At The Crossroads Of The Many Paths of Freemasonry

Masonic Relevance In The 21^st Century

I am observing many Masonic friends these days going through some deep soul searching as they try to reconcile Freemasonry with their own personal goals and the legacy for society that they would eventually like to leave behind. Many of these soul searchers are Masonic writers or “communicators” of some kind, well versed in the meaning of Masonry. Yet some feel powerless against the rising tide of Masonic irrelevancy as they see it. Others have found some other organization, cause or path that more reflects what they want to do with their life. Still others who revel in the Craft still feel that their active involvement therein robs them of the time that could be spent in other worthwhile pursuits.

We all have our religious, political and moral belief systems to act out in varying degrees of involvement as well as career paths with study in our field of endeavor.  All that to which we subscribe so deeply also has to be matched with our commitment to interpersonal relationships, especially our families. All in all sometimes this requires a very difficult balancing act.

Along comes the Information Age which knocks Freemasonry for a loop. In its early stages Masonic leaders either ignored it or refused to accept it.  When the inevitable came to pass most of official Freemasonrydom were “Johnnies come lately.” Many the Freemason who has bemoaned the reduction not only of Craft membership but of Lodge attendance. Many fail to realize, however, how much Freemasonry one can imbibe sitting home in front of the computer. Why leave the house, fight the traffic and dress up in a monkey suit when one can sit by the computer in shorts and T shirt with a slice of pizza in one hand and a beer in the other and get as much out of Freemasonry as those not only attending Lodge but those who are even members. I fail to see the difference between a One Day Class and watching the same thing at home on a good HD-TV. And while Grand Lodges sat on their Internet hands, individual Masons on their own were setting up Masonic websites, discussion forums and producing Masonic videos.

Right about here readers will extrapolate that Internet Freemasonry lacks one crucial ingredient, namely that of personal relationship and bonding and also experiencing Freemasonry “in the flesh.” To that end that Craft keeps blossoming out Side bodies and degree upon degree upon degree to make sure all its members get to really “experience” the Craft. But then how many ways does it take to say the same thing over and over?  In its desire to cement the Brotherhood into a membership of dedicated true believers, Freemasonry makes sure that members experience the Craft again, again and again……………..and in the process is sowing the seeds of its own demise.

One only has to look at today’s culture and the different methods of bonding that the next generation has embraced to know that the tired old ways of application aren’t going to work anymore. It’s Facebook, Twitter and texting that dominates today’s communication and consequently its formation of relationships. More and more married couples are telling us that they first met on the Internet. That’s not to say that the message of Freemasonry is in jeopardy; no, the message is timeless but the application generationally deficient.  How many Grand Masters do you think have a Facebook page and who tweet and text on a regular basis? It’s not such a far out question when you realize that we have a President hip to such methods and who used them to help him campaign.

Yet Freemasonry is being torn apart by competing methods of application. Again to make sure you got it, there is no problem with the message, it’s the messengers.

One faction is Freemasonry as the buddy bonding society. Candidates are whisked through the degrees at lightning speed. Lodge meetings consist of degrees or business but never esoteric lessons. The Craft is one big social arena where fish frys, banquets, bowling leagues and motorcycle clubs abound.

Another faction is Freemasonry as a charitable society heavily geared to the dispensation of massive Institutionalized Charity, so much so that there is minimal time for social activities and even less time for esoteric study.

The third faction is Freemasonry as a research and study society devoted to the pursuit of knowledge in the context of ethical application.  This faction sees Freemasonry as a philosophy and spawns such applications as Research Lodges and esoteric study clubs.

The first three factions follow the tenets of Freemasonry – Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. The fourth does not.

The fourth faction is Freemasonry as a quasi military style society full of rank, privileges, ribbons and medals and the attainment thereof.

Each faction is at war with the other offering the one and only true way for Freemasonry’s salvation.  In some areas Freemasonry tries to incorporate all factions in a hybrid super model that not only requires a good amount of money but also an inordinate amount of time commitment. Depending on where you are in the country and what model your Grand Lodge has chosen to pursue decides what type of Freemasonry you are experiencing.

Where does all this leave our Masonic soul searchers?

To properly answer that question we must sign on to the notion that Freemasonry is not society’s savior nor was it ever intended to be. Freemasonry is not a place of doing it is a place of being. In the modus operandi of your life you live out your path or your destiny on two levels.  (1) First there is the religion or philosophy that guides one to what courses of action to take. (2) There are the courses of action taken based on the values one has chosen.

All the factions trying to redefine Freemasonry only muddies the waters. Long after Masons in human bodies have departed this world and Lodges have ceased to exist, the thought, the philosophy of Freemasonry will live on. It will never disappear.

It is Freemasonry that creates our value system as Masons. The Craft is designed to do no more than that. Expecting Freemasonry to take the next step of action in implementation of its values is asking too much. That’s an individual decision to be made for an individual path.  Like snowflakes no two paths are identical. Therefore, those that feel that Freemasonry is not doing enough are asking from it unintended consequences.

If you want to be a Little League coach, man a soup kitchen, build a playground, visit the elderly in Nursing Homes, be a Boy Scout leader than go do it.  Recognize that it is Freemasonry that got you to the point of going to do such. But don’t castigate Freemasonry because it isn’t doing those very things.  Freemasonry isn’t doing it’s being. Freemasonry is what gave you the values to go do these things, nothing more, nothing less.

Trying to get Freemasonry to be the be all and end all of life is placing a burden upon it that is far too great. Right now Freemasonry is in meltdown because of unrealized expectations. If feelings of worth and usefulness are things most important to you, then don’t become a professional Masonic social climber, pulling rank and showing off all your medals. Keep Freemasonry in your life simple and focused on its calling. Then it won’t disappoint you but will serve your purpose well.

Brother Hando Nahkur Wins Record Of The Year In Europe

The Beehive did a story on classical pianist Brother Hando Nahkur in December.

This talented Brother has just received notice that he has been awarded the record of the year in Germany for his CD DeusExClavier.

Here is his press release:

Hando Nahkur and his second CD “DeusExClavier” (released in 2010 by ERP – Estonian Record Productions) receives international recognition!

Hando Nahkur’s second CD “DeusExClavier”  reaches the Top Music Charts in Europe and wins “THE RECORD OF THE YEAR – Die Platten des Jahres ” title by “ZEIT-ONLINE” in Germany:

In the end of 2010, “ZEIT-ONLINE” (one of the most important websites in Germany) announced “DeusExClavier” as “The Record of The Year – Die Platten des Jahres” in Germany. Three new CD releases of 2010 from all over the world were selected to receive the title and “DeusExClavier” was one of them. It is remarkable that Hando Nahkur’s “DeusExCalvier” was the only piano music CD to win the recognition amongst P.Vasks’ String Quartets and M.Reger’s Choir Works.

ZEIT-ONLINE: “Hando Nahkur is one of the greatest new surprises of the classical music scene… With this CD he established himself amongst the greatest pianists..”

Here is the link where “DeusExCalvier” was announced as “THE RECORD OF THE YEAR”:
http://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2010-12/platten-des-jahres-2010?page=8

“PIANONews”
“DeusExClavier” receives an outstanding review from ”PIANONews” (one of the most popular Classical Music Journals in Germany).

Performance: 6/6, Sound 6/6, Choice of Repertoire  5/6

Hando Nahkur and his second CD “DeusExClavier” are a marvelous discovery! …The “official” culmination of the record is Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes op. 13.

Nahkur’s interpretation rightfully holds its own even against the legendary versions by Wilhelm Kempff or Martha Argerich.
We will—hopefully—hear very much more from this talented pianist.

Please join the Behive in congratulating this talented young Freemason.  You can contact Nahkur on his website: www.handonahkur.com

Discipline is not Evil

PREFACE:  This column, which may seem to be aimed at the education of our youth, is also applicable to the workplace and to Masonic lodges in terms of teaching our junior members how to succeed and climb the ladder of the Lodge hierarchy.

I recently attended a training session for a nonprofit organization whereby the intention was to teach new members the policies and procedures for the organization. I was there to assist. During the course of the program, the instructor explained the protocol for conducting meetings where the public may be in attendance. In addition to “Roberts Rules of Order,” the group had supplemental procedures for recognizing and answering questions from the floor. All of it seemed rather simple and straightforward, but there were a couple of young people in attendance, whom I judged to be in their mid-20′s, who seemed to be baffled by the instructor’s explanation. The teacher patiently repeated the procedure and demonstrated with some examples. This didn’t seem to help as the students were still at a loss as to what the instructor was saying. At this point, other students chimed in to support the teacher and tried to explain the concept to them. I even threw in my two cents. After much cajoling, they finally acquiesced and claimed they understood, but I wasn’t convinced they did.

As I was driving home that night I thought about the two young students and wondered why they were having a problem comprehending what appeared to be a simple concept. Aside from being younger than myself, I judged them to be relatively well educated. “Is it possible that I am more intelligent than they are?” I thought to myself. No, I like to believe I am well rounded, but certainly not in the category of being a genius. In all likelihood, we were probably comparable in terms of intelligence. So, what was causing the problem? Then it hit me, simple discipline.

Both tended to dress rather roughly to work and it wasn’t uncommon for them not to shave. Their speech and manners also hinted of the lack of social graces. Further, after observing their work habits, I found they had a reputation for bucking the system. They were far from stupid, but their nonconformist attitudes tended to get in their way of learning and adapting.

Not long ago I wrote an article entitled, “What’s wrong with a little discipline?,” which described the efforts of Caroline Haynes, a school principal in the United Kingdom, who was raising the test scores of her students by implementing strict discipline in the classroom.

More recently, Amy Chua, a Professor at Yale’s Law School in Connecticut raised some eyebrows with the publication of her new book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” which is a memoir of her experiences raising two daughters using strict parenting techniques. This resulted in considerable criticism in the media and by parents who claimed Ms. Chua was too hard on her own children. Maybe she was, but you cannot argue with the end result whereby her children, who are now entering their college years, are intelligent and socially well-adjusted, not to mention excellent musicians. They excelled not because they were inherently bright, but because their mother instilled a sense of discipline in them by challenging them to think and participate.

In an age of permissiveness, where parents tend to be lax in enforcing discipline, people like Caroline Haynes and Amy Chua clearly demonstrate that discipline is not evil, but rather quite beneficial. However, as both people have discovered, there is a general perception by the public that discipline stifles the expression of individuality and creativity. Consequently, parents tend to be intolerant of such things as school uniforms and corporal punishment in public schools.

Consider this, up until the 1960′s there were dress codes in public schools. For example, boys had to wear collared shirts, slacks, and proper shoes. Blue jeans, gym shoes, T-shirts, and shorts were a taboo. Further, there were hair codes which defined length and cut. If anything was out of place, you were sent home. Likewise, girls had similar codes. Dress lengths were checked regularly and there were certain ways you couldn’t wear your hair. Excessive use of makeup was also checked. This all changed in the 70′s when kids rebelled and parents began to insist their children be given certain freedoms which resulted in a “grunge” look that remains with us to this day. Is it any small coincidence that the rebellion of school dress codes in the 70′s led to a similar change in office dress codes in the 90′s? Hardly.

It is not my intention here to make a pitch for student dress codes or the re-implementation of corporal punishment, rather to point out the far-reaching effects from the lack of discipline by parents. As evidenced by the work of Haynes and Chua, there are benefits associated with discipline such as producing a trained mind that knows how to analyze, think, and take initiative to seek the proper answer (which would have certainly helped the two young students mentioned earlier). Discipline also forces the person to assume responsibility and gives them a sense of purpose. As such, it significantly contributes to their maturity. Further, it promotes teamwork by teaching uniformity and commitment. Discipline affects our thinking patterns, speech, common courtesy and decorum, all of which contributes to making a person more socially adjusted.

When it comes to discipline, nobody likes to be pushed, least of all myself, but I have learned to push myself when necessary. As a kid though, every once and awhile I needed a good swift kick in the rear end to get my attention and point me in the right direction. Even a nudge from a caring parent or mentor, given at the right time, can work wonders. That’s what parenting is all about. Unfortunately, not enough people are doing this. Maybe if everyone was required to serve a two year hitch in the military things would be different.

Some people perceive discipline as evil, that it does nothing more than “teaches trained seals how to perform” while sacrificing their creativity and spirit in the process. Such accusations are naive and misunderstand the purpose of discipline which is how to effectively channel skills and creative energies. Discipline represents a process whereby we learn there are consequences for our actions or inaction (“cause and effect”), that there are both right ways and wrong ways for doing things. No great or important object was ever built without some form of discipline. Ask any engineer, architect, musician, inventor, scientist, manufacturer or craftsman; they will all tell you that you cannot build anything of substance without discipline.

No, discipline is certainly not evil, but you have to wonder about the people who fail to instill it. Excuses abound to rationalize why they do not do so, such as they don’t have time, or they don’t want to inhibit their children. Some are plain and simply afraid to do so in fear of the legal system. When parents fail to teach discipline it defaults to teachers, coaches, and employers to do so, which is not necessarily their responsibility and may produce undesirable results. Understand this, for every person who fails to learn some form of discipline, they become a burden on society and, accumulatively, they represent a decline in our civilization.

Keep the Faith!

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Tim Bryce is a writer and the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) of Palm Harbor, Florida and has over 30 years of experience in the management consulting field. He can be reached at timb001@phmainstreet.com

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http://www.phmainstreet.com/timbryce.htm

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Copyright © 2011 by Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.

It’s a connection to eternity

Great article in the Boston Phoenix on Freemasonry and the “all-seeing eye of rock and roll.”

Below are just a few of the quotes

The Masons of Amicable Lodge have tattoos curling out from under their button-down shirts. They wear giant rings and waist aprons that look like oversize satin envelopes. They wear ties and medals and amulets. They carry staffs. Each month, they gather to practice secret rituals in Porter Square.

“A lot of people become involved in music because they’re looking for something higher — or to get girls, which is something higher,”…”It’s looking for that thing that’s bigger than you — the first time you hear the Ramones on the radio, it’s that spiritual thing.”

[Free]Masonry fills that need

“We’re born, get old, and die, but the rituals remain the same. It’s a time machine. It’s a connection to eternity.”

I really like that analogy, its a great perspective.

Read more in the article How the Boston rock scene grew up, got real jobs, and became – Freemasons?

Demons and demagoguery

This tale starts in an email I received on Valentines Day.  The email was a resignation, a coup de grâce on a loose affiliation based on a common passion about Freemasonry because of a personal (or privately cultivated) belief that this websites general quality was in deterioration.

I can surmise that most who read this site don’t like reading about the fraternal peccadilloes, the raw data of readers to each piece tells me otherwise.  The highest day’s readership was on Monday June 22 of 2009 when I published a piece called “My brother’s keeper. Open Racism in Georgia Freemasonry” which, for the record, pulled close to 1500 views on the day it went up.  Does it mean people like controversy?   No, but it means Brothers want to know what’s going on across the spectrum of Masonry besides who’s speaking where or recognizing who is relevant to someone.

The complaint in this resignation was a building belief that some writers were taking on a voice of schadenfreude (the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others).  It’s an easy line to see blurred, and not a new complaint about the BeeHive.  It’s a reason for a few hurt feelings and split relationships that lead to breaks over creative differences.

Through it all the, higher principal in operation on FmI has been to allow free speech with an open door for named authors or free volunteers to contribute to the dialog.  My email is right there on the right…  If its not a rant, send it to me, I’ll publish it.

In the 6 years that I’ve published this site I’ve received a whopping total of TWO (2) contributions to rebut something published here.  I know that the posts are being debated, I go to the same forums you do and I can see when someone somewhere links back to an article, so I know people are talking about the subject matter.  But no does.  Its easier not to.

For a fraternity that instructs an initiate to seek out understanding for logic and rhetoric, two counter posts seem to smack of a lack of that study.

Maybe that’s the case.  Maybe there is a disdain to speak openly about the elephant in the room or to address the problems “over there” when clearly there is no similar problem here.  It smacks of the “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas” mantra which the Urban Dictionary quotes Dane Cook defining the aphorism by saying “It happened. It only happened there. And it happened far enough away to have any negative effect on the “the here and now”. And anyone who wasn’t there at the time need not know about it. So stfu about it, and move on. But keep the memories.”

It’s the last part that those who want to keep status quo want you to remember: “…stfu about it, and move on.” For those scratching their heads wondering what stfu means, it means “shut the Fuck up” and their saying that because they don’t like to talk about the negative fraternalism, or their being called to task to defend their affiliations, or what they perceived as being so sacred is more subject to social influences than they care to recognize.  Clearly, what happens in Masonry over there affects it over here especially in the era of national news coverage.  Maybe if we STFU enough, we won’t have to say anything and then behind closed doors we’ll address the problem.

News flash – that’s not happening and no matter how tight we wrap ourselves in the comforting loops of the imaginatively historic “Mystical Tie” and ignore the reality of what its binding the sooner it will become a noose that will suffocate out the creative life of what should be a bright and shining jewel of society.

It’s happened to me when a family friend who a few months back asked me about my involvement in Masonry (she is one of about 1400 friends on Facebook so she sees a lot of what I publish).  She just happens to be very educated, Jewish, a feminist, and a lesbian, and she asked me what was with all this Masonic stuff since she remembered it from her fathers day as being a racist, anti-Semitic, male chauvinist society?  Her question: “How can they [Masons] proclaim such high ideals and still be so upside down about religion, women and race?”

After she asked that question she then asked me “How could I be a part of such an organization given my enlightened liberal nature?”

I came up short. I didn’t really know what to say.  Would you?  My feeble response was to say that I write about it and still a part of it, to make these issues a thing of the past.  Personally, I wanted to make racism a non-issue and to change the perception of the “enlightened” so as to see the fairest of the species in the same way that the rest of society see them – as equals.

What I do (and really why this site exists) is to remind my brothers, as Tim Bryce reminds me, and what I believe to be behind what the BeeHive writes is that “the Emperor has no cloths” and that we need to get our heads out of the sand about it.

So, as was so cavalierly published this morning, the author of the “47th Problem of Euclid” is no longer posting on this website and he has eliminated his past few contributions.  His departure is because of a profound discomfort “…with where the website is going…” and a belief that it has “…chosen to ally [the BeeHive] with irregular and clandestine Freemasonry rather than commit to helping fix these problems.”  But, I suggest that rather than offer a counter point or rebuttal or any significant material contribution – Euclid has chosen to quit publicly and with a flourish which is easier than adding to the conversation and shaping the dialog.

And that’s the reason why Modern Masonry is in the state it is today.  When we believe the quality of something to be low (true or not since it’s all about our personal perception), we separate ourselves from it rather than adding to its material betterment.

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