freedom to men who lived and died by the Masonic code.
True, as my European Brother pointed out, over here Freemasonry is in a self-induced coma. We continue to slumber while the nation searches to regain its moral compass, while our elected leaders spend more time pointing fingers than serving their constituents and while our youth die in wars that could have been avoided. It is well past the time to awake.
How do we awake and if we awake, what can we do?
I would defer to Mark Twain once more for his sage advice: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. . . Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” We need to stop deluding ourselves that the young men in this country are too busy to learn the secrets of Freemasonry when in reality we are just too lazy to teach them. My European Brother correctly identified Freemasonry as a living evolving body “endowed with a soul, with a philosophy, with a future. It's that soul, that philosophy that we're studying, that development that we're trying to understand”. Just one hundred years ago in North America, Freemasonry was where men learned how to become leaders, motivators and negotiators. It was Freemasonry which gave birth to almost every fraternal organization in America. Freemasonry gave us the public school system and the trade union movement at a time when workers were being abused by their employers.
Do we no longer need leaders who can inspire us to reclaim the higher moral ground?
We have become a nation of spectators who would rather watch other people perform than participate in the activity ourselves. Is it any wonder that we use just 10% of our brain?
Now scientists tell us as we become more specialized, our brains have also shrunk 10% so that we are actually even less of our gray matter. It is a classic example of “use it or lose it”.
Today we spend 3 hours a day watching television and another 2 hours a day connected to the internet, either texting, tweeting, or gaming. That’s 35 hours a week; almost as much time as we spend earning a living. Imagine what we could achieve if we spent just 10% of that “spectator” time improving our life skills.
Where can you learn these life skills?
Why right here at the Freemason Academy, of course!
If you are already a Freemason, then it is time you learned about the Fraternity you have joined. If you are not a Freemason, this is a great opportunity to learn what Freemasonry is all about. Knock and the door will be opened, seek and you will find, ask and your questions will be answered.
Finally, in answer to my Brother who stated that Freemasonry is dead in this country, I will close with this final quote from Mark Twain: “The report of my death is an exaggeration”.