Moving On From EA

So last night I was given the opportunity to show my proficiency and to move onto the degree of Fellow Craft. I felt more prepared than my reading the first time around, and took it upon myself to practice in my head the parts. During one of the question and answers sections, I must answer “Therefore so should they be situated”, which looks really easy but was a nightmare to keep straight in my head, I still don’t know if I wrote it down properly.

So we had fellowship, there is still tension in the lodge regarding the roof, which I don’t feel would be appropriate to discuss here. From fellowship I had to wait downstairs while the MMs take care of business. From there they closed the meeting and reopened in the EA, so I could prove my proficiency, I was moving along and doing great, next thing you know I drew a blank towards the end of the second part, I was so ready to be finished that I was already thinking of the third part, and lost my train of thought. After a couple of rough questions and answers, I was back to chugging along. They then voted, and accepted my proficiency (to much my amazement).

They then rushed me off to the anti-chamber to get ready. Brother Richard told me he was going to be the worshipful master, so that the previous forgetfulness was not to happen again. For some reason, that pride in the Craft made me happy. I went in the anti-chamber fully relaxed. The Senior Deacon was more nervous then myself during the ceremony. I tried so hard to pay attention to everything and while the similarities were there as from before this time, they were still some aspects significantly different.

After the ceremony, the brothers of course congratulated me and were very nice. The younger brothers (which most of them were for this degree) came up and told me how it is down hill from here, and what not. I really do look forward to learning the catechism, because I felt like I learned a lot from the last degree, the biggest lesson was of course that patience, in Masonry is a major factor in realizing all of the forms and beauties of Freemasonry.

The Date Has Been Set!

It has been a while coming but it appears now that I will be receiving my Fellow Craft Degree on the 10th of April. I almost hesitate to write about it in fear that by writing about it, it won’t happen (you know, that old wives tale). I went to fellowship on Tuesday which was my first since I went on my four week hiatus. I was received with welcoming arms and realized that I really did miss the brothers and their jovial ways. I learned about the building (we are having a rough time getting our roof fixed), and in general was told that it is taking me entirely too long to move on to the next step.

While being an Entered Apprentice has it’s downfalls it also has its subtle benefits. One is that you being that of Entered Apprentice only are often looked over when senior members of the lodge are discussing issues, almost like you are too young to realize what they are talking about. During these discussions I came to reality check, that sometimes people, even Masons, don’t understand the difference between being a leader and being a manager.

See being a manager means you are in charge of a bunch of people, and they listen to you out of fear of losing their job, or some others only listen to you in attempts to further their own career. Being a leader means that people listen to you because they respect your opinion and feel that by following your direction, they are doing the right thing. See the difference? Being a manager @ McDonalds you have the potential for being a leader, but because it is easier and quicker people usually resort to being a manger (threatening people with adverse actions, making excuses, etc). Instead of inspiring work above and beyond you are rewarding people for being average, by staying out of trouble.

The greatest lesson I learned in the military was sometimes, as an officer, you are going to have leadership opportunities where you will be put in charge of people that are much older than yourself, and they have sometimes 20 years of experience vs. your handful. When put in that situation, you worry less about your boss and more about your subordinates. This individual can make or break you, and if you manage them, they will break you. In Masonry, as younger Masons we need to make sure that the old hats who have been doing this sometimes longer than we have been alive, that we don’t manage them, we lead. I think if we are effective leaders, and brothers, that the sometimes resentment between young and old can be subdued.

I don’t want to belabor the point too much, but I guess I wanted to write down something about my feelings in regards to leadership.

Funny, first I was writing about my FC degree date, next thing you know I am rambling about leadership.

Trying to Jump Start my Masonic Journey

I had a hard time coming up with a good title for this entry, because of my current status in regards to the Craft. My time in Barksdale seems like an eternity, I was working 16 hour days, with no break until the afternoon of my last day (12 days straight). During this time, I had down time from about 10:00 pm to midnight. Before leaving for Shreveport I took “Making Light A Handbook for Freemasons”. Unlike other books available to me, I didn’t want to delve into too much of circumstantial aspects of Freemasonry. I wanted to be kept grounded in my present condition, that of Entered Apprentice. When reading it I realize how different yet the same the ritual is in Texas as it is in England. While reading the section about the first degree I came across the following quote:

“Each Soul is part of the Divine whole and cannot be separated from it. You had just emerged from darkness of materialism, seeking Divine light, which is within you. The intended meaning of light here is light as a symbol of opportunity – the opportunity to discover something longed for, and a desire to emerge from the darkness of materialism and ignorance.”

For me this quote seemed to hit home the fact that some things you can’t rush, especially the Craft. The opportunity still awaits me as I returned from Shreveport, and because that opportunity still exists I am happy to reengage my Masonic teachings and move forward when the time is appropriate.

Frustration

As I am typing this I am getting ready for a two week trip to lovely Shreveport, Louisiana to complete my active duty time for the Texas Air National Guard. The frustrating part is that I was about to complete my catechisms examination (for those that haven’t read, in my particular Lodge it has become customary for the catechisms to be given in two separate parts, the first being the first part, the second being the remanding two parts). So my Masonic progress in essence has been put on hold. I can’t go to a lodge in Shreveport and ask for a brother to help keep my mind fresh because the small changes from state to state in reciting the catechism. Brother Garland claims that this won’t cause more than a two week delay, and that I can take the second part and receive my Fellow Craft Degree the same night (on the 3rd of April). If I wasn’t going anywhere, I would have done this on the 20th of March. I know that two weeks don’t seem like much in the large scheme of things, but it really feels to me like a huge delay. I have had other delays work related, three weeks to be exact because of my travel schedule.

I know the Craft is not to get in the way of our usual vocation, and that it will be waiting for me when I return, but I still get a sense of frustration regarding the situation. I am considering going to one of the lodges while I am in Shreveport for Fellowship, but I don’t know if I will have time, we will see.

A Freemason In Exile

by Bro. Richard J. Filippi.
Reprinted in part from the December 2006 Philalethes Magazine.

Five years ago I attended a special course on Civil-Military relations. The course was attended by ranking military and political members of various Middle Eastern countries. The few American officers attending were there to assist and sponsor our guests and make their stay a warm and positive experience. As one of these officers, I got to know several of the students during their two-week stay in Florida. Included in the group were four members representing the Iraqi National Congress (the then U.S. back pseudo-Iraqi government in exile). Among them was a former Iraqi Lt. Colonel who had escaped Iraq with his family after the 1990-91 Gulf War. Yarab was of Kurdish heritage and joined the ill fated, U.S. encouraged, uprising after the 1991 armistice with Saddam. He was imprisoned and only through the bravery and sacrifice of his wife and family, was able to escape and make their way to Canada via Syria, Jordon and Europe. Yarab had joined the Iraqi National Congress in hopes of one day returning a free man to his beloved country. We had many enjoyable discussions over dinner. We spoke about our upbringing, our children and our hopes and dreams. He told me that he wished one day to take me to his favorite seafood restaurant in Baghdad. This would be a good thing.

Returning to our guest rooms one evening we shared an elevator. Yarab abruptly stopped the elevator, turned and looked me square in the eyes and accusingly said, "You're one of them? - Aren't you!" I was taken back - I didn't know what he was implying. Was I what: an American, a spy, a capitalist, or a Republican? My mind raced, trying to discover an answer to his question. He then looked down toward my right hand and motioned with his eyes. Ah. Now I knew what he was asking. I responded with a muted, but neutral "Yes." At that he grasped me in an enthusiastic bear hug and with a smile beaming ear-to-ear said, "So am I - brother!" At that point, our relationship moved to another level.

He was a Freemason. He told me that to be a Freemason in Saddam's Iraq meant certain death and imprisonment of your entire family. He knew a few other Iraqi Freemason's, by their signs, words or deeds, but there were no Lodges or meetings in Iraq. Yarab told me he felt his grandfather, who was also an officer, was a Freemason. His grandfather never said he was but many years later, after Yarab was Raised, he remembered some of his grandfathers now relevant phrases, gestures and deeds from his childhood. From that moment on we were as childhood friends. Later we lost contact and I've wondered if Yarab ever got back to Baghdad.

I've gained a new respect for the tenets of Freemasonry. It is easier for us to make the commitment to a belief or organization when that choice isn't life threatening. Could we do the same if our lives and families were put in extreme jeopardy? It is a sobering thought and one that caused me to renew my vows and dedication to the brotherhood.
Sent to Cinosam by:
Bro. Dwight D. Seals

Examination

Since I am only an Entered Apprentice I am not allowed during stated meetings, since they are opened and closed in the Master Mason Degree. So, I have felt somewhat disconnected from my brothers. During the degree they emphasize that you are a Mason, and you are charged to ever act and walk as such, yet I am excluded from all stated meetings, unless they open the meetings in the EA degree. What difference of what business can be conducted during the separate degrees is beyond me, but in my short time since being in the Craft my selected lodge has only open lodge business in the Master Mason Degree. A certain brother only refers to me as a candidate and not as a brother, a term that reminds me of a pledge in an old college fraternity system.

Back to my main point, I was more excited about being in the lodge room with my brothers than the actual memorization/regurgitation. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the memorization is the best way to go as an introduction and learning of the Craft. If I had done a One Day or only needed to memorize the Obligation than the subtle nuances would have been lost that so much of the beauties and teachings of Freemasonry that it would come across more as hokey play, than a sacred ritual.

So I did my best and fumbled a few times during the examination. I have read some blogs where they just cruised, but the subtle words started to get to me and I was having a hard time not inferring other oaths I had taken in my life (My service to country for instance). Still, the brothers voted and I passed, so now I will nail down the next two parts for my next examination. I don’t want to rush this process, as I am afraid I will miss something, yet I want to move forward as quickly as possible, so I guess I am contradicting myself a little.

Conferring the Degree/ Memorization

So on the 12th, I was nervous, but not overly nervous as I knew that I wouldn’t be humiliated or anything of the sort. They put me in a room and had me listen to an honest to God analog tape, on an old tape recorder the kind that my father would use when he was going to grad school. So I sat and listen to the tape which explained how I should prepare for the evening. It seem to fit, the old tape playing in this old building and being prepared to enter the worlds oldest fraternity. I don’t know, maybe I read too much into these things, but really the tape did relax me, if for nothing else for it’s familiarity and it’s no frills approach. I won’t speak much of the degree itself, but I was annoyed as the brother that was acting the part of Worshipful Master messed up my name at least a half of dozen times. There was two of us that were getting the degree conferred that night and he got mine and they guy before me names mixed up (He kept call me brother Devin). It felt, I don’t know unprepared. The lodge room itself is nice, but the roof is leaking because it’s an older house, and the carpet was faded, but it took nothing away from the ceremony itself, the only degrading part was the WM messing up my name over 12 times, it was getting to the point that I thought that he was doing it on purpose (it wasn’t our regular WM, it’s another guy from a lodge that shares our lodge, but that is another story). After the degree was completed, I knew I wasn’t done, but hadn’t fully comprehended what I had gotten myself into. Brother Garland came up to me afterwards and asked me when I was available during the week. I told him I cold meet when ever after 5:00 pm. He wanted to meet at the lodge to start what he referred to as my instruction. During my searching and reading on the internet I knew that there was a controversy regarding what was refereed to as “One-Day Class”, I really never understood what the controversy was about. See in my college fraternity we had pre-I week then we had the actual initiation ceremony. Pre-I week was meant to build brotherly love then initiation was an all night event that was more of a game than any real moral lessons. When finished, the next morning you were a full brother no longer an Associate Member. So after further discussion it was revealed to me that I have to memorize three parts, and recite them in open lodge. After some internet searching I found that most states no longer require the full memorization, some just require the obligation, others have varying forms of memorization, mine requires it all, breakfast, lunch and dinner. So the following Thursday I sat down with Brother Garland and we started the learning process. When he first recited the questions and answers in it’s entirety I took comfort in the fact that Texas gives you a year to pass your EA examination. I am a better audio learner than reading, so the fact that there wasn’t note cards, or printouts of what was required didn’t bother me too much, some of the brothers in my lodge said the process wouldn’t be as tedious if they just had something written down they could study from. Still between my travel schedule/holidays and being an overall slow learner it took me a good two solid months before I had the first part passable. So they scheduled my examination of the first part of the EA degree.

Applying to be Made a Mason

During my time on active duty in the Air Force I was investigated and granted a Top Secret Clearance. During this investigation the FBI shakes your family tree and go hunting in the closets for skeletons. This process can be nerve racking, but seeing that the Masons put together an investigation committee of three people to write up a report on you over a period of 28 days, you have to wonder which came first the chicken or the egg? Still it was nothing new, and so I filled out the application form, and honest every question. I got to a bizarre question asking if I ever committed an act that was “gravely immoral” or something along those lines. When I was younger I got drunk and slashed a tire, yeah something stupid. But I thought it was better to just be honest about it then to blow it off as another empty form. I read on the internet, some Lodges would reject my application for this simple fact, and I thought to myself “if they reject it, then it was never meant to be.” So I filled it out, and I moved on, I was called by the investigating committee and they wanted to meet at the lodge. We had a good meeting, they asked about the incident and said they didn’t feel it was reason to disqualify my application but if the members of the Lodge choose to reject it based on that fact, there was nothing they could do about it, I just told them “It’s better to come clean with this stuff now, then for it to surface later.” If the brothers rejected me, then so be it. After 28 days (right after Thanksgiving) I got an e-mail saying that I was accepted and that they wanted to confer the degree of Entered Apprentice on 12 December 2006.

Part II – Picking a Lodge/Tuesday Dinner

After about a couple months of pondering I went ahead and actively sought a Lodge in my area. Now, it was no easy task finding a Lodge, there are 24 in my city, and you really can’t tell one from the other, besides the name. I found one that’s name struck me, and was in an area that the wife and I are considering moving to, even though there is one near my house, it’s above a hardware store and looks near abandoned. So I left an e-mail to the secretary. He called me back and was grumpy as all get out; he said that they have dinner or sometimes food before their meeting on the second week of the month. So I took a chance and went. When I showed up, I will admit I was intimidated. There were maybe three guys around my age everyone else was much older and not appearing initially to be that friendly. Mostly it was my perception, but let’s face it, old people can be standoffish with anyone under the age of 50, others were very nice and friendly. I remember being comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. It’s bizarre; I figure that I owe it another shot before trying out a different lodge. I went a second time and things didn’t appear to be as uncomfortable as before, and while it was my second time at the lodge, it felt more comfortable and almost familiar. I came to feel a level of familiarity with the lodge that made me want to continue to attend there and be apart of this lodge. My nervousness aside, it was a place that I could see myself a member of, and decided to get an application.

Part I – The History

Part I – The History

I have been blogging since 2000, not the oldest on the internet by any means, but have been doing it for long enough that it has become a part of my life. I have another blog for my day to day life, and in there I will make brief mention of my Masonic journey. But, I know those people aren’t interested in reading post after post about my Masonic journey, and my frustrations and revelations.

Revelation part won’t be documented, but I want to talk as much as I can about the process, members of my lodge and my fresh eye perspective on a lodge that was chartered in 1915 with 281 members.

My grandfather was an active Mason, he wasn’t a member of any of the associated rites or a Shriner, he was a blue lodge man. He attended blue lodge meetings and enjoyed their brotherhood, but never felt it necessary to go beyond the first three degrees. As a child my parents divorced when I was seven the first three years after the divorce a lot of time was spent with my maternal grandparents. My mother went back to school to learn typing and other skills necessary for the work force and she was given sole custody of us. My father had very limited visitation of Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings (I still to the day can’t figure this one out). So the majority of my time was spent in my grandparent’s house. My great uncles were all jewelers and Masons, and so they would periodically give my grandfather rings, cufflinks, tie tabs, etc as birthday presents and what not. He would wear them and I never understood their significance, nor really thought to ask. Actually at the time I thought it had something to do with his Realtor dealings as when he retired from being an Automotive Engineer became a realtor to pass the time and earn some extra cash.

It wasn’t till I was 17 that I found out that Masons was a fraternity, it was that year that Grandpa received his 50 year certificate and went through the ceremony with his brothers in attendance. He was so proud of that day that he would talk about it for the next six months. I guess his attitude toward the Masons intrigued me.

My grandfather died when I was 19, and it was painful to go through, because it did feel like I lost a father of sorts. He was stern, all about business, but he had a gentle side that when it came out, made me enamored with him. I had no intentions of being a Mason, and when he died it was honestly the last thing on my mind. Sometimes I read of men that when their grandparent or father dies, the next week they rush out to be made a Mason, and that was far the case from me. I didn’t really have a good understanding of my relationship with God and the last thing I needed to do was join a lodge of old judgmental men, I was 19, I needed to make my own mistakes.

So time passed I went to college @ age 21 and majored in Electrical Engineering, joined a fraternity (Lambda Chi Alpha), and during that time felt like it fell flat on the brotherhood and building of men and was more about partying and women. I guess I wanted that Masonic bond I perceived my grandfather had, but went to the wrong place to find it.

After college I joined the military as an Officer and Communications Engineer, again thoughts of fraternity and joining the Masons was the last thing on my mind. I was traveling all over the world and serving my country. Then two events happened to me that led me to the Craft. The United States Air Force decided that it only needed half the people it currently had in my career field, and I was in essence laid off, for no other reason than my commissioning source (Officer Training School). In August of 2006 my grandmother died. When we cleaned out all of my grandmother’s belongings we came across all of my grandfather’s Masonic jewelry that was given to him over the years. The flood of memories of him wearing that came to me and I really wanted to take them back to Texas. I again, didn’t think about joining, but my idiot cousin didn’t care and most likely they would have ended up at Goodwill, and it seemed such a shame. So when I got home, I started to try to do research on the internet, and went to the place any good 21st century man does, and consults Wikipedia. That not being enough information about the history or what Freemasonry is, I went onto the infamous “A Page About Freemasonry” which was geared more towards current Mason’s, and had little information on the past and seemed more geared towards if you wanted to join, what to do, and a whole lot of information on what was referred to as “One Day Classes”.

Looking around more I saw that the internet was full of people that hated Freemasons, people that were members and adored freemasonry, but didn’t like its current state. So I went to a half priced bookstore and bought a book about that author’s version of Freemasonry. Now, every person that’s a Historian who is a Freemason has their own version of history. From it being from the start of time, to those that believe it really wasn’t organized till 1717, still this book was decent, and the author had enough humility to admit when the lines were blurred, or at the most, fanciful. After reading it I was ready to take the next step, and contact a local lodge. I guess reading the rich history, coupled with my family’s involvement made me want to take that next step and see a lodge.