Essays of Robert G. Davis

An Apologia on the Traditions of Freemasonry

2011-11-24T10:36:00.000-06:00

Freemasonry is entirely built around traditions. Its intellectual inspiration was born from the determination of Isaac Newton and his friends to create an area of freedom in an England torn apart by civil and religious war. Ever since there have been lodges in Scotland, men have passed between the pillars of King Solomon’s Temple, that epitome of soul-searching reflection, to nurture a harmonious distinction between tradition and modernity. Freemasonry perceives the harmony of opposites as the secret of life and the world.

The Mason’s Temple is a volume of freedom of expression, reflection, education, and progress; it is not a cube. It is a consecrated space enabling each one who meets therein to be truly free, to meet on the level without regard for rank in society or partisan concerns. A Masonic Temple is not a secret place, only a protected one. Freemasonry is an initiatory society offering men a working method which will enable each initiate to make his way toward moral and intellectual perfection. In the lodge, men from every walk of life, of all ages, every social category and every spiritual and philosophical conviction find a basis for reflection through a common language and a common culture in an authentically fraternal relationship. Freemasons are united by their initiation and they come together in a common ideal of freedom, equality, social justice, non-denominationalism and peace. There is thus a sacred space within every Masonic Temple, but for its members, it represents only a transcendence of the human condition. Freemasonry was founded first to emancipate consciences; not concern itself with the saving of souls.

To establish its fundamental values and provide a guarantee of equality to all, Freemasonry has adopted the tools of the operative masons as symbols to remind members of their freely consented obligations. Aprons, gloves, collars and jewels are not just raiment’s of clothing, but a reminder of a common commitment to work together for the progress of humanity, a common respect for rules which cannot sully the purity of the institution’s intentions, or the equality of all members within the lodge.

It is not the trappings of the fraternity that make the light. It is not the apron that makes the Mason. It is his individual commitment and obligation to listen, work and share with his brothers a common quest for spiritual and personal growth by integrating into his being the moral and ethical principles which comprise an enlightened heart and mind. The vocation of Masonry is spiritual, its demand humanist, and its heritage toleration, the rights of man, and the independence of people everywhere.

The rituals and traditions of Freemasonry tend toward universalism rather than occultism. The aprons, lodge furnishings, decorations and regalia of the fraternity are not there to keep the uninitiated at a distance, but to bear witness to the Masonic movement’s attachment to its history and symbolism. They are a permanent and ubiquitous reminder to every brother of the purpose of his commitment. Even though Freemasonry may have evolved with time, and the years and centuries may have invited change within the organization, its object has remained immutable: to reveal men in their fullness, that fullness in knowing how to search the realms of spirituality and philosophy within the archetypes of maleness to find and embrace the mature masculine soul.

It may be seen by the outsider as a discreet and often poorly articulated institution, but Freemasonry has left a deep mark on the western world and its history. It is at once a philosophic, philanthropic and progressive institution working for the intellectual and social betterment of mankind through the practice of virtue, tolerance, and benevolence in every dimension of manhood. It was wholly founded on fraternity and its aim is to unite men despite their differences.

The vast network of Masonic symbolism teaches that Freemasonry is also a society aimed at helping man rise above his ordinary condition so that he may be better prepared for building a more humane and enlightened society. Whether in the sacred conclaves of the Masonic temple, or represented in the decorations of a Mason’s regalia, the ornaments of fraternity collectively recite the symbolic alphabet of a universal language that transcends all ethnic and cultural differences among men. It is a language which remains lost to nine-tenths of the world’s population. The unique and specific nature of Freemasonry’s approach and frame of thought represents its collective consciousness.

While often misunderstood, Masonic secrecy is in no manner meant to hide something. It is simply the secrecy that accompanies any spiritual or personal approach respecting the intimacy of an initiatory quest. It is a guarantee to every initiate of personal individual freedom to seek out and discover that which is the noblest and purist within his mind and soul.

Freemasons are without doubt men of tradition and, because they are men of tradition, they are men of progress. They do not hope for a nostalgic return to some past era, but for the tradition of transcendence and evolution of which every man in every time is capable. The hope of every Freemason is that tomorrow will be better than yesterday and today. That is the progress of the ages.

When fraternal men work together for their own perfection, they do so to participate fully in the life and progress of their time, and the progress of humanity.

The existence of an active traditional Freemasonry in a democratic society is the best guarantee and assurance of genuine spiritual and civic freedom.

May Brotherly Love Prevail, and Every Moral and Social Virtue Cement Us

2011-10-24T15:30:00.006-05:00

Every Mason will recognize the above declaration as the epilogue of the closing prayer given at almost every lodge meeting. It was penned by William Preston in 1772.

It is an admonition for toleration.

Frederico Mayor, in an address dedicating the Beit-Hashoah Museum for Tolerance in Los Angeles in 1993 said; “…our ability to value each and every person is the ethical basis for peace, security and intercultural dialogue.” Albert Pike stated it even more poignantly in the tenth degree by declaring that without toleration “we are mere hollow images of true Masons, mere sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.” The fact is that a peaceful future depends on everyday acts of kindness and respect. It is a lesson every Freemason knows well.

Among all the teachings Masonry imparts to its members, none is more important than championing the ideal of toleration in all things. In the book of lectures for the symbolic lodge, we read; “By the exercise of Brotherly Love we are taught to regard the whole human species as one family; the high and low, the rich and poor; who, as created by one Almighty Parent, and inhabitants of the same planet, are to aid, support and protect each other. On this principle, Masonry unites men of every country, sect and opinion, and conciliates true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance.”

The history of much of the world is a saga of deep ethnic divisions, regional conflicts, religious zealotry, and economic hostilities among peoples. Intolerance, jealousy and greed have fragmented almost every country in the world. There was a time when people came to America seeking asylum from such human suffering and strife. The altruistic nature of democracy has made the United States a multi-cultural society. Now the same divisions that have caused so much suffering and loss in the rest of the world are becoming manifest in the freest country on earth. We are becoming a nation filled with mistrust and animosity.

The natural reaction to diversity is to isolate ourselves in our own culture. It’s a kind of “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. It is easy to believe that we can’t get hurt if we stay within our own group. We can’t get into trouble if we don’t participate. But with people now migrating to America in record numbers, everyone who has perceived themselves as 20^th century American-born citizens are rapidly becoming a minority. This perception is strong across every culture. National unity will never be possible if we feel threatened by every group outside our own. It’s time all of us made a little sacrifice and effort toward a greater cause.

Since (as the saying goes) you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it seems the only chance we have of achieving and maintaining a sense of national unity at home is to develop a healthy learning environment among our children that will give them a full cross-cultural understanding. And such understanding will not just happen. To communicate and learn from one culture to another takes entire families out of their comfort zone. To achieve a reconciliation of idealistic, ethnic, religious and cultural differences between the old ways and the new will require an extraordinary feat of will and learning. In most cases, toleration itself will have to be learned and practiced.

But it is a role I believe was made for the Scottish Rite. If the Rite is indeed a great power, it is so because influence is power; and will is power. The teachings of the Rite answer these kinds of questions: What kind of society might we have if we were to achieve a culture of peace? How much would such a culture manifest itself in our family lives, communities, state and national politics and international relations? What relationship exists between tolerance and peace? Can human rights be realized without a social commitment to tolerance? Is there a significant relationship between human rights and democracy? What are our own personal and community concerns about the issue of tolerance? How do our concerns relate to tolerance on a global scale? How can we contribute to promoting a tolerant world?

If our own history is a guide, Freemasonry gains civic and social relevance when it stands up for what it stands for. There can be much value in sharing our values with the cross-cultural world in which we live. Perhaps it is a mission of the Scottish Rite to take the lead in diagnosing the kinds of intolerance which hinders the world; and then pledge, individually and corporately, to do whatever is necessary in educating the next generation of adults that tolerance is indeed the most reasonable means to peace in the world.

It seems like such a worthy mission—to stand on what we stand for.

On Perception and Realilty

2011-03-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

I don’t know how many of you have seen the recent movie, starring Leonardo DeCaprio, titled Inception. I did. And the symbolism blew me away. It’s about a man who specializes in entering other people’s dreams to steal information. He’s the best in the world at this science. In his last big job, he is given a new twist to his abilities. Instead of going inside someone else’s dream to take information, he is hired by a wealthy man to enter into the dreams of the son of a dying competitor in order to plant an idea inside the heir’s unconscious that will break up his father’s empire and later make decisions which will benefit the heir’s wealthy rival. When an idea is implanted into another individual’s unconscious, that process is called Inception.

The viewer spends a lot of time between dreams and reality in the movie. The makers of the film made it difficult for us to know when we are viewing a dream and when we are viewing reality. They allow us to think we have it straight, but then leave us with a nagging sense of doubt that we may have it wrong. How, then, do we tell what is real and what is not? What is the difference between reality and perception? This question becomes the real essence of the movie.

It explores the harsh notion that, not only can an individual get things wrong; an entire society can get things wrong. We need only to look at the inequality which brought about the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s to see how large group psychology can be in error. It wasn’t until 1954 that blacks were paid the same as whites. It was not until 1977 that psychiatrists finally got around to declaring homosexuality was not a disorder. It was not until 1984 that widows were given rights to their husband’s pensions.

Closer to home in our own fraternal society, we all know there are good and well-meaning Christians who still cite Albert Pike as once claiming Freemasons are all worshipers of Satan. Never mind that this claim was actually made by a notorious atheist and pornographer named Leo Taxil in 1894, three years after Pike died.

The point is that group consensus often gets things wrong, and it can take a long time to fix things. So how do we know what is real and what is not real? Fortunately, the journey of Masonry helps us respond to this difficult inquiry. In the progressive path of our degrees, we learn some remarkable things about perception. Here is how our process works.

We start off learning the world around us by direct touch and taste; by what we see and hear; what we perceive and smell. In the process of learning, we run into a lot of walls. Our journey is not always forward and direct, but oft times torturous and winding. As we grow intellectually, we have to overcome our subjective reaction to things. At some point we begin comparing notes, we discuss our perceptions with others, and we attempt to come to a consensus of what is real and what is not; not always realizing that we are only comparing our own subjectivity with that of others. This is where we often decide what is right thinking and wrong thinking in our culture. Yet, realizing that our world view is not the same as the world view of those who are raised half way around the world, we have no other way of declaring what is morally right or wrong except by consensus agreement.

But then, if we don’t question our inner nature; that is, if we don’t investigate how we personally feel deep inside our own soul about all the group consensus we encounter, we will never become objective unto ourselves. We will never learn to think for ourselves. We will never know there are times when the world must go on without us. And that this realization is actually an affirmation of one’s self. The assumptions that are born out of our experience are not always born out by our experience. We can and do make mistakes about what is reality and what is not. Philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, the sciences; all are inspired to enable each individual to distinguish for himself between what is real and what is not.

I found the movie, Inception, to be about love, betrayal, possessiveness, having to cut loose from a willfully death-bound person or relationship. It’s a story about life and how confusing life can be without affirmation. I think the bottom line message is that if we never get inside ourselves, overcome our subjective impulses, get to know who we are, and become comfortable in our own skin, then life is a like living in a dream. It is a poverty stricken limbo—all buildings, all city, all streets—and no changing vistas of reality.

We must never forget that, for everyone, perception is reality. But it never hurts to test the reality of our perceptions. I believe that is the nature of the Masonic journey. It calls us at all times to reflect on where we are with our perceptions of things.

The Meaning Behind the Myth of Hiram

2011-02-02T11:11:00.000-06:00

Most Grand Jurisdictions have adopted what we as Masons know as the “Fundamental Principles” of Freemasonry. These have been republished many times, and represent what we often think of as the “Ancient Masonic Usages,” or foundational rules of our Fraternity.

One of these principles is that Freemasonry must be organized into symbolic degrees, and these degrees must encompass a legend of a temple tragedy. This is a curious statement because it immediately informs us of two things about our Order: (1) that its ritual ceremonies are intended to communicate something to us which was never meant to be real; and, (2) this something is overtly aimed at a tragedy, which implies we are engaged in a dark side of the human experience.

We all know there is nothing factual about the central legend of our degrees—the story of Hiram. It is a myth. The events which unfold in our drama never actually happened.

But without further explanation, this can represent a problem for 21st century men because we live in a world of information. If something is not real, then it has little value to us. And if something we thought was real turns out not to be that way, then it has even less value because we not only no longer believe in it, we also no longer trust it. This is one of the central paradoxes of politics and religion in our time.

Then, in Masonic ritual, we compound this problem of what is not real by adding a tragedy to it. On the surface, one might argue that most men see enough of the shadow side of things in their own life experience. Why should we expect a man to embrace an organization which not only focuses on that which is not real, but then brazenly delivers to him yet another tragedy of life in his experience as a Mason? The answer is that the original authors of Masonic ritual assumed every initiate already knew what a myth was and what it was designed to teach before he was initiated. This means that today, when we become Freemasons, we, too, are already to have a certain adeptship with the world of myth when we enter the fraternity. But most of us don’t. Thus, it wouldn’t hurt if the Masonic educators in our own time would spend a little time helping our new men make this 400 year leap in context while they are experiencing our ritual settings for the first time.

Here’s what we need to know about ritual and myth.

The function of ritual is to give form to human life in a way that transcends all generations and all time. The role of ritual is to imprint into each man’s psyche the same imprintings of the society in which he grows up. Whether experienced in church, a synagogue, a mosque; a legislative hall, or judicial chamber; or even in the rituals played out in a family, the purpose is always the same. The rituals are the means of such imprinting.

Ritualized procedures also depersonalize the protagonists in our life; lift them out of themselves so that their conduct now is not their own but of the species, the society, the caste, or the profession. Hence, for example, the rituals of the investiture of judges, or of officers of state; those so installed are to function in their roles, not as private individuals but as agents of collective principles and laws. Without ritualized rules which reconcile confrontation, no society could exist. The mere shattering of the ritual form is, for humans, a disaster. Ritual is the structuring form of all civilization. We all need to know the rules of the game. This is the justification for the use of ritual in Freemasonry.

Likewise, the myths of our tradition are the mental supports of our Rite; our Rite is the physical enactment of the myth.

Now, the interesting thing about myths is that the teachers in them change over time but the message remains the same. In the earliest period, man’s teachers were the animals and plants illustrating the powers and patterns of nature. Later on, they became the seven heavenly spheres, where the cosmic order became the model of a good society on earth. Of course, we have long since de-mythologized these through our sciences.

The center of mystery is now man himself. It is a curious characteristic of our species that we live and model our lives through acts of make-believe. In fact, we have lived in a man’s world since the Greek tragedies. And this is where the Hiramic legend comes in. In the ritual myths of Freemasonry, the two great tragic emotions of the Greeks--pity and terror--is laid out. With pity, we unite whatever is grave and constant in human suffering with the sufferer. With terror, we unite whatever is grave and constant in human suffering with the secret cause.

And the secret cause of all suffering is, of course, mortality itself. It is the pre-condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. Yet, along with the affirmation of this precondition, there is pity for the human sufferer, who is actually a counterpart of oneself. Our myth empowers us to reconcile our own mortality so that we may overcome ourselves and the fear of our own end.

The story of Hiram Abif and the three Ruffians plays out the great mythic image of pity and terror as expressed by the Greek Tragedies. The human sufferer is wiped out by our ceremonies, yet everything is done to point out the value of the sufferer. The terrorists who cause the suffering also suffer the same grave and constant reality of life.

This is the secret. In the process, the virtues and vices, the ignorance and knowledge, the darkness and the light of all humanity is rediscovered within each man, and these characteristics collectively emerge as the essential character of the latent hero in all of us. It is the Lost Word, that is, it is all the potentialities of life, found; but revealed only to the initiate who understands the form and substance of the journey he makes for himself.

Can Any Of Us Say What God Is Not?

2010-09-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

No man should ever be proud of ignorance. Given the total knowledge available in the world, ignorance is inevitable. But it should never be a source of self-satisfaction.

And yet, a lot of men claim that “not knowing” is a virtue. This is especially true in the area of religion. Some act as if knowledge and faith were antagonistic; that the only way to bolster and secure one’s faith is to remain as ignorant as possible of the faiths of others. This even applies to the history of one’s belief. Indeed, much of the contemporary debate between Christianity and Islam is a contest fueled by ignorance.

For the Mason, this kind of attitude is problematic. One of the great lessons in Masonry is toleration for others, and especially of their beliefs. To say, “I am right,” is proper and acceptable. To say, “I am right and you are wrong,” is to give way to both bigotry and intolerance. Sadly, this kind of small-mindedness seems particularly prevalent in matters of faith.

Can any of us say what God is not?

Surely, this is the most unanswerable, daunting and enduring question of all time! There is simply no definition of what God is that is universally acceptable. There is only the conviction of the human heart; and we all know that the heart can be deceivingly expressive. Thus, we have many interpretations of the Great Architect. There is God, the builder; God, the destroyer, God, the preserver. There is the One God; and the many Gods. There is the God of nature of the Pagans, the God/Goddess of the Wiccans. There is the God of the Gentiles, the God of the Christian Trinity, and the God of Unity to Islam. Then there is the God of the Philosophers, the God of Mystics, the God of Reformers, the God of Enlightenment, and a whole new host of Gods being proclaimed by contemporary spirituality gurus with all manners of insight.

All this leads me to think there is really only one enduring characteristic of God; and that is that God cannot be defined. God is a symbol; a mystery, a hieroglyph, a metaphor. Of God, there is understanding, reason, knowledge, touch, perception, imagination, name, and many other things. But God is not understood, nothing can be said of It, It cannot be named. It is not one of the things which is.

Regardless of one’s faith system, or from what culture one’s understanding of God has evolved, reading the scriptures of faith alone is not the process for deriving the truth about God. God must be discovered or tapped into by ascending to God Itself. It has to be a kind of metaphysical reality, since there is nothing of this world which can be compared to It. This is why God is a matter of belief or faith, and not reason. We cannot know; we can only believe, not believe, or doubt.

The bottom line is that a God who is not the same for everybody; a God that cannot be proved by scientific solution, a God that cannot be universally known by rationalization is the ultimate enigma of humanity. The only truth for which we can be certain is that God does not correspond to any human way of speaking. It can be analyzed and broken down into so many adjectives or attributes; but It has no cause, no qualities, no temporal dimension. There is absolutely nothing we can say about It.

Of course, if we acknowledge that God is the source of all things, then we can suggest certain things about this Source. We can also believe that because goodness exists, God must be essential or necessary. We can say that because we know life, power, and knowledge exist, then God must be alive, powerful and intelligent in the most essential and complete way.

The outcome of all this is that we can gain an intuitive, imaginative knowledge of God which might well transcend reason; but, in the mortal scope of things, we can only know God by interpretation.

This is why it makes sense to see God as a symbol—because a symbol can mean what the symbol user interprets it to mean. The good thing is that, since every one of us is confined to know only what we can see and feel about God’s nature, this gives us the right to believe what we believe, and to hold firmly to that belief as the Truth. But it also admonishes us not to deny others the same right, even when we fundamentally disagree with their belief.

When issues of religion are raised to a level of national debate, it would be nice for once to have a dialogue which is focused, not on differences of faith, but on the great balance of faith and reason.

Can a Flag Weep?

2010-08-10T14:57:00.001-05:00

When I was a boy it was still close to the war. There was a proud reverence for the men in my town who had been to Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, Midway, Normandy, Bataan, and the scores of other places we had never heard of; and didn't know existed--at least not until we heard the fellows talk about them at the drug store or ball park, domino hall, or family reunions. These men were my heroes, of course. They held a sacred place of respect in my heart.

I thought they had been to the most exotic places in the world; seen things that no one else in my county could have even imagined, and brought back stories that a boy like me could listen to for a lifetime. I grinned when they laughed, and I felt bad when they cried. And yes, they showed me that it was okay for men to cry. And that men could cry for the gentlest of reasons, or weep over some secret memory held close to their heart. Some of them knew pain--great pain. Some of them remembered too much, and it was hard for them. I felt a sadness for them.

But I admired them deeply. I wanted to be like them. They were my ideal of how one should be an American. They were almost a fraternity in themselves. I heard them joke to each other about which branch of the service was best; and I'm not sure some of their stories were always the whole truth. In fact, I suspicioned that they could be a little "windy" at times. Maybe their memories relaxed with years. It seemed their stories got a little bigger each time they told them. But I loved to hear them tell them. They had experienced things which went far beyond what we learned about our country in books, or in school.

These wonderful men taught me that being an American was more than just feeling safe and watching parades, and eating hot dogs and skinny-dipping in farm ponds; or going to the baseball game on Saturday nights, or showing livestock at the county fair. These fellows understood. Above everything else, they were deeply patriotic men. And I knew how important that ideal was to them.

You see, I was a trumpet player--and even by the time I got to junior high, I was a good one. These fellows invited me to travel with them throughout the county whenever they needed help in burying a fallen comrade. I played taps. They shot their guns in ritual salute. And they solemnly folded the flag which had been draped over their brother's coffin and handed it to his family. And I knew that his spirit had not died with him. They would keep it alive every time they marched with that flag, every time they displayed it at their own homes, every time they folded it in tribute to another brother. Every time they felt their faith in our demorcracy needed to be exemplified, the flag was somehow there.

That was a long time ago. Then, not so long ago, I saw people burning that same flag at a demonstration in Washington DC to make a point about something. It was their right to do that, of course; a right ironically given them by the freedom that same flag had secured for them long before they were even born.

I wondered what my heroes (now gone themselves) would think. Can a flag weep? Do we still care enough?

And for a moment--just a fleeting moment--I remember back across the decades to a young lad who, a long time ago in the first grade, always ran the last few blocks to school in the morning. And when his teacher asked why de did so, he gave this simple answer: "Mrs. Huffer, when I pledge allegiance to the flag I can feel my heart."

The Public Ceremonies of Fraternity: What These are Meant to Communicate!

2010-06-09T08:29:00.019-05:00

We are taught in Masonry that a symbol is a word for something which arouses in us thoughts, feelings and connections that exist beyond the symbol itself. It is always a thing which makes us think of something else. We use symbols to compress a lot of meaning into a small space of time. Masonic symbols allow us to generalize subjects that are very complex. They provide access to information, and enable us to convey ideas which are otherwise difficult to express.

In fact, people regularly use symbols in their daily lives, even though they are often not conscious of the process. For example, any time we speak, we speak in symbols. Words themselves are symbols, and we use them easily in conversations and reading. Thus, symbols are central to our thinking, speculations and philosophy; and they pass by us so quickly we hardly notice. In Masonry, we discover that almost every aspect of life can be symbolized. If this were not so, archetypes would have little meaning to us; and our allegories would be worthless.

The reality is that symbols are pervasive in any culture. And visual symbols are particularly important. For example, people often relate their perception about corporations to a company logo. Businesses know their logos serve as memory triggers for their benefit. A logo not only directs our consciousness to a company name, it also connects our mind with the idea that the company itself is an icon of national or international stability. Who would not recognize the cursive font and red and white swirls of the Coca-Colo logo as representing the world's largest soft drink company? Who would not think of Mercedez Benz whenever he sees the distinctive metallic grey three sided star enclosed within an orbit?

This, then, begs the question: If the general public is so dependent on the use of symbols in interpreting the funtioning of life, then why doesn't Freemasonry, whose central theme is symbol interpretation, enjoy a more common place in the public's interest?

I'm not sure I have an answer, but I suspect it has to do with the fact the public is far more interested in assigning a brand to their cultural icons than in connecting moral symbols with objective meaning. Morals are an entirely different package than sodas and automobiles. All modern theories of value tend to share the premise that moral values are always subjective and therefore have no independent meaning and existence. Our contemporary values are often nothing more than projections of our desires and feelings.

But this was not the way values were seen in the 19th century. As difficult as it may be for the public today to equate the Square and Compasses with values, I believe that is precisely what our forefathers intended for it to do.

Our modern culture is a funny culture. On the one hand, we say we want freedom of thought, individuality and creativity; yet it is everywhere obvious that we really don't want to have to think about things very deeply. The problem with thinking is that it complicates our lives. It takes time. And it interferes with our desire to take action in the moment, even when that action is misdirected. It often leads to a confrontation between our own subjective values and the view of others whom we don't fully understand or appreciate.

Yet Freemasons know that moral, physical and spiritual transformations occur in people through symbol interaction. This is the reason why Masonry's greatest potential to effect both personal and social transformation is in the relationships we form with each other and with the profane world. Since we are not offering courses in symbols and symbol interpretation, we are constrained to communicate with the public in a more open sphere. Perhaps what we do and represent to our society is the key to becoming better integrated with its symbolic cravings.

If such a symbolic connection could be made, our identity and image could be vastly improved. We may well be able to move from being seen as "quaint" and out of touch to becoming respected as "traditional" in the public's eye. This is particularly important at a time when younger men in our culture are becoming increasingly fascinated with the "retro" look and image of manhood. One needs only to discover the popularity of Brett McKay's website, The Art of Manliness, to get a glimpse at how important "traditional" is becoming.

Even if most of our members do not understand Masonry's complex symbol system well enough to communicate it to the outer world, we can still convey how it works in a simple and traditional context. We need only to understand that is it the structure of our organization itself which brings order and status to society. Our public ceremonies are the means by which our values get branded onto the public's inherent need for symbolism in their lives.

A ceremonial role is always a group role. It is an expression of rank within the group just as any institutional ceremony is an expression of rank within the community. This was Masonry's foundational motivation for cornerstone laying and public dedications. These ceremonies are based on a profound sociological insight. In ceremonial drama people watch for indications of rak and honor. It doesn't matter if it is military, academic, political, religious or fraternal, we watch the dress, the staging, and the action of the players to discover what determines rank and honor in our lives.

Each traditional institution in our society may have its own brand of honor and dignity, but it derives these from social principles which are accepted by the community as a whole. Thus, the institution, thorugh the ceremonies it performs, becomes final and transcendent in the minds of the observers.

Here is how this works. and Carlyle said it very well: He who puts on a public gown must put off a private person. The formal dress of the Masons in their public ceremonies gives them a social role that has deep meaning. When we play our part in institutional and public ceremonies with dignity, we demonstrate the aura of social status and office. The public has no way of competently judging our competence as an institution. But in the majesty of our dress, our regalia, and our ceremonial forms, we put on the insignia of rank. And all who see us symbolically bow before us.

They are not bowing to us, but to the social status we fill as gentlemen and as guardians of tradition and order in society.

This is the reason we should always be conscious of the integrity we communicate when we are presenting ourselves in the public's eye. In our cornerstones and dedications, our memorial services and community partnerships, we appeal to how the public perceives status in its institutions. As a group, if we could just understand that our task as an institution is symbolically to communicate status; then we would grasp the importance of the formality of our ceremonies.

When the public sees dignity and status in what Freemasonry does and how Freemasons dress, it also becomes possible for it to connect our fraternity with tradition and stability. We become of of the "retro" incons of importance now emerging into the public's consciousness of "favored-man" status. When the public sees us in this role, everything changes.

Because everyone desires an elevation in status.

The Path of the Esotericists Among Us

2010-04-15T13:22:00.012-05:00

The German Hermeticist, Franz Bardon, observed; "there is a fundamental problem with truth. It depends on the insight of the individual." Bardon was right. Each one of us sees truth from the standpoint of our particular environment, education, maturity, religious training, cultural lens, and family upbringing. Thus, to an extent, truth is always an illusion.

That's just the way life is. One of the challenges of the seeker is that, knowing there are different paths to truth, he wants to explore all of them simultaneously. While he must ultimately survey the field of options available to him to understand the ancient traditions, he has to guard himself against making only an intellectual pursuit.

The world is full of academic esotericists.

One of the first things we must come to understand about enlightenment is that each of us is on his own walk. Our personal path is the path to greatest harmony within ourselves and with the world in which we experience. The shortcoming of almost every proscribed system of thought is that it fails to recognize the importance of the awakened consciousness; or the limitations of its own notions.

Religion and science are two classic opposites. At the outset, religion generally demands the unshakable belief in a spiritual fact that its own truth lies in its religious tradition. Thus, it always poses a dogma. Beyond that, it requires the faithful to lead a good and pure life under the certain prescriptions it defines for its followers. Science, on the other hand, is independent of such demands. It merely asks that one investigate things without prejudice to gain knowledge and understanding. But, in so doing, it tends to conclude that what is not known can become known; else it cannot exist. Science rarely accepts the metaphysical. Therefore, science is often atheistic in principle.

To me, this gap between science and religion mirrors the conflict between rational thinking and inspiration. Reason becomes a control of inspiration when inspiration seems to fly away into the vague unknown. Yet inspiration is the impulse for rational investigation.

The esotericist accepts the value of both these opposites. He seeks to unite both paths using an entirely different approach. He engages in the "spirit of the old Initiates." He investigates the means of science as far as its facilities reach, but he is also not afraid of applying those traditions which are not (or not yet) in the grasp of orthodox points of view. To affect this kind of work, he often labors in small circles for the precious things which lead him to the genuine experience. The bottom line is that the work on one's self cannot be taken over by anyone else; nor can it be invested in any one organization. The seeker can only be guided, but not carried, by his spiritual friends.

This is the first rule of all esoteric study.

And this is the covenant Initiates make with each other. It can't be any other way because only what a man accomplishes by his own work becomes real to him. After all, we can only know certain aspects of absolute truth. There is life, there is free will; there is memory, intellect, and intuition. Beyond these obvious characteristics of truth, most everything else can be argued (and, indeed, have been debated throughout the history of recorded thought.)

This brings me to another important rule of esotericism. It is useless to argue with those who are not adepts of the higher leanings of truth. No sincere adept would impose his truth on someone who is not otherwise ready to contemplate it. There is a Biblical reference for this idea from the Master of the New law himself: "Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under your feet."

There is also a Masonic parallel to this dilemma. We all know Masons who believe with all their heart there is nothing spiritual about the rituals of Masonry. There are those who claim there is nothing to learn beyond the ritual words. There are even more who are appalled when it is suggested that Kabalistic, Alchemical, or Hermetic associations might be made from a study of the Degrees of Masonry. Never mind that every aspirant is told before he receives the very first Degree that Masonry is a course of hieroglyphic instruction taught by allegories. Oh well. As obvious as this may seem to the esoteric minded among us, there is little to be gained by arguing with those who aren't listening.

Thus, for the Initiate, it is wisest for him to do the Great Work quietly. He will likely never be in the popular current of societal thought anyway. And that's okay. The true seeker has no reason to affect the natural balance of things by becoming disruptive.

It is enough for him to come to know the truth for himself.

Supreme Court Won't Hear Bible Marker Case

2010-03-03T13:27:00.002-06:00

I was relieved when I read the headline this week in the Oklahoman, our state’s largest newspaper. The U.S. Supreme Court has once again upheld the Constitution by announcing it will not review an August decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the Haskell County Courthouse lawn. The 10th Circuit Court in Denver had earlier ruled the 8-foot-tall stone monument’s placement on the courthouse lawn in 2004 is unconstitutional because it amounts to a government’s endorsement of religion.

The Supreme Court wisely affirmed a right decision of two lower courts. It did what it is charged to do; it upheld the guarantee of our Constitution that there must always be a formal distance between government and religion. The First Amendment is a command to the government to keep its hands off religion; neither aiding it nor hindering it. Jefferson and Madison knew what they were doing when they insisted on a separation clause in our government’s founding document. If the history of the world has done nothing else, it has clearly taught us that nearly as long as humans have been participating in religion, governments have either assumed the power to regulate, suppress, or foster it; or the authorities of religion have assumed the power to regulate their governments. Kings have sought to place curbs on the church’s influence in the hope of gaining more power for themselves. And popes have insisted that kings should be regarded as simply servants of the church. This back and forth struggle between church and state has been the bane of human progress for centuries.

Many folk like to think the Protestant Reformation reconciled the church-state issues of the Middle Ages. But make no mistake about this—Martin Luther did not believe in religious liberty. He may have sought the freedom to interpret the Bible differently than taught by the Catholic Church. But he also assumed that his own interpretation was the only correct one and persecuted those who disagreed. In England, Henry VIII may have disestablished Catholicism in England by setting up the Anglican Church, or Church of England; but everyone knows he did it not to promote religious freedom, but to allow him to divorce his wife and marry another in search of a male heir to England.

John Calvin may be best known for founding the puritan movement that first brought Protestantism to the American colonies; but he also forced the town council to swear an oath pledging to uphold his form of Christianity. He banned the celebration of Christmas and Easter, raided homes, banned books, and interrogated private citizens in order to stamp out his form of heresy.

We often think the Pilgrims and Puritans came to America for religious freedom. But we quickly forget that their form of religious freedom was meant only for themselves. They had absolutely no interest in promoting freedom of religion for anyone else. Once in the new world, they immediately set up harsh theocracies where every aspect of religious life was regulated and a state-imposed orthodoxy was strictly enforced.

Finally, a preacher named Roger Williams, who had been run out of Massachusetts almost immediately after he had arrived in Boston, came up with a sensible idea. He insisted that the state should have no business in enforcing orthodoxy of any kind. An individual’s understanding of religion and truth must come from within. He believed in total freedom of conscience. It was Williams who actually coined the phrase concerning the “wall of separation between church and state.” His treatise was in response to having been found guilty by a general court made up of Puritan leaders for “disseminating new and dangerous opinions”, and banishing him from the colony.

The point of this historical rambling is to show that religious liberty had existed nowhere in Europe, or even in Colonial America outside of Rhode Island prior to the establishment of our own Constitution. Citizens were regularly taxed to support religion. Laws required men to believe certain tenets of Christianity before they could hold public office. Blasphemy was a capital offense. It was this form of harshness and repression of civil rights that led Madison and Jefferson to advocate the saner principle of keeping religion and government from each other.

Today, the Religious Right, unable to find any support for their views in the historical record, simply invent a new “history” whenever they wish by selectively culling material from the writings, speeches, and the actions of the framers of our Constitution. As Scottish Rite Masons, we are well aware of this kind of tactic. Anti-Masons, made up mostly of the Religious Right, do the same thing when quoting Albert Pike.

But it’s a ploy easily uncovered by astute men.

Just because our constitutional delegates, all religious men, often made speeches outlining the importance of religion to good government in their discussions as framers of the constitution, this did not mean they were promoting a union of the two. Yes, they were devoutly religious men. Comments concerning their personal religious sentiments did exist, but these tell us only that they believed religion was necessary to the function of good government. That did not preclude them in any way from being advocates of church-state separation. Jefferson was firmly convinced that allowing religious leaders to entangle themselves with government would prove an obstacle to human progress and liberty. For our framers, the fundamental concern was in prohibiting “the clergy from getting themselves established by law and engrafted into the machinery of government as being the formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.” (Jefferson).

As Scottish Rite Masons, if we are champions of anything, we are champions of religious freedom. We must agree with Jefferson that the best interest of human liberty and progress is served whenever a court decides against a church or any other religious entity or cause from having any legal authority or privilege whatsoever that might interfere with one person’s freedom of conscience in interpreting for himself the essential mandates of God. In a free country, this must always be the first rule of law.

This brings me back to the Haskell County courthouse lawn. The courts have wisely developed a three prong test for determining if the separation doctrine guaranteed us by the First Amendment is being infringed upon. In the case of the Ten Commandments, the three tests seem rather easy to decipher. Is it a religious monument? Is its effect primarily religious? Does placing it on government owned property constitute an entanglement of government in religious matters?

The answer to all three is obviously in the affirmative. Even if no one showed up when the monument was placed, two of the three tests were violated. When the public officials took formal action permitting the monument, the third test was met. Then, to add legal insult to injury, when the monument was dedicated, there were ministers present who spoke in behalf of its message. The message was religious, and the celebration created a religious effect. The fact the county commissioners allowed the monument to be erected on public grounds entangled them in the web of disregard for the public’s constitutional protection.

The bottom line is that the separation of church and state will not survive if not defended. It will not survive if people come to believe that the principle is not in the best interests of our nation, or that it is hostile to religion.

For those who understand the true history behind church-state separation and how the principle defends religious liberty, it is a ‘no-brainer’. We need only to look back over our shoulder to feel the persecution of the past. It is the awareness of such a history that made church-state separation an integral part of the Scottish Rite creed for two hundred years.

It could be our gift to the world if we brought it back into our Masonic consciousness, and became public spokesmen for its cause. When the public is educated, the separation clause can be defended and preserved in America’s courtrooms, schools, statehouses, and in Congress. But to not continue to do so, and even worse, by allowing the Religious Right to prevail in duping our public officials with their revisionist history, could prove disastrous for our country.

Nothing less than the future of religious freedom is at stake.

Which Public Image Do We Claim?

2009-11-03T13:54:00.006-06:00

I was visiting with a fellow Mason not long ago who was expressing how difficult it is for Freemasonry to articulate a public image which adequately describes our organization and is believable to the general public. This is indeed a remarkable challenge because we are bombarded with so many different perceptions about the fraternity. It seems there are many non-Masons willing to represent to the world what we are; without really knowing. The growing popularity of television documentaries, movies, and books about Freemasonry are filled with half truths, templar plots, inferred hostilities toward established religions; alleged infiltrations into the world’s most influential circles of government and elite centers of power. If this were not enough, the web is also filled with discussions asserting Masons to be extreme freethinkers unconstrained by civil authority or law.

The bane of being of the secret society tradition is that Freemasonry is constantly subjected to fanciful illusions of those who like to tell a good tale. And there are plenty of folk who are naïve enough to believe almost anything they hear.

The fact is that there are many public images regarding Freemasonry. It all depends on who you are reading and how you are reading it. There are those who choose to see a hostility between Freemasonry and religion; yet we live in a world with a huge and growing un-churched population. Many in this group perceive Freemasonry as an institution one can trust to openly and objectively discuss the tenets of all belief systems. There are those who see separation of church and state as hostile toward religion; but there are far more who agree with Freemasonry's position regarding the necessity of teaching a society to be watchful that the zealotry of faith does not restrict personal freedoms. There are those who see Freemasons as libertines; yet there are far more who see Masons as seekers of enlightenment within the historical norms of reason and judgment. There are those who call us conspirators against moral and civil authority; but far more who see, in Masons, community men with solid moral and ethical values. There are those who believe our secret society has sinister motives; but far more who are curious about our hidden treasure, our mystery, and the quest we make for that which is unknown except to an enlightened few.

We have something else that everyone respects, yet goes unnoticed by many who have nothing good to say about Freemasonry. We have family heritage. It can be suggested that more men have come into Masonry because someone in their family was a Mason than any other reason for joining. We remember the heroes in our life. And we want to be like them. For men everywhere, that is a far more powerful reason to belong than any web-discussion, tel-evangelizing, or idle commentary of the blind catering to the ignorant is a reason for not belonging.

Surveys have shown that 10% of the population dearly loves us; 10% hate us; and the other 80% have no opinion about us at all. Methinks this puts us in the driver's seat in terms of our opportunity to have an impact or "spin" on our own image.

I have never for a moment had any second thoughts about the value and rightness of Freemasonry. But I have struggled agonizingly long over our institution's inertness to collectively put into practice what it teaches. The biggest weakness of our Order is that we have no way of organizing our strengths to collectively improve society in the name of Masonry. Perhaps this is why we have become more of a charitable organization than a fraternity, even to ourselves. It is easy to get behind a good cause. But we are not so sure how to be a highly valued moral voice for our society.

I’m not sure myself how we position the world’s oldest fraternity to be seen as one of the most respected voices of good judgment and right thinking. But I know image building starts with the example we each individually set for those who know us. And if we wish to project right example onto the corporate name of Freemasonry, our collective acts out in the world must at least match the instruction we receive within our lodges.

What is Gnosticism?

2009-10-27T11:35:00.004-05:00

Another overriding theme in Brown’s book The Lost Symbol is that the deeper philosophy of Freemasonry comes from Gnosticism—an early Christian belief system whose adherents accepted the knowledge of Pagan religions as helpful in discerning the truth about the nature of God. Indeed, the term “Gnosticism” is derived from the Greek, Gnosis, which means knowledge—a word specially employed in religious inquiry to designate the science of things divine.

What is perhaps less known is that the term Gnosis was originally used by a sect of Jewish philosophers belonging to a school in Alexandria calling themselves the Peripaticians, who endeavored to show that all the wisdom of the Greeks was derived from Hebrew Scripture. For instance, they argued that any passage of the Old Testament could be interpreted allegorically so that any sense one desired could be attained from any passage of scripture. In this way they showed that Plato, on his sojourn to Egypt, had actually been their scholar. A single production of this Jewish sect has come down to our time. It is the ‘Book of Enoch,’ whose main object was to make known a description of the heavenly bodies and the true names of the same. Thus, to this sect of Gnostics, the beginning of perfection may have been the knowledge of man, but absolute perfection was definitely the knowledge of God.

A review of the teachings of Gnosticism guides one to conclude that it held itself above a paradigm that had slipped into so many religious creeds--that man had turned God into the image of himself. That is, the true nature of God had been diminished so that the human mind could better relate to Him in man’s own terms.

The Gnostics held this to be the greatest error of human nature. So they devised a way in which one could be a Christian while holding to the ancient, purer and truer ideas about the nature of God. And their approach was tied to the Ancient Mysteries. As every division of sectarianism tended more to corrupt the pure nature of God, and as idolatrous forms of worship became more established and popularly regarded as true and real in themselves, the Gnostics practiced and secretly taught an esoteric theology of which the corrupted forms of religion and worship were but the exoteric form of their faith. One could be an “immature” Christian in public and a “mature” Gnostic in thought.

Hence, the Gnostics taught that there was a mystery which related to the real and ineffable God; and those consciously initiated into this mystery held to a purer creed. Thus, the Gnostics preserved the old teachings while encouraging sectarianism itself. This enabled them to be Christians on the outside, while on the inside accepting all religious systems as having some basis of truth, and extracting from each what brought harmony to their ideas.

In short, the Gnostic spirituality was about looking within. The Divine aspect was immanent as well as transcendent. Thus, there was no real chasm separating humanity from its creator. God is within His creation. This offers the possibility that self-knowledge and knowledge of God can be one thing--that the Self and the Divine are identical.

Needless to say, religion as a matter of personal exploration didn’t play too well for those who were otherwise doing quite well at organized religion. So Gnosticism quickly became a heresy. By the sixth century, it was pretty much extinct as a religion as far as Europe was concerned. But it left behind deep traces in the writings and symbolisms of the magicians, astrologers, kabbalists, and seekers after the grand arcanum throughout the whole of the middle ages and through the renaissance.

The Ancient Mysteries continued to quietly flourish, although authorities of the church didn’t worry much about it, feeling they had successfully discredited it as being wrought with too much philosophizing and over-imagination. Then, in 1945, an Egyptian peasant stumbled upon an earthen vase full of papyrus books stored in a cave at Nag Hammadi. It turns out there were more gospels to the gospels than the early church had led everyone to believe. One of them proclaimed Jesus to be a Gnostic teacher. Another, the Gospel of Phillip, describes the initiate as “no longer a Christian, but Christ!” What the writer meant was that a man’s maturity in spirituality can become so intimately joined to Christ that he becomes Christ-like.

Dan Brown’s claim in his latest novel that organized religion has subverted the original meaning of the Bible is hardly surprising. Nor is it new news. He is simply using the message of the Gnostics as reflected in the Buddha who said, “You are God yourself,” and as taught by Jesus, who said, “the kingdom of God is within you,” and as quoted by the first antipope, Hippolytus of Rome, “Abandon the search for God…instead, take yourself as the starting place.” Novelist Brown simply chose to focus on Gnostic teaching as the underlying treasure to be discovered in the search for the Lost Word.

So the question becomes: Does this have anything to do with Freemasonry? In a historic sense, very little; since there is not a shred of evidence that Freemasonry evolved from the Ancient Mysteries. There are very few Gnostic symbols and talismans that have been borrowed by the authors of our craft Masonic ritual. The only such connection the operative fraternity may have made with the mysteries was that the mason marks of the stone masons were often the same as those used in Hindu religious practices; which can be traced back through Gothic retention, Gnostic usage, through Greek and Etruscan art to their ultimate Hindu source.

But the speculative side of the craft is another story. Many of the early writers on Freemasonry held the view that the Craft, particularly the Higher Degrees, was a continuation of the Ancient Mysteries; that is, Freemasonry was not a lineal descendent of the mysteries, but was a continuation of the mystery tradition. As an example, one of the cryptic themes so prevalent in our Degrees is that Initiation can lead to a personal epiphany and transformation. This is a Gnostic idea. Similarly, the comment above from the Gospel of Phillip that one must be resurrected in life is a symbolic parallel to the raising of the Master Hiram in the allegorical drama of the Third Degree. Indeed, one of the fraternity’s most respected writers, Walter Wilmhurst, defined the aim of Initiation as bringing into function that dormant and submerged faculty that resides at the depth and center of our being which is the vital and immortal principle of our personality. The goal is to regain our spiritual consciousness, that higher world and life within us—our soul consciousness. In Masonry, this goal is sought, at least in part, through the search for the Lost Word.

The bottom line is that progress in initiation is gnosis. It is not rational knowledge that we seek. Nor is it accumulation of information. Neither is it theoretical knowledge. What we seek is insight, or knowledge gained through direct experience; for gnosis involves a process that embraces both self knowledge and knowledge of ultimate, divine realities. It is the path of the psychology of being. It is about keeping the faith in the religious tradition of our choice, while having faith in our own intuition, the personal experience of our own inner liberation. The inner work of Freemasonry, and particularly the Scottish Rite, is to effect a significant change in consciousness that transports the knower to a higher awareness of himself, his nature, God’s nature, and his intimate and immortal connection to the divine.

Dan Brown in The Lost Symbol has helped us understand and accept the premise that we are all divine, and that we can all access the divine within us. What is above; is below. Knowledge is freedom. “If we know the truth, we shall find the fruits of the truth within us.”

The Scottish Rite and Noetic Science

2009-10-19T15:41:00.004-05:00

One of the major threads in The Lost Symbol is an explanation of the work of physicist Katherine Solomon, who is a leading researcher in the field of Noetic Science. Sponsored by the Smithsonian, Solomon studies the untapped potential of the human mind.

Although we have not given it the same name, Noetic Science is a theme which repeats itself many times throughout the Degrees of Freemasonry.

The idea is that most of us have barely scratched the surface of our mental and spiritual capabilities. The Degrees of the Rite give us an understanding that the mind, like the logos, was with God in the beginning, is made in the image of God, and therefore has the potential to be accessed for remarkably metaphysical and powerful purposes. Noetic scientists envision their studies as explorations into the nature and potentials of consciousness using multiple ways of knowing. They sometimes refer to it as “inner knowing,”--exploring the nature and potential of consciousness. We think of it as the “inner way” or the transformative art of Masonry. Whenever we have an insight or intuition relating to an allegory presented in our ritual that suddenly becomes clear to us for the first time; whenever we are enlightened by our ability to find clarity through reason to a problem we have never before been able to solve; or whenever our senses warn us of an impending danger, causing us to consciously divert our path away from it, we are experiencing the inner way.

Again, we call this work the transformative art of our fraternity. Our studious focus and meditation on the deeper nature of our teachings can literally transform or change us for the better. But the noetic part is that our collective discipline in working together toward perfecting our mind, soul and spirit can also change society for the better. Jung called this type of change as affecting the collective unconscious. Jung saw the collective unconscious as being the repository of all current and past religious, spiritual and mythological symbols and experiences. And these things are imbedded in the genetic dna of all of us. These things form the map of our psyche—the archetypes of all things which have pre-existed us—the thinking processes deep within us which we inherit even if we don’t know it.

The collective unconscious, then, is a kind of universal mind. Since it exists in all of us, it can be manipulated in the direction of good or evil. Dan Brown’s fear in The Living Symbol is that, if the forces for good in the world do not become aware of this metaphysical power of the mind and will, it can be captured and manipulated for evil purposes.

The hope of the Scottish Rite, as the enemy of all spiritual and mental tyranny, is that by projecting the balance of faith, logic, and reason into the minds of mankind, it can develop the wider human potential and creative capacities for good in the world.

By supporting individuals in the transformation of their own consciousness, we lay the cornerstone for a collective transformation in the world which is built on freedom, wisdom and love.

Methinks this is what Dan Brown wanted us to discover in his book.

Why the Scottish Rite is the Focus of Dan Brown's Message

2009-09-24T16:44:00.005-05:00

If you have not read Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol, you may want to pick up a copy. Of course, a good detective novel is always fun and few writers are better than Brown at weaving a good story around hidden things. But the underlying theme of the Lost Symbol is the Ancient Mysteries. The journey or quest for discovery of what is hidden in Brown’s book is nothing less than the Lost Word! There’s scarcely a Freemason who would not recognize this as one of the foundational themes of our Order!

This makes the message of Brown’s book a bit more than blasé for the more astute members of the world’s oldest fraternity.

In the novel, one of the principal characters is a fellow named Peter Solomon (memorable name). It turns out he is both the Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite in Washington DC and Worshipful Master of his Lodge in the nation’s capital. He spends a good bit of time alluding to the knowledge of the Ancients and their traditions of study. In the story, Solomon posits that what science has recently learned with its new discoveries concerning the structure and progress of the universe was also known by the ancient philosophers, mathematicians, religious scholars and mystics. Our new science is, in fact, old knowledge.

Of course, this comes as no real revelation to Scottish Rite Masons since we spend a good deal of our time learning and discussing the ancient wisdom traditions. The Rite devotes five Degrees specifically to the Ancient Mystery religions. In fact, the Mysteries in general are woven around many of the Degrees.

We all know the purpose of the Mysteries was to purify one’s body and mind, and increase one’s awareness of his spiritual identity as he made his personal journey to self-discovery. But the Mysteries had another profound aspect which directly ties to the theme of the Lost Symbol. This characteristic was first articulated by Clemens of Alexandria when he revealed that “what was taught in the great Mysteries concerned the Universe, and was the completion and perfection of all instruction.” The Mysteries had many other features, but this overriding cosmic idea dealt with questions of the sun and stars, the universe as the creation of God, and of man’s place in it.

In Brown’s book, this theme resonates notably. The greatest enigma of humankind is the question of who, or what, created the Universe. Until recently, science and psychology have taken a sort of atheistic approach to the idea of a God-inspired creation. Science and psychology thrive in a world of statistics. In the examples of psychology, the investigation always centers around normal human development. Psychology uses “normal” as a statistical concept--measuring all behavior around it.

Likewise, Science uses logic to test theoretical ideas. Thus, asking a scientist to involve a supernatural agency that transcends the laws of physics to explain what they already know came to be because of a big bang, is asking a bit much.

But new advances in what scientists know in their understanding of the very early universe has transformed the entire debate, and recast this age old puzzle in a totally different light. Before 1940, the central idea of physics was that there was no big-bang moment at which time all matter was created. Instead, the Universe just was; and as it expanded, new particles were continuously created to fill up the gaps so that the average density of the universe remained unchanged. The idea was that any individual galaxy simply passed through its life cycle, and when its stars died, new galaxies were already formed from the newly created matter to replace the old. This was called the “steady-state theory” of the universe. It has no beginning or end.

For many scientists, the theory was particularly interesting because, by abolishing the “Big-Bang” theory, they had once and for all removed the need for a Creator. The universe could operate like a perpetual clock that is self winding. Such a place doesn’t require any Divine intervention to start it or keep it running.

Fortunately, the steady-state theory fell out of favor not on philosophical grounds, but because it was proven by large radio telescopes to be false. Then, in 1965, it was discovered that the universe was, in fact, bathed in heat radiation—which has since proven to be a relic of a big bang. All of a sudden, the designer argument could not be categorized as right or wrong. Astronomer James Jeans proclaimed that “the universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician. It begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”

Hello! Do we need to be reminded again of the meaning of the letter ‘G?!!’

Well, even the early Greek philosophers recognized that the order and harmony of the cosmos demanded explanation. Newton himself believed “this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent powerful Being.” The problem is that, while clear evidence of design exists so much in nature, its proof remains hidden in some way from us. And we can’t use logic alone to make such discoveries. Scientific proof can take us only so far. To go past that point requires faith.

But the problem with faith alone is that it is so often untrustworthy. How can one be sure that what he experiences is real? How can he guard himself against giving way to pure emotionalism in the belief that he is being transported only by faith?

The ancients knew that the answer to the dilemma of logic and faith was Reason. While reason, like science, could not take one into the presence of Deity, it could stand to validate one’s faith experience while reinforcing one’s sense of logic. The Ancients knew that it was in this balance, this equilibrium between faith and reason where true religion could be found.

Do our rituals not teach of the balancing power of wisdom, strength and beauty in all things? Is not the search for what is hidden always a constructive process when guided by logic, faith, and reason? And isn’t the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom the true labor of life?

When we probe the mysteries, we are always engaged in metaphysical work. And to consciously engage in this kind of work is Initiation.

This was what Peter Solomon knew. Or perhaps it is what Dan Brown knows and is trying to tell the world through him.

Are You a Master Mason?

2009-09-03T13:40:00.008-05:00

A lot of men ask me if I think every Mason should be a 32° Mason. Since I am privileged to serve the craft in Oklahoma as the Secretary of one of the most popular and respected Scottish Rite organizations in America, you would think I would enthusiastically respond in the affirmative; touting a long list of reasons why it is so very true that all Masons should be Scottish Rite Masons!

Well, you might be surprised to learn that my answer to this question is “no.”

I think what we get out of Masonry depends so much on how we feel in our heart about being a Master Mason. We all know that some men are Master Masons in name only. Remember—we are admonished by the Worshipful Master well after we have taken all the obligations of Craft Masonry that we are not yet Master Masons; and we may never become Master Masons. We are told of a journey we must first make, and are informed the path will be arduous at best. We are warned that if we do make it, we will make it only as a matter of faith and will.

It turns out this journey is no less than our own life journey. And, for every one of us, that journey is still a work in progress. In a very real sense, we are all Master Masons at times; while, at other times, our actions fall short of the ideals we are taught in Masonry.

In evaluating how we are doing, here are some important questions: Have we done anything different with our life since we were initiated as Entered Apprentices? Do we know we are better men today than before? Have we become transformed by our experience of becoming a Mason? Are we more caring, less selfish, more thoughtful, less judgmental, more sharing, less rigid, more willing to learn and grow and help others who are on the same journey with us?

There are many ways of testing whether or not we have done anything different with our lives since we became brothers of the Mystic Tie together. It’s really a matter of becoming aware that we are actively and consciously working toward our own personal growth and development. It is this awareness which makes Masonry the most important work we will ever do--because, in large measure, our happiness is based on ourselves.

This brings me back to my earlier response. Here’s the question I usually ask when a brother inquires about becoming a 32° Mason. Are you ready to make the journey into yourself to discover who you are and learn what it means to live a life of meaning; so that you will not only become a better man, but will also have made so lasting an impression on your family and fellowmen that they, in turn, will want to live like you?

You see, this is the kind of faith and will which ultimately makes us Master Masons. To be a good man is not the only qualification to be accepted. An appropriate intellectual and spiritual level of personal development is also to be considered.

If we are men of such hope and conviction; if we have a deep yearning to discover our inner nature and strive to make the best of our own life’s journey--to live a life that makes a positive difference to ourselves and others--then we are Master Masons; and the right kind of men to be Masters of the Royal Secret.

For such men, the "book of the world" lies open before them. The reward is in the journey.

Mediocrity in Masonry . . . Shame on us!

2009-06-29T15:00:00.001-05:00

One of the questions that occasionally eats at me when I am driving home from a Masonic event, degree, or function that has been woefully mediocre is how our members can sit through such Masonic happenings month after month and still believe our fraternity is relevant and meaningful to men’s lives? How honest are we in claiming we make good men better while persistently repeating practices and behaviors which are so distinctively average, or worse? Self improvement involves some form of positive change. It requires some level of progress; entails some elevated sense of being. Explain to me how a lodge facilitates self improvement by offering its members a venue that doesn’t “feel” any different when they are inside the lodge than outside of it.

Perhaps many of us come into Masonry looking for nothing more than fraternal association. But, if that’s the case, it ought to be the best fraternal association we have ever had!

Once we encounter the preparation room, or make our progress through the degrees, it is hard to dismiss the awareness that we are engaged in something wholly different from our other community experiences. We quickly learn that Masonry has a higher calling which requires that we make an ascent into the very center of our being.

An endeavor of such high importance and due solemnity is not a run of the mill undertaking. It becomes clear there is nothing mediocre about Masonry. So why do we make it that way?

Here’s the problem. Accepting mediocrity in our lodge practices is the same as living a mediocre life. By making un-extraordinary acts and behaviors our ordinary practice, we entrap ourselves from knowing how precious life really is. We don’t use opportunities that come our way as a means of expressing how special we really are. Instead, we walk the walk with the rest of the herd and soon find ourselves in such a deep rut of limitations we lose sight of our own value. We become trapped in mediocrity.

Regrettably, this too often seems the condition in which lodges, Scottish Rite Valleys, York Rite Chapters, Councils and Commanderies find themselves. When nothing extraordinary, educational, insightful, compelling, intellectual, contemplative, spiritual, or fraternal occurs in our private, sacred, fraternal spaces, then we become only another ordinary, average, run of the mill, dime-a-dozen organization. It is hard to see how this kind of Masonry takes good men and makes them better.

It is not the kind of Masonry we should want to share with our friends.

I believe that if we truly want to move “from the square to the compasses,” we have to dare to be different. And we can’t dare to be different by following someone else’s expectations. When a lodge does the same thing year after year, it is accepting by default someone else’s expectations. There is nothing creative, inspiring, or different about parroting ritual, paying bills, and going home. That’s doing only what many others have done before us.

To distinguish ourselves among men and organizations, we first have to perceive in our own minds that we have something to do which will ultimately set us above the average. We start by thinking about the choices before us.

Do we choose what is safe rather than what is right? Do we only do things right, or do we do the right things? Do we set out on a new path, or take the same old, comfortable way? Do we bring credit to our teachings, or debit them as ideals of the past? Do we become the examples that young men want to emulate, or do we seem to them as just another group of ho hum guys?

You see, the choice always controls the chooser. To be exemplary men, or an exemplary organization, we have to be exceptional in our awareness of who we are, what we are here to be doing, what we know, and how we practice what we know. We have to have the courage to be different from the rest of the crowd—nobler in our expectations and more refined in our state of mind.

Because that’s just the way Masonry is.

He who wants milk should not sit himself in the middle of a pasture and wait for a cow to back up to him.

What Are The Rags Of Our Righteousness?

2009-05-07T08:47:00.003-05:00

The interrogatories of Craft Masonry are said to have been penned by William Preston and appear in the ritual workings of the Entered Apprentice Degree sometime after 1772. Prior to this, the preparation room was used for different purposes. In the earliest days of Speculative Masonry, the candidate was “made” a Mason in the preparation room by having the obligations administered to him by the Master before he ever stepped foot into the lodge. This was the case during the late 17th century period and remained common through the first two decades of the 1700’s.

As degree workings became more formalized, the “making ceremony” was moved into the lodge room itself and the anteroom became the waiting area for the candidate while the Master opened the lodge. Once the lodge was opened, the Master asked if anyone was in waiting to be “made.” The Wardens and the proposer retired to prepare the candidate. He was relieved of his metals, asked some basic questions such as name, occupation, and place of residence, and then left to his own reflections for at least half an hour. His proposer sat with him, and he was not allowed to talk. Guards (likely the deacons) stood near with swords drawn.

While all this was taking place, the lodge set up its trestleboard, or set of figures drawn into the floor with charcoal and chalk, set in an oblong square.

Preston changed all this with his formal interrogatories; and these are adopted and in use today. After the questions are asked in the preparation room, the Deacon gives the candidate a charge which informs him of the seriousness of the journey he is about to take, and suggests that, through the language and hieroglyphics of our ceremonies, we may come to understand the meaning of death and rebirth.

And then he is given a warning. He is told that his status in life is not enough to gain him a place in heaven; that indeed he must become poor and destitute, blind and naked. Of course, he doesn’t realize this at the time, but what he is being told is that we will be communicating with his soul rather than his body from this point forward; because we already know it is only his soul that is capable of interpreting and understanding the allegories we will present to him. And then we add another very brief and eccentric afterthought—that “he must be divested of the rags of his own righteousness…. .” Now, what in heaven’s name does this mean? Why would we divest someone of their righteousness?

Righteousness is defined as conformity of life to the requirements of the Divine or Moral Law. This would seem a very Masonic plan. Righteousness means virtue, or integrity—again, a central Masonic goal. To be righteous is to be morally right or justifiable. So again, why are we divesting our man of his own moral justification?

Well, I’m not sure. But I think we are imploring him to consider what righteousness means to him. The operative word in our admonition is that we are divesting him of the rags of his own righteousness. This would imply we are suggesting the validity in which he defines righteousness is worthy of his reconsideration. Because righteousness is a subjective thing. Like Truth. It is a virtue which has been so broadly used throughout history that one hardly knows what to make of it.

For instance, Barclay complained about the greediness of some merchants in mixing European plants with Indian wrappers and calling it righteous and legitimate tobacco. What does that mean? It was said of George Washington that he was righteous in the treatment of his slaves? Now there’s an oxymoron. We have been told over and over again that America has a righteous government. Oh really?

You get the idea. A man does not even get to knock on the door of Freemasonry before he is told to set aside what he has already been taught, or told, or ordered, or mandated in so far as his moral code is concerned. You see, we are not so much interested in what someone or something has already made of him. Freemasonry asks him to set aside the assumptions of his past; be divested of his subjective upbringing, bear the nakedness of his own heart, and be clothed in the purity of his soul. Only then can he objectively learn what he does not know; and begin the great and important undertaking of re-discovering himself.

It is only when he makes this mystic journey within that he can take on the mantel of righteousness; and know that he is justified in his moral standing.

So, regardless of our station in life, or where we are on our own journey, it never hurts to occasionally stop and ponder this significant question for ourselves:

What are the rags of my own righteousness?

Fraternalism--The Lost Word in Charity

2009-02-19T10:57:00.002-06:00

Any study of the beginnings of Freemasonry will clearly show that fraternalism was the first and most distinguishing characteristic of Masons and Masonry. We are, above everything else, our own brother’s keeper. This has been the raison d’ etre which distinguishes us from all other groups.

Masonic charity, in its original terminology, meant fraternal, or private, charity—and is represented by the meaning of Brotherly Love and Relief in the great Masonic triad of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. It is “the cement which unites us into one common band, or society, of friends and brothers.”

Our obligations are obligations we have taken on behalf of each other. Our moral, social and financial duties are first and foremost to our brothers, their family members and survivors. In the ties and duties we received at the altar of Masonry we swore “to help with generous care all those in sorrow hidden; the brother on the darkened square….while tears gush forth unbidden ”

The admonition we get from the lodge Master in his opening charge, “let us be happy ourselves,” has everything to do with our kindness and brotherly affection toward each other. We are reminded of this again in the installation of officers: “we have one aim; to please each other and unite in the grand design of being happy and communicating happiness.”

Until the Shrine of North America institutionalized Masonic charity in 1922 by introducing an outside cause into Masonry, Masons always took care of their brothers and families first. They understood the traditional meaning of fraternity and fraternalism.

But institutional charity was appealing. It felt good to help others outside the lodge, and even better when that effort was directed at mitigating childhood misfortune. So, on the coattails of the good publicity the Shrine received nationally, we decided to move our charitable hearts beyond the confines of our lodges. It didn’t happen all at once; like some passing fad. It was a one lodge at a time inspiration which just kept growing across the landscape of communities.

Of course, it wasn’t long until the Masons also discovered it was much easier to tell their friends about Masonry by pointing to what we did, rather than explain what we were. Too, it was much easier for the public to discover and accept us when we were doing things they could see, rather than wonder what we were up to behind our closed doors.

By the 1950’s, this public charity thing had become an exciting partnership for all Bodies of Masonry. It felt good. It was convenient.

We should have known where all this would take us; but we didn’t pay much attention. As our lodges continued to grow in numbers, it became more difficult to stay intimately connected with every lodge member. In American Freemasonry, bigger was perceived as better. Especially in the larger urban areas, there was a kind of competition among lodges as to which would have the most members. It became nothing to boast of a lodge membership exceeding 500 brothers. The largest lodges had more than 5,000. It was no wonder outside charity became more important. It was simply much easier to apply our charitable dollars to outside causes than to stay on top of the needs of our own brothers, their widows, and children. Besides, the publicity was better; and the positive public image was both appealing and tempting.

Our brothers in need didn’t really know what was lost to them. The process of moving our charitable focus from inside our lodges to the outside world was so gradual, so subtle, we didn’t even realize when we had corporately lost the single most important tangible benefit of being a Mason—that we and our surviving families would have the security of Masonic aid and assistance for as long as we lived. The new reality is, in many lodges, the faithful few who regularly attend meetings rarely know those who don’t--let alone their human condition. Yet the lodge community charitable program is often firmly established and well known. In my own state, 227 lodges gave $2.7 million to community causes last year. That’s no small change.

In retrospect, with the increasing mobility of our society over the past few decades, who’s to know whether this has been a good or bad thing. Maybe we would not have retained our intimate connections anyway. Perhaps we would not have survived without better public contact and the improved public image that good works create.

This is really not the main concern of this musing anyway. To me, the scary thing is that it took only three generations of men to change a 400 year tradition. It makes one wonder how many other Masonic traditions have been lost to time only because a current generation had not a clue about the past.

"Of My Own Free Will and Accord"

2009-01-23T09:04:00.003-06:00

I’ve always been curious about the peculiar practice in Freemasonry that no man may be asked, invited, or solicited to enter the fraternity. It is an organizational feature almost unique among societies. In fact, organizations with the most select membership are those which receive no applications, but select and invite their candidates. The no-ask/no-tell canon has been a rule of immemorial standing in the fraternity and, yet, it is impossible to determine when it originated. There is nothing concerning it in the Gothic Constitutions, nor in any of the rules and by-laws of the old lodges, or in the Constitutions of 1723; nor is it discussed by any of the Masonic writers of the 18th Century. There is nothing in the ritual on the subject. The “candidate interrogatories” written by William Preston asks only that the candidate affirm he comes to Freemasonry unbiased by an improper solicitation. And yet, we know that men of noble rank were solicited to become Grand Masters, though they were not Freemasons and had to be initiated just for that purpose.

So, all this begs some questions--if we come to Freemasonry by our own free will and accord, in what way are we free? Masonically, what does it mean to be free men? Is this freedom important? Once we enter and take on the commitments and obligations of our fraternity, does this make us less free?

Perhaps there is something to be learned by reflecting on the meaning of being free men in the context that Freemasonry is a “system of morality veiled in allegory.” These three words, “system of morality” may be at the core of our understanding of being free-men, or free-masons. Certainly, these words would be a reason why we should insist that all men who join us do so with complete freedom. Freedom is a condition sine qua non for joining an order based on morality.

That a person enters of his own free will and accord means that he is a man free from all prejudices and attitudes which are not based on his own self examination; that he is prepared to judge all attitudes, including his own, with intellectual integrity; that he is free and ready to make a moral judgment and to defend it even when he is in the minority or under strain for holding such a view; and, even more important, that he is aware he must place limits on his own freedom if he is to insure other men the same right to theirs.

There is a thin line between being free and being just; between dividing one’s obligations with one's rights; in self-censoring our own freedom as a result of recognizing another has the same right to his own; that the moral norms of one country may be different in another, yet both right; that the majority recognize the minority’s point of view and that the minority accept the right of the majority to bind all by its decisions. One becomes morally free only when his individual independence is balanced by intelligent choice.

To be moral and to act in accordance with moral values requires the ability and readiness to judge between right and wrong, between what is in conformity with prevailing norms and what is not. A moral choice can only exist if it rests on choosing between two possible alternatives; and this choice has to be made with complete freedom and with no coercion of any kind. A man determines his sense of morals only when these are put to the test. If the choice he makes is made under coercion, there is no moral value in his choice.

To be a Freemason means we possess fundamental moral attitudes which are based on constant self evaluation and re-evaluation of every aspect of our life. The opening charge to the Master Mason in the 4° of the Scottish Rite is worthy of our contemplation. “Freemasonry is an institution seeking human happiness through tolerance and love; self-perfection, glorifying justice, truth and equality; fighting tyranny, ignorance and prejudices.”

To achieve this definition means that every Brother must approach free objectivity in his moral choices. We may think of freedom only in a sense of being free from restrictions or limitations. However, this is perhaps the lesser freedom. The freedom to act according to our freely-made moral choices and convictions is what makes us true Freemasons.

Are we less free as a result of undertaking such commitments together as Brothers? I think not. In fact, we have chosen of “our own free will and accord” to be committed to certain moral values.

To me, this is a true expression of being free.

Masonic Charity Foundation Announces $1 Million Gift for Alzheimer's Resarch

2009-01-12T09:20:00.003-06:00

The Oklahoma Masonic Charity Foundation announced this week it will donate $1 million to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation to help build and equip an Alzheimer’s Disease Laboratory on the medical foundation’s property in Oklahoma City. Ken House, President of the Masonic Foundation, remarked that “there’s hardly a person in our state who has not had a family member, or someone they know, who has been devastated by this tragic and crippling illness. Our own fraternity has its share of members whose productive lives have been shortened because of this awful disease. We are proud to assist the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in their cutting edge efforts to find workable treatments for this terrible malady.”

The gift comes at a landmark time for the OMRF, which is currently embarking on the largest expansion of research space in the foundation’s 62-year history. It recently acquired the Keys Speech and Hearing building from the University of Oklahoma. That property was situated in the middle of the medical foundation’s research campus. The acquisition will enable the foundation to build an 8-story research tower which is scheduled to be ready for occupancy by 2011. The new facility will provide over 200,000 square feet of new laboratory space and facilities. Funding for the construction of the tower has already been secured.

The Masonic Foundation’s grant will construct and equip one of the 8 floors of the new tower to be dedicated to Alzheimer’s research. The floor will be named the “Masonic Charity Foundation Alzheimer’s Disease Laboratory.” The Masons’ funding will not only provide scientific equipment necessary for scientists to focus their efforts on understanding the cellular processes which lead to the development of Alzheimer’s, it will offer recruitment packages for attracting new scientists, salaries for technical assistants, and laboratory supplies essential to Alzheimer’s research.

This is a public/private partnership of magnificent proportion. With the building of the new research tower, the Masons will be partnering with the state of Oklahoma through the state’s Opportunity Fund, along with many of the largest corporate and family foundations in Oklahoma. Our collective dream is to be able to add to the already remarkable achievements being made by the Medical Research Foundation in the field of Alzheimer’s research. Together, we will be aiding and attracting some of the best scientists in the country to explore new techniques for treating a disease that steals the memories—and ultimately the lives--of more than 4 million people in the United States every year.

That’s a dream worth owning.

When the Buzzards Go To Roost

2008-12-11T16:41:00.007-06:00

It’s only an opinion, of course, but buzzards seem to me to be an especially nasty species of bird. I don’t even like to give them the dignity of thinking they are birds. They never really fly, they’re only half-dressed, and they have no apparent means of employment. They just sit around with their necks hanging down between their pointed shoulders, knees bent, buttocks tucked in—in kind of a semi-fetal, perpetual slump.

And there they sulk. They don’t appear particularly to like anything, not even their own kind. They sleep most of the time, and you never really see much of them. At least not until something begins to die.

Then, it’s as if they had a calling. They stretch and yell and jump and pick at themselves. They sort of collectively launch after their wounded game in a feathered frenzy. It becomes a contest to see which of them will be the first to get their talons and their beaks in the warm flesh of their poor victim. Tearing and ripping at their prey and at each other, to see who will devour the most and the best of what is offered up to them.

It’s a pitiful sight. Almost a ritual, repeated time and again until there is nothing left but bones.

It reminds me of another species I have observed. This one’s also a rather strange bird. It’s called a Past Master.

I’ve seen this fowl do pretty much the same things. It generally sits around minding its own business, cleaning its talons, and rubbing its bald head. Until something happens; almost anything at all. And then, watch out! It doesn’t take much to provoke this bird. In fact, he has been a little disagreeable ever since he was relegated from the head of the flock to his roost as Past Master—usually by some “up-start” who, in his way of thinking, can’t know half as much about what is going on. As far as the gaggle of Past Masters is concerned, the judgment is almost always in on the “sitting” Master before it ever went out. It is assumed that, if not watched like a hawk, the new guy will most assuredly tear everything down that they tried to erect while they were the head of the flock.

Now, the not so interesting thing about this is that, in the kind of lodges I am describing, these old birds were no different when they served their year in the “chair.” In fact, it is unlikely they tried anything earth shaking in their own time to move their lodge forward. Rather than actually take a chance on saving their lodge, they made the same choice every Master had made before them. They opted to contribute to the lodge’s death for yet one more year—by doing nothing.

And now, having passed to the ranks of “Past,” they sit in their roost, usually along the north side of the lodge, and sharpen their talons--in case something happens--so they can turn it back into nothing.

Of course, this visual image of Masonry does not apply to active, vibrant, dynamic lodges; of which we have many. And there are many wonderful Past Masters in the world of Masonry. But nonetheless, the image too often does exist across the landscape of American Masonry. I can well imagine it exists in any organization that has a progressive line.

It brings up a point. When a Worshipful Master chooses to “do nothing” during his year, and the Past Masters heartily endorse his lack of effort; they are, in effect, contributing to more than just the death of their lodge. They are contributing to their own demise. They are eating the meat from their own bones. And, over time, there will be no reason to be a Past Master. There will be no place for them to roost.

They will have no lodge in their area. And it will no longer mean anything to be a Past Master. They will spend their last days just being “old buzzards.” Then, when they die, there will be no younger birds to watch over their remains.

If there is a moral to this rambling, perhaps it is that our fraternal institution was never supposed to die because we had only buzzards for leaders. The ideal was never that a presiding officer be only an average leader; neither should he be expected to imitate a poor example. Nor should anyone who has already led feel envy because a successor outdoes him. Rather, all of us should act together in care of what brings our lodge success. And success is always fed by right example.

Leadership in Freemasonry has never been about titles, jewels, caps, fezzes, honors, or tradition. It is about making good choices in how we act, think, behave, and bring credit to our teachings. It is not the past, after all, but the future which conditions us—what we do with what lies in front of us is far more important than anything that has already happened to us.

Here is a key: Vision, integrity, and a focus on excellence happens one man and one lodge at a time. Once an environment is created that is conducive to self-motivation, the group dynamic changes. And when enough of the right things change in lodge after lodge after lodge, Freemasonry will grow again.

When the buzzards go to roost for good.

The Undivided Heart

2008-11-26T17:27:00.002-06:00

The man walked confidently as he held close the hands of the Brothers selected to guide his way in darkness about the lodge. The ceremony was his first as a candidate for the mysteries of Masonry. It was a solemn rite, with words well spoken; a warm feeling, being at the center of such earnest attention.

It was a feeling which was not new to him. He had been in such a place before—not knowing the outcome; yet holding to a faith that all would end well.

He was a Senior DeMolay. It had been a couple of decades now, but he remembered a ceremony from his past which seemed familiar to the one this night. He was revisiting time. At 13, his best friend had invited him to join DeMolay. He had heard some of the other boys in school mention the name. He had no idea what it meant. But he wanted to belong; be a joiner, to be in organizations with his friends. So, on the selected evening, he donned a coat and tie, his friend’s father picked them up, and they journeyed to the lodge hall. It was situated above the grocery store. Strange. He had not noticed it before.

It would become a place which would change his life.

It turned out, DeMolay was unlike any other organization or club he had joined in school. It was special. There was something in the words, even then, that seemed deeper, more lofty, even intimate. He was told it was an initiation. That made it seem all the more eccentric--and important. DeMolay was more than just a club. He had joined an Order! He remembered being told it was international. He suddenly belonged to something larger than his school; his town; he belonged to the world.

Now older, kneeling at the same altar where he had once knelt, his heart was in his throat. He was profoundly moved by the deja vu of the moment. He was once again being initiated.

His experience as a DeMolay had prepared him for this. The familiarity was more than incidental. He felt a connection to something he had once loved; something that had given him stability, and provided a place for centering during some not-so-easy adolescent years. In fact, DeMolay had had a remarkable impact on his life. His early successes had given him confidence, taught him how to be a team player; how to speak, how to lead. In many ways, it helped mold him for manhood. More than anything else, DeMolay had taught him how to be responsible. He remembered feeling a strong bond to the brotherhood then. He sensed this old feeling rising in him again.

And it would be the third time he had experienced it.

In college, he joined a social fraternity. Again, there was a ceremony. Once more, he had been initiated. It, too, had been a solemn thing. Listening to the words now, and flashing back to his college initiation, there was an old familiarity. Had he been here before? Or, perhaps this fraternity called Freemasonry had been with him all along! Could it be that Freemasonry was the source of all the initiations in his life? Is it possible that his feeling of belonging, his identity with a group, his love of fellow association might all be connected with initiation? Does one become enrolled into a group because of its ceremonies? Does a man better define himself by the rituals of his life?

Suddenly, the spoken words became more reverent, more sacred—more personal. He slowly repeated his obligations to his brothers; remembering from his own past the responsibility and accountability required of brotherhood. It would now be up to him to make his shared experience with his fellow Masons a special thing; just as his past fraternal attachments had proven so special.

He was brought to light, as they say—a light which illuminated more than just the room. It radiated across the past initiations of his life. He could see clearly now, could feel the bonding of brotherhood; that kindred friendship with certain others in his community and the world made special by well spoken words in secret association together. Such light penetrates a man’s heart as if it were an ancient sephiroth; filling the bowl of mankind with love and affection.

It is a singular thing for a man to drink in the meaning of fraternity; be invested with the badge of innocence and taught the duties of brotherhood. These were lessons he already knew—lessons started long ago--of which he was now certain had made him a better man.

For him, to be a Freemason was not a new beginning. It was an affirmation; the continuation of a fellow feeling which had always been there—an undivided heart which yearned only for friendship, brotherly affection, and a higher understanding of what is important in being a man.

Such an understanding which comes only to just and upright men.

Masonic Ritual Is An Innovation

2008-11-03T14:54:00.003-06:00

When the Worshipful Master is asked at his installation if he agrees that it is not in the power of man, or any body of men, to make innovations in the Body of Masonry, it is important to understand that this charge is intended for the preservation of the organizational structure of Freemasonry, and not its ritual ceremonies. More than one Grand Master or Custodian of the Work has attempted to apply this admonition to Masonic ritual itself. Yet a brief review of ritual development and its many forms across the landscape of Masonic jurisdictions will quickly show this question taken from the “Old Charges” has nothing to do with the ritualistic aspects of our fraternity. Our founders never intended that ritual ceremonies remain static. Prohibition to innovation does not apply to Masonic ritual as this is the single basis upon which all Light in Masonry is transmitted and revealed.

Even the insistence by the United Grand Lodge of England that “pure, ancient Freemasonry consists of three degrees only, including the Holy Royal Arch” is historically inaccurate. Grand Lodges have always been entitled to decide for themselves exactly of what their ritual consists.

The only “pure, ancient” Masonic ritual in the world is the ritual that existed in 1717 when the first Grand Lodge was formed. We know what that ritual was because it was widely published in three early Masonic manuscripts in the form of catechisms still extant from the period of 1696 to 1715, all of which came from Scotland. The amazing thing about these exposures is that they found their way to use and adoption by English Lodges. More significantly, we also find in them much of the foundation upon which all later Masonic ritual was erected--the method of placing the feet, mention of the “prentice” and “fellow-craft,” the five points of fellowship; the mention of the square, compasses and Bible in the same context; the porch of King Solomon’s Temple, the basic penal sign; the penalty—there is much to recognize here. It is beyond coincidence that we find these characteristics in common in all of these old catechisms.

And one other point is extraordinary in all these workings: Degrees are not mentioned. When the first Grand Lodge in the world was created, there was only the ceremony of making a Mason—an “Acceptance and the Master’s part.” In fact, we have no evidence of a three degree system, or a third degree, prior to Samuel Pritchard’s famous exposure entitled “Masonry Dissected,” published in 1730.

This makes the Master Mason degree in Masonry an innovation!

Serious historians agree that the third degree was introduced into Masonry around 1725. It became popular over the next two decades primarily because Masons adopted Pritchard’s exposure as an aide to the memory work. His unauthorized work essentially became the first Masonic Monitor; and would be the unofficial ritual book of Freemasons for decades. It is also the first mention we have of the Hiramic Legend.

No one knows where this story came from, but it is surmised that Desaguiliers may have been the author, being Grand Master in 1719 and Deputy Grand Master in 1722 and 1726. This was the period when the third degree was introduced into the ceremonies of the premier Grand Lodge. Logic suggests that Desaguliers and his Masonic friends in the Royal Society could have been responsible. Certainly, nothing could have been introduced without their approval. In fact, the Craft changed dramatically while Desaguliers was on the scene. The Grand Lodge went from an annual feast to an administrative body, complete with minutes and policy direction for lodges, including the structure of its degrees.

Desaguiliers, if he and his friends were indeed the authors of the third degree, turned Freemasonry into a new path. By 1730, the ceremony we know as the Royal Arch had been developed, which was the revival of an ancient Greek story dating to c. 400 AD. By 1735, the Rite of Perfection, consisting of 14 degrees, was introduced, setting a biblical chronology to the structure of Masonic ritual. Both the Royal Arch and Rite of Perfection, innovative as they were, were declared by members as “revivals” of ancient Masonry because they automatically imparted an artificial façade of age on the degree or order. After a few years, even Grand Lodge historians were writing that these added degrees were revivals of an older system. It became fashionable to believe there was nothing innovative to them at all!

Of course, all of the new degrees/orders were adopted on a single premise—what had been lost in the third degree had to be found. For this reason, all of them show an amazing similarity in structure—all show signs of emanating from the same source, with the same regularity of form. Even as additional degrees developed, they retained a “traditional” structure.

This similarity in structure is further evidence that our Masonic degrees, were, in fact, created in a wave of fashion. They all intimate there are great secrets to be found by the dedicated follower. And indeed, there are.

At the same time that degrees and orders were growing by leaps and bounds in both the York Rite and Scottish Rite traditions, Masonic ritualists in the craft lodges continued to add to the language of the first three degrees, adding substance to their form. During the second half of the 18th Century, an extraordinary growth in intellectual meat was added to the bones of the old “pure and ancient” concept of the few simple catechisms of 1717. In fact, ritual development and expansion continued to be fashionable as a means of educating the craft until well into the 1820’s.

We had, in effect, created a school of education which thrived for nearly a century until Grand Lodges, primarily in America, determined there should be only one ritual; one set of words—that which was adopted by them—and everything else didn’t count. The American Grand Lodges established yet another innovation in Masonry—that ritual was fixed in time—their time. They had decided for themselves that pure and ancient Masonry was their Masonry alone. Masonic ritual became a fixed and stagnant thing.

This 19th century innovation may have marked the beginning of the decline in Masonry. It was during this era that Grand Lodges collectively decided there was nothing more to be learned in Masonic ritual. Our words were frozen in time.

I’m now wondering if it is time to create yet another innovation in Masonry; that of educating Masons that ritual use should be a dynamic process, just as learning is dynamic. Of course, we don’t need to adopt more words. But consider how instructive it would be if ritual diversity could be introduced as an added tool for instruction; if alternative ritual systems already adopted in other Jurisdictions across the world could be exemplified at the will of the lodge and sanctioned by Grand Lodge. Imagine how exciting and invigorating it would be if we had ten or twelve different ritual workings available to us in every Grand Jurisdiction!

Perhaps it is time to make Masonry fashionable again, both through the variety of its ritual form and the development of its intellectual form; where lectures, essays, and dialogue are shared regularly in lodge—all focused on enlightening the mind. Maybe the most instructive and informative papers could become a part of the printed monitors of Masonry; not to be memorized, but to be sanctioned and published for the benefit of those who want access to more knowledge in the ways of Masonry--those who know that More Light in Masonry is not the propriety of Grand Lodge, but rather, the individual and his brothers on their collective quest of a lifetime—a seeking for that which has been lost in the words; and their meanings.

In exercises such as these, would we not once again be practicing “pure and ancient” Masonry? It might just be another innovation worthy of our ancient craft.

Getting to the Big Picture

2008-09-22T14:31:00.008-05:00

I attend a lot of Masonic meetings throughout the country; have personally got to know hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men. For decades, I have watched men go about the daily activities of being Masons, whether in their conduct of lodge business, performing degrees, participating in statewide and national conferences, giving community service, or just hanging out together as men. I pay particular attention to how Masons do things together and relate to each other in their conversations. I observe these things because we claim, as Masons, that we are supposed somehow to be different than the rest of the world of men.

The theory is that, through our unique experiences of joining, we have a different insight about the inner nature of things. We have been transformed as human beings.

It’s hard to explain to someone on the outside what it actually means when we say we have been transformed—that Masonry is a transformative art. In what ways are we actually changed by our experience of becoming, or being, Masons? Sometimes it is easier to answer these kinds of questions with other questions.

What would it be like to live your life as a work of art? To think of your life as a masterpiece in progress. To build your own temple which is your life. That is what our building image is all about in Masonry. How would you shade it, mold it, shape it into whatever it is that you think would be an absolute ideal for your contribution while you are here on this planet? What should be the unfolding of your humanity? What is it you would really like to have said about yourself? Whose life would you look at and say; “that is what I would like to have said about me. That is the right example for me.”

I suppose these are just other ways of asking the age-old questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? But these are the central questions in Masonry.

Most people, at some point in their life, wonder what constitutes real success in life. Is it the creation of wealth, property, or assets? Is it to be popular, or to serve others, or to have abundant amounts of free time? Is it to be blessed with a loving family, close friends, and lasting relationships? I imagine all of these things have to do with our perceptions of success. Certainly, they all “feel” like success to me. But Masonry suggests we take a slightly different approach to how we think about success. It’s all very personal. If it could be described with words in a "first-person" context, it might read something like this:

As a Mason, I wish to consciously create a sense of what I am here for. How I’m going to live my life that I have, doing it in service to others, affirming a sense of spirituality about myself; and maintaining a sense of compassion and caring and love and decency for others that I meet. Treating conflicts and difficulties that come my way not as something I have to conquer or overcome, but as opportunities to see how I, as a human being, may transcend these things. And, in the practice of living, not to use hatred or anger and bitterness in beating someone down in order to get where I want to be.

That's a pretty good start toward living a respected life. If we focus our thoughts and actions in a direction that enables us to feel at peace with ourselves and the world, it would be difficult to argue we have not been successful. Freemasonry facilitates how we look at and respond to life to achieve such success. For example, it teaches us how we go about making our life unfold as the universe unfolds, with a real sense of perfection, harmony, and peace without abdicating our usual role in life. We learn that such balance is indeed possible and attainable. I should think such an ideal would have wide appeal. I know it appeals to thoughtful Masons because it is a recipe for success.

In fact, I think it is a lesson that’s been told for centuries. It’s an attitude of knowing that we truly are spiritual beings, even while having a human experience. And we make the quality of that experience available through our thoughts—our mind—through our divine connection.

Freemasonry does not concern itself much with the labels of society, politics, or religion; rather we talk about kindness, and love, and forgiveness, and gentleness of spirit. Our teachings admonish us to understand that we are all connected in a divine way, so the real goal is to determine what it takes for us to get to the big picture—what does it take for us to change so we can always feel harmony and balance in our life?

The answer, of course, is different for everybody. But that’s not the point. The path to the big picture may be different for everyone, but the understanding has to be that the big picture is there and its availability is there for everyone.

We call this big picture Masonic Light, which simply means the awakened life.

Freemasonry transforms men through the process of its initiatory experience, by the repeated liturgy of its ritual, and by its many associations with the ideals of manhood. It enables us to get in touch with that part of our psyche which allows us to become transformed--to get in touch with our mind, to experience the metaphysical--to truly practice the big picture and know in our heart and soul there is more to life than what our body experiences. There is something underneath life that gives it purpose; that works, and has a lesson for each of us. It reveals to us that every experience is a teacher. Everyone we meet is a teacher. We are all students of life. And even when our life is in turmoil, there is an underlying law that will bring us harmony. There is order, even in chaos.

My observations of Masons everywhere lead me to suggest we all tend to have the same sense of reverence with everyone else in the fraternity. Maybe this happens because our ritual experience enables us to become more acceptable to love. We understand we are one and the same as brothers. We begin to treat our fellows with the same respect that we want for ourselves. We recognize they are, in the overall scheme of things, a mirror of us.

We come to realize that what people think about expands. And we always have a choice. We can concentrate on the negative, let our passions rule, be judgmental of others, feel hate. And we can be assured these negative feelings will expand in our own minds, and to our circles of friends. Or, we can be brothers, feel brotherhood, take our duties and obligations seriously, and convert what we feel to others. It is a great truth that the collective consciousness begins with each one of us.

As Masons, then, what we believe and think about as Masons expands. If we want to make men better, we must believe that that will really happen when men become Masons. If we want to bring brotherhood to the world, we have to believe that brotherly love will be experienced and understood by everyone who enters the fraternity. If we want to make the world a better place, we have to believe that we can make a difference in it with our own life. If we want people to know that Freemasonry has great value today, we have to believe that it is relevant in our own hearts, and can be as real in theirs.

The Sufis said; “If you don’t have a temple in your heart, you will never have your heart in a temple.”

Freemasonry is about having a temple in your heart.

So our message to the world is really very simple. If we but keep our character, our morals, our ethics, and our reputation as fraternal men as pure as our Masonic teachings would have them, then we can’t help but be successful. It is nothing less than our journey into the unknown to discover our relationship to the big picture—our own awakened life.

That is a pilgrimage worth making. Because it is right—and right expands.

Masters & Past Masters: The Real Role of These Worshipful Men

2008-08-01T17:28:00.002-05:00

We often encounter problems when words describing ancient concepts are translated by language of today. The choice and definition of words which were popular a few centuries ago in interpreting ideas or rendering meaning to everyday subjects often seem archaic and/or misleading when used in a contemporary sense. A typical example of this problem in the language of Freemasonry applies to the titles of our principal lodge officers.

For instance, a Master Mason is a brother who has been regularly initiated, passed and raised in a legally constituted lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. But, in the 15th century, a Master Mason was a workman who was qualified by training and experience to teach his trade to a younger, inexperienced worker. He was a man of approved learning; a scholar of authority.

The title of Worshipful Master is the term given today to mean the presiding officer of a Masonic lodge. But in the 1500’s such a title meant honorable and reputable; applying to a person who was distinguished in regard to character or rank; entitled to honor and respect. By the 1700’s, to call a man worshipful was an honorific and often temporary designation; applying to persons or bodies of distinguished rank or importance. When the title worshipful became attached to the word master, the two together denoted a man of great honor, integrity and learning who also had control or authority over something or someone. Justices of the peace, aldermen and mayors, governors and rulers; all carried the title of his worship, or worshipful master.

A Passed (or Past) Master is a Master Mason who is no longer the installed Master of a lodge of Freemasons. He has “passed the chair” as the presiding officer of his lodge. But in the 16th century, a Passed Master was one who had been examined and passed as a Master; and was thereafter considered a highly qualified or accomplished Master of a trade, guild, society or corporation.

Today, the Past Masters, Worshipful Masters and Wardens (the traditional gatekeepers or sentinels of the realm, and later the regents who ruled in the King’s absence—now vice presidents of the lodge), in addition to their hierarchical status within the structure of a lodge, also make up the body of the Grand Lodge, or state assembly of Masons, and are given the authority, on behalf of all members of their lodge, to collectively adopt the rules and regulations which govern all lodges in the state. These titled men represent the voice of the Grand Lodge when the Grand Lodge is not in session. This is the reason lodges can operate independently from Grand Lodges. Each lodge is a microcosm of the whole.

This is the hierarchical nature of the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons, and its authority in regard to the function and leadership of each lodge.

However, titles alone do not address the more important function of these offices in regard to the fraternity’s ceremonies of initiation, passing, and raising. There must also be a transmission of knowledge, wisdom and insight in order for the new Mason to be transformed by his experience. The officers of the lodge are the metaphysical agents for this transmission. Thus, the meanings of the ancient titles are carried forth by the honored men who presently carry these titles to those who are undertaking the process of becoming Masons.

The Entered Apprentice (Initiate) must be bathed in the pure and moral motive of the light; the Fellow of the Craft must be passed into an intellectual understanding of light; and the Master Mason must be raised by that light to an insight of truth which transcends rational intellectualism. This spiritual transmission can only occur through an agent who is capable of knowing and honoring the spiritual sanction and sacred lineage of his office.

Herein is a serious caveat of which we, as Masons, must be always vigilant.

The man who ascends to the East in his lodge, professing to know Masonry; yet knowing only the words of the ritual without any understanding of his role as the Initiator for the lodge, is not capable of transmitting the esoteric and metaphysical attributes of the inner work to the psyche of the Initiate. He has neither qualified himself as a Master, a man of scholarly authority in the mysteries; nor as worshipful, a man distinguished by the singularity of his spiritual understanding.

Having offered the above as only a caution, in the traditional sense, I believe the titles of Worshipful Master and Past Master carry much weight when properly understood. They are, and remain, honorable and not temporal in that those who have the titles are styled “Worshipful;” and are therefore invested with the responsibility of being the teachers of Masonry, and carrying the spiritual lineage of the lodge with them for all time.

Therefore, I think these titles were never intended to be given frivolously, but should be earned by work, study, contemplation, and lasting commitment to the ideal of awakening the consciousness of humankind; the unveiling of the mysteries. This is the reason that only the most qualified and capable of the Master Masons should ever hold these offices.

Likewise, only those who are “duly and truly prepared” should strive to become a part of the elect group. To be initiated, passed and raised, one must first be receptive to receive the transmission offered by a Master or Past Master.

For, without transmitting and receiving this sacred gift of spiritual light; nothing much changes for any of us.

Oklahoma Masons Create $2 million Faculty Chair in Gender Studies

2008-07-17T17:05:00.005-05:00

Oklahoma State University announced this week that, through a $500,000 gift from the Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma, an endowed faculty chair of $2 million for men’s studies has been established. The gift will create the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma Gender Studies Chair, which will be housed within the College of Arts and Sciences.

The total impact of the $2 million chair was created when the Masonic Foundation took advantage of a $100 million match commitment made to the university by OSU alumni and Texas oilman, T. Boone Pickens. Mr. Pickens made a dollar for dollar match available to any organization that endowed a faculty chair at OSU before June 30, 2008. To sweeten the incentive, the Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education, through a commitment made by the Oklahoma legislature, then matched both the Foundation and Mr. Pickens gift dollar for dollar, creating the endowed chair in the name of the Masonic fraternity. You could say we were in the right place with the right vision at the right time.

As a Board member of our Masonic Foundation, I am personally very excited that we have taken on this partnership with academia. We live in a time when fraternal associations are often not understood, where gender differences in communication and behavior are not well known, where the qualities of manhood are discounted in areas as important as fatherhood, male role modeling, social responsibility, family and community leadership. The world little understands the role Freemasonry has played in enhancing and teaching the ideals of manhood; nor its significance in the creation of civil society, or its focus on the self improvement of the individual and the larger society.

Academia has just recently “discovered” the historical importance of Freemasonry through studies by Bullock, Stevenson, and Jacob. Much more can be done in analyzing the role gender-specific organizations have played in enhancing the physical, social and psychological health of men. Much can be learned from studies in inter-generational communication and social interaction among males; and the impact a positive group identity has on the esteem and social honor of being a man. There are presently few studies focused on what Freemasonry teaches, or the importance of ritual and ritualistic models to self and group instruction; the significance of ceremony to social stability; or the nature and purpose of object-centered sociality.

Freemasonry is first and foremost the study of men and manhood. Through its rituals, its inter-generational fraternal associations, and its connectedness across all communities, states, provinces and nations, it raises a global awareness of the importance of men in society.

I’m especially pleased that the Center for Gender Studies exists at OSU. It is a multi-disciplinary center that enables and facilitates academic research in gender across the fields of sociology, psychology, philosophy and history. It is a perfect match for the work of which Freemasonry is engaged.

The Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma Chair in Gender Studies can connect the purpose, heritage, teachings and history of our organization with research aims of professionals and students across every academic discipline in which Freemasonry has a founding.

Perhaps most importantly, it will introduce masculine psychology, fraternal purpose, men’s interests, and social networking to a new generation of young college men and women interested in researching the importance of men and the role men play in enhancing the stability of family and social life, as well as the economic and social progress of society.

I can’t think of a more strategic route for addressing the ideals of manhood and a higher awareness of the importance of men in society. Today, I am really proud to be a Mason—and feel hope for men in our society.

What Come You Here To Do?

2008-07-02T09:07:00.002-05:00

My Brothers, this is one of the great questions in all of Freemasonry!

As those of us in the fraternity know, it is actually one of the first questions we ask an Entered Apprentice Mason in his first catechism lecture.

The earliest ritual reference of which we have record is Prichard’s Masonry Dissected, published in 1730. I have read all the early ritual exposures and I can assure you this question and the subsequent answer given to it is not commonly found in the pre-Grand Lodge or early Premier Grand Lodge era ritual workings. In fact the answer appears in no other English ritual exposure from 1696 to 1769. In the single ritual text in which it does appear, the answer is given thus:

Not to do my own proper Will,
But to subdue my passion still;
The Rules of Masonry in hand to take,
And daily Progress therein make.

It is possible this particular catechism was used in early Operative Masonry because it is a didactic memory technique for learning. And this method of learning (using rhyme) dates centuries earlier than even the Regius Poem, (c. 1390),—purported to be the oldest didactic in Masonry. It may have also originated in 18th century continental Masonry, but again, there is no other reference to the question and its follow up answer in any other English ritual exposure from 1696 to 1769.

In a 1738 French translation of Prichard’s exposure, we find it once again. This time the question is worded What do you wish to do here?; and the answer given is; I do not inspire to follow my will, but rather to subdue my passions, while following the precepts of the Masons and making daily advancement in this Profession.

And then there is a 1745 French exposure entitled “The Broken Seal” where we find the question What do you come to do here? With the answer; To conquer my passions, subdue my desires, and to make new progress in Masonry.

It appears the consistent theme in each of these exposures is that the primary task of an Entered Apprentice is to subdue his passions and then, using the lessons of Masonry, to make progress in his life.

Now, the first thing almost every Mason will notice is that the answer given in the old catechisms is not the answer taught today in the ritual workings of our contemporary lodges. In fact, I would suggest that today’s answer has a much deeper meaning. It was developed during the early 19th century; when Masonry was a far more philosophical than moral undertaking. It commonly goes something like this: What come you here to do?

To learn to subdue my passions and improve myself in Masonry.

The interesting question is this: Are there any commas in this sentence? I think that there are. I think if the answer was actually written in most Masonic monitors, it would look like this:

To learn, to subdue my passions, and improve myself; in Masonry.

If I am right, then there was a new admonition added to the task of an Entered Apprentrice as the philosophical integrity of our Craft ritual expanded; namely—that he first learns.

And I think this changes everything!

To learn is to acquire knowledge; to acquire knowledge of a subject or skill as a result of study, of experience, or teaching; to receive instruction; to find out about, or discover; to be informed of, or learn about; to teach or inform a person of something.

We have to learn there is a moral imperative, for instance, before we can subdue our passions; we have to study Masonry before we can understand it. We have to discover there is an allegory before we can interpret it. We have to be informed of its history before we can comprehend its societal relevance. We have to detect its symbolic associations before we can grasp its spiritual nature. We have to contemplate its meanings before we can experience its insights. We have to be informed of its rules and laws before we can act within the due bounds of fraternity. We have to understand the meaning of manhood before we can grasp the unique power of fraternal association.

We have to learn before we can improve ourselves. And we are taught as Entered Apprentices, we cannot improve ourselves without first subduing our passions--without releasing ourselves from our own ego so that we can feel the brotherhood of man. And we learn as Fellowcrafts that we have to overcome and go beyond the human senses, we have to transcend the logic of human education, we have to journey beyond the paradigms of human awareness, we have to surpass even inspiration and insight, go beyond all the powers and properties, the sciences and senses of man to erect our perfect ashlar; to get in touch with divine truth--which is metaphysical—it surpasses human understanding. Then, as Master Masons, we learn that we have to finally overcome ourselves before we can achieve peace and harmony within ourselves, and in our lives.

The bottom line of Masonic teaching is that, through the journey of our degrees, we learn that Divine truth can’t be understood by the human agencies of education, or dogma, or rationale thought, or by the evidence of the senses—it has to be perceived directly. And, my Brothers, it enters into us by the path of initiation.

All of this is pretty heady stuff. Men come into Masonry to learn to improve themselves. If they are coming here for any other reason, then we are failing to represent with honesty what our organizational purpose is. Men come to us to learn. The lodge is the receptacle, the personal space, the sacred environment that will either facilitate their learning, or prevent it.

To me, this brings up another question for all of us: Which kind of facilitator is our lodge?

The Origin of Freemasonry--Does It Really Matter?

2008-06-10T09:24:00.003-05:00

In my own Masonic experience, I have heard only a few speeches postulating the source of origin of our fraternity. Most Masons I have met seem comfortable with the rather simple but improbable possibility that we evolved from the operative guilds of the Middle Ages. There is a persistent and attractive attachment to the building trades since so much of our symbolism seems connected to the tools and mathematics of construction.

Yet, the city guild system of 16th century England and Scotland was very different from what survived into the 18th century. It was a system specifically designed to prevent travel and to exclude craftsmen from out of town to break into a closed shop. Our ritual emphasis on travel rights comes from a much earlier era, when craft guilds were tied to religious houses, a tie which gave men the right to travel because they were sponsored by the church. To look into origins, one may well need to look well before the English transition era.

Besides, there are a number of other possibilities which seem equally compelling and deserve our attention.

In addition to those who subscribe to the suggestion that we are a product of the operative guilds of Scotland, which can date us to the 1500’s, and from which our catechisms and obligations seem to derive; there are those who just as firmly believe we descend from the merchants guilds of London through the London Mason’s company—a sort of transitional group that rescued the operatives after the economic breakdown of the English guilds. Sadly, its records were lost in 1621 so we can’t really say for sure.

Then there is the chivalric 13th century Knights Templar theory, which contributed significantly to our hierarchical form and added knightly virtues to our heritage. But a three hundred year gap between the last templar records and early speculative Freemasonry makes a shared adventure seem romantic at best.

Perhaps we shouldn’t totally discount Prince Edwin’s famous Articles of Fraternity. He was the son of the tenth century Saxon king Athelstan, and assembled the first general meeting of Masons. If it is true that his constitutions were approved by the aristocracy as law for lodges from that time hence (and there is not a shred of evidence that it is), we can add another 300 years to our source of origin; making us a whopping 1,000 years old!

Then we have the German College of architects who claim an association with continental lodges as early as 1745. But the historic problem of kingly sanction between Germany and England wields an unlikely provable association. Of course, there is the much older Roman College of architects who supposedly were the original source of all guilds, and in which a lineage can hypothetically be traced up through the speculative Masonry period. The problem with this association is that the organization was forced out of business in the 5th century so it may be difficult to prove an unbroken chain.

Moving into an entirely different arena of origin, we also have the mystical and eccentric esoteric theories which center our beginnings among the alchemists, Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, and the hermeticists; and from which our allegorical forms were undoubtedly sired. But why would groups whose adherents swore to secrecy and who refused to claim any form of organizational structure suddenly align themselves with an organization which was clearly social and civic in nature?

Perhaps our mystical side grew out of the purported Masonic search of perfection; that the ensuing intellectual aspects of our fraternity date no earlier than the Scottish Masonic reformers of the 17th century. Those fellows rather liked the Rosicrucian form of universal education and could well have wanted to duplicate this Renaissance theme in the Mason lodges.

What about the confraternities, such as the Star and Garter, the Golden Buckle, the Hanseatic League of Eagle, all medieval fraternities which can be traced from the 12th to the 17th centuries, providing charitable benefits to their members? And while we’re on the topic of confraternities, it can rather convincingly be suggested we are the product of a monastic order of the Protestant Reformation, organized in secret defiance to established church authority. There is little doubt that many of our Masonic emblems can also be found in early medieval church iconography. All of these pertain to saints who lived prior to 1300. Most Masonic/Biblical historians can show the legend of the third degree itself represents a confluence of two Biblical stories which were well known during the Middle Ages.

However, setting these earlier traditions aside to collect archival dust, and moving forward in time, let us not discount the possibility that we are really not so ancient after all; that we may have derived from the gentlemen’s clubs of London—a group of good ole boys who wanted to secure economic connections through the legal obligations of fraternity. Such an ambition certainly sounds like a useful and practical fraternal idea.

Finally, who’s to say that we really have any origins at all which were not always Masonic? Why can’t we accept the possibility that the fraternal government invented by Drs’ Anderson and Desaguliers in 1723 had a purpose not attached to any prior group. That our connection to the guilds was all myth after all; as these two men just happened to have as their hobby the study of the medieval guilds? If one is authoring a constitution, he can pretty well choose whatever antiquarian interest he dreams up and attach it to his new form of government.

The bottom line is that we may never know from whence we came. And it may not be important.

It is enough to know that we have existed as a fraternity for at least 287 years. That’s long enough to say we have a legacy and a tradition which predates anything American. Our tenacious survivability attests to the truth of our endeavors. And, at least in my judgment, the fact that we have been around to serve more than 20 generations of men proves we have an appeal which transcends all generations.

Besides, every Mason knows that how we were established is not nearly as significant as why we came to be. Maybe this is the real reason there haven’t been many books penned about Masonic origins.

Me and the Grail

2008-06-02T10:13:00.007-05:00

I spent last evening reading a small book about the Holy Grail. I've been fascinated by it ever since I saw a movie about King Arthur when I was a young lad. I was totally enamored by the Knights of the Round Table and the chivalry surrounding Arthur's court. Even as a youngster, I knew the story intended to teach me more than just the worshipped devotion of a group of warriers committed to a king. There were just too many supernatural ideas brought out in the story. The whole legend became one of my favorite reads; and when the adventures of knighthood found their way to my dreams, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

It wasn't until I became a Freemason that I made a rather profound connection between the sword, the stone, and the grail. The stone represents the foundation stone symbol we know so well in Masonry. The sword, representing the virile power that is drawn from the foundation stone also represents each of us. Freeing the sword from the stone may have to do with freeing ourselves from the material and mundane so that we can make the spiritual journey toward enlightenment. Of course, the grail represents that which has been lost and must be found again.

I envision the quest for the grail, then, to be my personal search for the God in me. I like to contemplate this profound idea of a God that shares Its Divine essence with, and in, humanity. It seems to be at the root of every esoteric school that I know.

And it's such a grand thing. The idea that there is a divine spark which dwells within me, and that flicker of light alone makes me the heir to immortality.

Thus, it could be that the quest itself is the whole meaning of human evolution--a quest to raise the human consciousness from the level of the mundane to the God-attuned inner self. In Masonry, our task, in the end, is to re-integrate our fallen personality with the Wisdom and Love of That Which is Above Comprehension. This is nothing less than the process of absorbing our duality into the center of pure being. King Arthur certainly represents this duality.

Of course, I must also admit the grail for which I have searched has represented different things at different times in my life. It has been my search for moral purity, for triumphant faith, for soldierly heroism, for unconditional love, even gracious charity; all of these things have been important, depending on my needs and understanding at certain points in my life.
But the quest is ultimately a search for Truth. It is the journey which gives me the conscious link to my spirit; or, on a cosmic scale, a trip that bridges the chasm between earth and heaven. It happens that this journey is articulated within the allegories presented in the thirty two degrees of Masonry; which may well correspond to the 32 paths of the Kabballa. So it is a profoundly spiritual and religious thing we do.

It also occurs to me, if organized religions would have revealed that there is indeed path working to be done in approaching the golden dawn of truth, and the way is not so narrow after all, the Scottish Rite may have never needed to be. But Alas! The problem with orthodoxy is that it almost always abrogates the nature of God to a vehicle for answering the wrong questions.

It is our fault, of course. We, who know nothing about Omnificence and Grace, invented a God to take credit for all the unknown causes of all effects which we either admire or dread, without understanding them. The result is that most all faith systems of our world still seem to insist on making their own God. We are taught to pray to an image man has created to obtain what he wants.

For instance, it seems remarkable that, in this age of information, there are still many who see God as some kind of a super-human person, usually masculine, who has power to bring us either fortune or misery. It would seem that our many philosophies and belief systems have together produced a myriad of complex concepts created to help us understand our relationship with an entity that is unknowable.

In reality, any concept we have of God is not real. It can be only a reflection of one of the many faces or disguises we have invented to make the divine seem compatible with our level of human understanding. I do not yet fully understand my God. But I know that It is not a he.

In the chaos of my own journey, any attempt I make to personalize God to fit into my world is simply a reflection of my own ego. I am therefore content not to understand what God is; but, rather, to contemplate what the Divine may be. In my own duality, it is enough for me to simply know that I myself am a Temple in the process of becoming Holy. If I build well, then perhaps I will at least feel at oneness with the unknowable.

To me, this would seem to be the essence of the esoteric journey.

Two Models of Success in Craft Masonry

2008-04-29T14:46:00.003-05:00

A global review of lodge models clearly shows there are two foundational principles of success in sustaining a long term positive growth in membership.

First, we must be committed to the idea that all Masonry is local.

Lodges (individual governing units) may be ruled by a set of codes and laws which are enforced by Grand Lodges (state governing units); but these rules have been enacted by the lodges themselves, acting collectively for the good of the whole. Thus, it has always been the lodge which determines the rules. It is good to recall that lodges existed for more than a century before the first Grand Lodge was formed in 1717. The foundation of Masonry has always been the lodge itself. It either thrives or dies based almost wholly on the vision and attitudes of its own members.

This is the way it has always been.

Second, we must understand that the sovereignty of Masonry is with the lodge. Grand Lodges may have dozens of rules prohibiting this and that in regard to member behavior, rights of entry, lodge procedures, and ritual ceremonies. But again, these rules, whatever they may be, have at one time in the past been authorized by the lodges themselves, acting on behalf of the collective good of the Order. Grand Lodges exist to preserve harmony over the global culture of Masonry; and to serve the constituent and sovereign lodges within the geographic boundaries of their state or province. It is important to note that everything otherwise legal, moral or ethical that is not prohibited in Masonry; is permitted.

These two foundational principles, then, ensure that all lodges have an equal opportunity to succeed. The outcome is left to the virtues of leadership, ability, vision, relationship, and action.

If we can agree the above two principles have validity in Masonry, then a worldwide review of lodge practices calls me to suggest there are also two exemplars of governmental success, at least in the American Masonic culture today.

There are thriving lodges in America who stay focused on delivering Masonry with a well-rounded agenda. These lodges characteristically provide accurate ritual work, measurable charitable activities, visible community services, regular family and social activities, and a meaningful fraternal experience for their members. Successful lodges do this consistently year after year. Such fraternal associations are often well known in the community largely because the lodge is an integral part of it. And in such lodges, many of the members are known in town not only as good community volunteers, but also as Masons. Lodges that are increasing in membership in the United States typically do the things mentioned above better than most. Successful lodges also do these things better than other community organizations which otherwise compete for a man’s time.

The second model of success is the lodge that is focused only on Masonry as a place where personal, fraternal and spiritual growth may occur; one in which meaningful tools for personal improvement and spiritual development are consistently delivered to members in a private sanctuary of brotherhood month after month.

Such lodges are centered on what we call the “inner work,” in which the appeal is wholly fraternal and carried out in privacy, with little public visibility. This is the model which has proven most successful in many foreign jurisdictions. In America, we think of these as “traditional practices” lodges in the sense that the traditions derive from lodges which predate the typical historical American timetable. Many of these lodges have sustained a 3% annual rate of growth over many decades.

We should be fully supporting and encouraging both models of success for the overall American culture. The one brings us public presence, image, and credibility; the other fulfills the expectations of many younger men (those born after 1975) who want to be on the journey of self-development and improvement.

Both models offer the right kind of patriarchy and role modeling which can guide men to mature and manly judgment. Both follow a time-tested path toward truth and authenticity. Both are nurturing and fulfilling to the male psyche.

In the academic studies I’ve read concerning the needs of men in today’s society, the lodge that is centered on education, spiritual development, role modeling and fraternal bonding may be the most powerfully compelling organization to join in America for men who fall with the 19 to 40 age range. When such a venue exists for men in every community, everyone benefits.

Those who seek these things in their own life will always be welcome in our classic “Men’s House”—the manly and sacred space of lodge; where together we lead each other to our own transformation and rebirth.

The Degrees of Freemasonry: Their Purpose

2008-03-24T08:57:00.010-05:00

Above the porch at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi were inscribed the words; Know Thyself. This is perhaps the oldest and most succinct description known to man of the purpose of Freemasonry.

It is said the phrase refers to the personal ideal of understanding human behavior, morals and thought, because ultimately to understand oneself is to understand others. But it also means knowing one’s own habits, morals, temperament, ability to control anger, subdue passions, get along, and manage other aspects of our human nature that we, as men, wrestle with on a daily basis.

Masons believe the most significant personal task we will ever undertake as men is to overcome ourselves. This is the very cornerstone of self improvement and personal development. But it is also both an internal and an outward process. We have to learn how to be accountable for our own actions such as bringing responsibility to our work, our relationships, our behavior, and the choices we make in life. Living responsibly means that we must learn to think for ourselves.

But being a good man also implies that we are consciously aware of how we represent ourselves to others. Truthfulness, goodness, honesty, bravery, courage, purity, righteousness—by whatever name we give them, our values define us because they also define for the outside world who we are.

This process of self development and spiritual improvement is what the “degrees” or stages of membership in Freemasonry are all about. It is what distinguishes Masonry from all other organizations. Becoming a Freemason is not an event, but a process.

Freemasonry exists first and foremost to transform men. Our stated purpose is “to make men better” and that commission takes place because one is initiated into a fellowship of men. Freemasonry’s strength lies in the fact that it offers the right model by which men can grow and achieve balance in their human and spiritual lives. It tenders a safe and private medium for meaningful dialogue in the ways of virtue and ethics. It offers the role of patriarchy to younger men. It facilitates the timeless, ethical and spiritual traditions that have always improved the status of men. Just as it has done for every generation of men for 400 years.

Freemasonry is nothing less than a venerated and time-tested rebirth into manhood.

The Degrees of Freemasonry

Masonry conveys its lessons by degrees. There are three such degrees in the Craft Lodge system of fraternal association—the Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. These titles were originally derived from the different level of skills and experience earned by the craftsmen who worked within the builder’s guilds during the middle Ages. Masonry adopted the language of the building trade because, as men, we are engaged in building our own human and spiritual edifice. This is a process that requires a lot of tools.

Our degrees are often thought of as stages or levels of membership. But they also represent different stages of life; as well as different levels of understanding and awareness. The degrees are therefore progressive in nature; like our own life journey.

Taken together, the degrees of Masonry provide a path, or way of thinking about what is important; what can add stability and meaning to our life. They represent a map of consciousness which can literally result in our transformation as a more enlightened human and spiritual being. The lessons in Masonry are based on the notion that mankind is made in the image of God and that each of us reflects the structure of the universe. This correspondence between the universe and man; between God and man, is the basis of all Masonic instruction.

The lodge or physical space where the degrees are conferred, then, can be thought of as a receptacle for mental and spiritual health. The men working in such a place are doing inner work together—building their own temple of awareness and wisdom in a private setting where only peace and harmony is known. To its members, a Masonic Lodge is, in a very real sense, a temple erected to God. This makes Masonic work the most important and fulfilling work we ever do.

Entered Apprentice Degree

The admission of each man into the Masonic Order is a symbolic representation of the beginning of his journey toward mature and manly judgment; of vesting himself with those qualities essential for living a responsible and fulfilled life. The first Degree in Masonry is therefore Initiatic in nature, i.e., its intent is to facilitate something new in the individual. The instruction of the Degree focuses on leaving one place in life and arriving at another; leaving one condition, or state of mind, and arriving, through thought and study, at another. It symbolizes the journey we must all make, with all the obstacles and challenges we must overcome.

But it also introduces a path for overcoming our hurdles and problems—a path which can lead us from ignorance to knowledge; from confusion to understanding. We find that since we are all part of the same goodness and love, it is therefore possible to be helped by others, and to help others. This level of understanding and trust forms the basis for true fraternal association.

In the Entered Apprentice degree, the quest is for Masonic light. In Masonry, light symbolizes knowledge, self-development, and insight. The search for light is the search for understanding and growth, both of the personality and the spirit.

This first step on your journey to mature masculinity is centered on asking of yourself: Who and what are you? Whence do you come? Where are you going? What is your duty in the world? Above all else, as men, it is important to know these things.

Fellowcraft Degree

Contemplation and enlightenment are the special subjects of the Fellowcraft, or second Degree of Masonry. It is often called the Middle Chamber Degree.

Its instruction focuses on developing an awareness of the science of the human soul. The secrets of our mental and spiritual nature; and the many principles of our intellectual life and experience are brought into our conscious awareness. We learn that difficulties and obstacles placed in our way are a necessary means of developing the full potential good within us. The only way we can approach perfection is by honest and disciplined effort.

In one of the most profound lectures in all of Masonry, we learn that the quest for self and spiritual improvement is a journey of exploration, education, and discovery. Our goal is to become transformed as better men.

The arrival at the Middle Chamber is a symbol of transformation. One starts his journey in ignorance, and ends as a different person, strong, enlightened, in command of his passions and emotions, truly free for the first time, and ready to take command of his life.

When we are at this unique and sacred place in Masonry, we are prepared to know three kinds of truth: moral truth (to truly know what is right and wrong), intellectual truth (the knowledge of what is accurate and what is false) and, if we develop ourselves far enough, Divine truth, which is beyond human understanding. The Middle Chamber becomes a symbol of the soul, or spirit, for it is only there where we can receive Divine truth.

Master Mason Degree

The entire premise of the Master Mason or the third and last of the ancient Craft Degrees in Masonry, is that there is a great mystery to be solved in every man’s life. All men in this world are in search of something in their own nature which they have lost; but that with proper instruction and by their own patience and industry they may hope to find. The world that is our experience, the world we know is but a transient and temporary thing; full of shadows, images and merely substituted secrets.

This Degree is often called the sublime Degree because its instruction is centered on fitting us with genuine secrets of deep and weighty import—dramatic and intense religious and spiritual processes known by every religious system in the world--the supreme lesson of which is self-sacrifice, a mystical death to what has gone before, and a rebirth and illumination of the ultimate truth and reality of our real self.

Only those with reverent and understanding minds can penetrate into the hidden meaning of the Soul.

The deeper secrets in Masonry, like the deeper secrets of life, are always heavily veiled. They exist beneath a great pyramid of time; and he who knows anything of them knows also that they are many and valuable; disclosed only to those who act upon the clues given in our rituals and lectures:

“Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.”

Freedom of Speech Was Not Granted as a License For Ignorance

2008-03-17T17:23:00.003-05:00

Good grief! Another elected official in Oklahoma has embarrassed our state by making a bigoted and ignorant statement about something for which she has not a medical or academic clue. This time the subject is homosexuality.

State Representative Sally Kern, in a recently televised speech, stated that homosexuality is more dangerous than terrorism; that gays are destroying our society. She goes on to compare gay people to cancer, calling them “deadly, and destroying our children and this nation.” Hers is the kind of remark that leads people to think Oklahoma and ignorance are synonyms. It is particularly discouraging to those of us who believe what the world needs now more than ever are speeches with words expressing love, compassion, cooperation, and understanding rather than hatred, divisiveness and intolerance. Even more, when we have a sense that moral judgments should, at the minimum, start with a belief in the brotherhood of Man under the fatherhood of God, her comments are downright offensive. They are an insult to any thoughtful person’s sense of reason and intelligence. We must never forget that all homosexuals are born of heterosexual parents.

Sure, it has yet to be proven beyond debate that gay and lesbian behavior is genetically embedded in those who are; just as it has never been proven that sexual preference is a matter of individual choice. But herein lies a remarkably sobering question. What if gay and lesbian tendencies are indeed genetic? How would this modify the categorical imperatives? What impact would this have on society’s collective moral conscience? How would one feel if he could know with certainty whenever he encounters a gay that, except for biological fate, there he himself is!

Besides, regardless of how we may feel about this issue, it is getting increasingly more difficult to argue that genes play no role in homosexuality. In the last 15 years, more and more research results are leading scientists to an increasing likelihood that one or more genes are connected with gayness. This has already been proven in monkeys, cattle, fruit flies, in DNA tests with X chromosomes, in brain differences between gays and straights; and even in tendencies that twins are more likely to share the same sexual orientation than other siblings.

And this brings me to the real point of this musing. If gayness turns out to be genetic, then it can no longer be considered a 100% non-impeachable moral sin. Moral values will no more depend on sexual orientation than morality depends on religion. As hard as we have often tried over the centuries, no individual or group has ever been able to supplant or replace the innate human capacity for knowing the difference between right and wrong. The bottom line is that moral judgments are based as much on reason as on blind faith or blind feelings. There is a morality in reason just as there is a morality in dogma. It begins with the individual’s life as the primary value, and the recognition that that life contains the same spark of the Divine as yours and mine. We are all Sons or Daughters of God.

Of course, we still have to ultimately identify the further values that will enable us to sustain our life with some sense of fulfillment and contentment. But, in the overall scheme of things, our very nature demands that we not live by random urges or animal instincts. In fact, most of us don’t. Rather, we live by a moral principle which distinguishes us from animals and upon which our existence fundamentally depends. That principle is reason. Some prefer to call it good old common sense. It is the faculty which enables us to experience the world, understand it, and make judgments of fact about it.

Just because a particular religion holds its doctrines to be absolutely true is no evidence that they are. Sally Kern’s convictions which have convinced her that gays are as much a threat to the world as terrorism is no evidence that they are.

But then, educated, intelligent, reasonable, and compassionate people already know that. This is why Sally Kern’s recent remarks are so embarrassing to Oklahomans.

We Can Think. Therefore We Are...Aren't We?

2008-02-25T15:30:00.001-06:00

One of the most common quotes taken from any philosopher is that of Descartes, who said; “I think; Therefore, I am.” He posited the statement around the philosophical themes of a 17th century view of reason and rationalism. It was a new idea at the time. But I’ve always thought it to be a bit of a stretch to conclude, without limitations, this declaration to be categorically true.

I think most people would agree that our ability to think does, in fact, prove we are not just mere matter. It proves, for instance, that we are different from, say, rocks or vegetables. Descartes would say that matter itself has to have an essential attribute of extension, meaning that it has to be capable of undergoing change. With the possible exception of humans, everything we could classify as matter has a fixed duration, i.e., it exists from one moment in time to another moment in time. In the case of rocks and minerals, or even atoms, this duration may be eons. In the case of plants and animals, it is but a season.

But in the case of humans, we hold a rather arrogant view that our ability to think yields for us the possibility that material substance may not be defined by time. Rather, we are the product of reason. And this takes us to an understanding of God.

To forge an idea of God in one’s mind requires the ability to think, analyze and reason. Of course, we know that thought alone does not distinguish man from animals because we know that animals have some reasoning ability. They can be cunning, sly, selfish, sharing, like my cats; they can solve elementary logic puzzles, they can learn the like/dislikes of their owners/caretakers, and they are even aware that some things will occur before they actually happen. The essential difference between animals and humans, however, is that humans alone seem to have the ability to use concepts acquired through the process of learning and direct these toward goals which exist beyond themselves. The mental processes of animals are confined to thinking only in rigid terms, without qualifications and without sensitivity to the subtleties of an issue. Only humans have the innate ability to infer that because something is true to the extreme, then something contrary to it must be false.

And this is the distinction Descartes made. “I think; therefore I am.” Man alone seems to have the ability to think cosmically; to reason that his mind is separate from his body; that he has a soul which can move beyond matter by the will of God; that a part of him can stay with him forever by the grace of God. Therefore he cannot merely be matter.

Of course, if this is indeed true, then we are all faced with another question. Does a belief in God rescue us from an existential predicament?

It might, but only if there is a God and a part of us is immortal; i.e., we have the ability to transcend the human condition. Existentialism is based on the tragedy of the human condition. This idea was advanced by Kierkegaard on the basis that the 19th century had created an age of mediocrity by exalting conformity of group behavior over the creative impulse and intelligence of the individual. The 19th century existentialist would argue the resulting melancholy and despair of individuals in the population who happen to be individualists or nonconformists is due to their feeling of aloneness in the world.

However, the modern view of existentialism is that the individual himself has no essential nature, no self-identity—he just exists. Existential philosophy concerns itself with human predicaments associated with such things as alienation, anxiety, depression, inauthenticity, death, etc. In this worldview, the world can provide no rational direction or scheme which can move man beyond his predicaments. Moral principles are simply human constructs which are tied to the level of responsibility humans take by their own actions.

This is the reason some kind of Savior, or God, is needed to raise a man out of his physical environment. Some form of metaphysical experience is required for man to overcome himself.

Everything will then work out fine if there indeed is a God; provided, of course, that such a God is benevolent enough to come to our rescue. The obvious problem is that there is no proof that such a God exists. And, if God does exist, there is no assurance that the human predicament will be reconciled by death alone. After all, an afterlife might well bind a person to another human condition—or worse. And some people believe that we must ask for forgiveness before God will listen and act on our frailties. If this is true, then the soul is no more immortal than the body. Without metaphysical grace, it could well die with the body.

Since we really have no way knowing the outcome of all this, the best assurance humans can have of reconciling an existential predicament is to work on overcoming themselves while they are mere mortals. Indeed, humanistic existentialism suggests this to be the path of reason. All things are contingent on something else; nothing is decreed to occur. All meaning, order, and harmony are given reality by consciousness alone. There is no reality apart from consciousness.

So the path of man is to raise himself to higher levels of consciousness.

Now, in spite of which path we choose for accomplishing this lofty task, our essential work in this life is to prepare our soul for rescue. The Kabbalist would say we should climb the Tree of Life. The Buddhist would claim we can purify our mind only through silence and detachment. The Hindu and Christian would argue we need a personal relationship with some intermediary, a part of which is divine, in order to know ultimate reality. The Mason would suggest we take on the mantels of virtue and morality together and make these the resounding focus of our life’s purpose.

The point of all this is that, regardless of how things will reveal themselves to us in the end, one thing is certain. We must prepare our soul by what we do in the here and now.
Self improvement may not get us to heaven, but it will certainly give us less for which to be embarrassed if there is a judgment day. Faith alone is not enough to insure a positive outcome for our soul’s future; or to take us out of the human predicament.

Conspiracy Theory--the product of paranoia and ignorance

2007-12-14T16:09:00.000-06:00

I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed about all the conspiracy theories I can stand. I’ve personally been accosted by them since John F. Kennedy’s assassination in the early 60’s. I really feel for the poor chaps who have had to endure them all the way back to Pearl Harbor.

I have no idea how old these things are in our culture. Someone told me they started in the 1920’s. If that’s the case, we’ve now gone through 4 generations of Americans being duped by someone else’s ignorance. And that’s my point. With few exceptions, conspiracy theories are born out of ignorance. My favorite exception, of course, is the theory that Freemasons are out to establish a New World Order. Being a Mason, I rather like that one. I’ll clarify what we are up to a little later on.

For now, let’s say that a conspiracy theory is when we attribute the ultimate cause of an event or events to some underlying secret or deceptive ploy that is held from public knowledge by some powerful individual or alliance. Usually such individual or group is purported to have a sinister purpose which is why the whole thing is secret to begin with. We tend to lose sight of the fact that those who subscribe to these theories are usually convinced the world has always been dominated by conspirators who manipulate political, economic and future happenings behind the scenes. The events themselves eventually fall into the category of folklore or urban legends.

The perplexing thing is why so many of us believe them to be true! Unfortunately, there’s no good answer because these things are so often driven by paranoia and ignorance. They can be a form of scapegoating where people with diverse or politically questionable points of view identify other people or groups as being the blame for their own political, social or economic shortcomings. It’s the old blame game. The idea is that, if only we remove those who are harming us from positions of popularity or power, things will be better. If we can get enough people to believe like us, then we, the scapegoater, will be seen as the hero for sounding the alarm.

Conspiracies are also a way for people to respond to events or circumstances which have an emotional impact on them. The events or topics most often talked about fall under the areas of religions, disasters, morality, politics and science.

Now, I don’t have a problem with people trying to make sense of things which cannot be easily explained. What I do have a problem with is assigning blame to other people when these unexplainable events occur. It didn’t used to be this way. A couple of centuries ago, it was popular when a disaster occurred to say it was “an act of God.” It seemed reasonable enough to blame God for something so large that a mere mortal could not possibly have created it. But that brought on a new challenge. It gave God a kind of undeserved and seedy reputation. To neutralize this potential spiritual blunder and ease our sense of unworldly guilt, it became easier to suggest that such events were really a manifestation of God’s anger toward the sins of the world. Alas! This didn’t work either because most people were not willing to place a part of the blame on themselves. Disasters then quickly became acts of nature. This worked out fine until technology finally reached a point where almost anything seemed possible for man. Ah! Even better, since it then became easier for us to blame almost anything on human action or irresponsibility. Now when almost anything painful happens, the first question is, “who is there to blame?”

The sad fact is we now live in a world where we no longer accept that accidents, disasters, circumstances, or misfortunes just occasionally happen to people. Obviously, no one’s to blame for acts of nature. Neither can we, in honesty, blame anyone else for our own negligence, superstition and ignorance. Yet, more than ever, we keep applying our own distorted perspectives to the cause and meaning of catastrophes and circumstances without regard for individual accountability. Of course, the media exacerbates the problem by its own rushed and short-sided receptivity to personalized, dramatic accounts of social and natural phenomena.

All this creates a multiplier effect. If we can’t accept that things happen occasionally which are not the fault of anyone, then we are bound to live in a world full of bitterness, fear, suspicion, isolation, and confusion. Now that is a catastrophe.

My suggestion is that we start using some common sense in assessing the likelihood of truth in these matters. Does the theory meet the test of rational thinking? Are the events upheld by structured and institutional accounts, or only by individuals or special interest groups? Are the media keeping it alive for its sensational appeal? Does the basis for the theory appear, at best, to be unfounded or speculative? Are the proofs offered for the theory well constructed, using sound methodology? Are any clear academic standards prevalent as evidence of proof or disproof? Who and what kind of people appear to be the loyal conspirators?

The bottom line is that conspiracy theories are not really worth our time if they can’t meet these basic tests of verification. You are free to believe that the federal government is in league with space aliens to enslave humanity if you want. Just don’t make a public nuisance of your nonsense.

And, as for the Masons being out to bring about a New World Order, I can attest to the truth in this. That was indeed our task during much of the 17th and 18th centuries when the world desperately needed to organize a model for civil society based on liberty and equality. Once we accomplished that, we have spent the last couple of centuries trying to keep it that way. You can call it a new world order if you like; we prefer to think of it as order in the world.

In Defense of Fraternity

2007-09-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

I am a Freemason. I am also a Baby Boomer. In my generation that would make me a bit of an anomaly because most men in America born after WW II have not been joiners until very recently.

But my father was a Freemason; as was his brother. They owned and operated adjoining farms on the great wheat and cattle producing plains of Oklahoma. For as long as I can remember, my dad would come in from his work every Wednesday afternoon, take a shower, and put on his Sunday suit My uncle would come by and pick him up and they would go to the Mason’s Hall together. They did this for 50 years. I can’t remember a time when I was not going to be a Freemason.

I also knew the men in my community. It was a small place of only about 2,500 people. It was where we celebrated the festivals of our lives, went to church, and participated in social conversations outside our home. I knew the most respected men in my town. I can’t remember when I did not know them.

I entered the fraternity of Freemasonry during the summer of my 21st year. When I arrived at the lodge for my first degree, or stage of joining, all these men I had known and respected in my childhood were there. They were my father’s friends. I can remember to this day standing in the ante-room of the lodge, duly prepared in a garment provided me for the occasion, waiting for someone to return my knocks on the door, and thinking to myself: Tonight, I am going to be initiated into Manhood.

Although at the time I didn’t realize it, through my initiation into the world’s oldest secret society for men, I was participating in one of the most ancient traditions of manhood. In every culture the world has ever known, men have yearned to be initiated into manhood. It is fundamental to man’s understanding of his own process of growth. And we have always known it even if we have not defined it for ourselves.

There are many examples of such initiation. The first kill in the hunt is as old as humankind. It is an initiation. Men have always taken their sons hunting. And the stakes are high. It is important for the boy to have a kill. It is a mark of success.

Other examples include basic training in the military; the Bar Mitzvah in the Jewish tradition; and our own high school graduation. The commencement exercise is classic initiation in every detail, right down to the change in clothing. Moving away from the home of our childhood is another example.

It’s important to understand that these examples are never meant to teach anything. They are done to convey one most powerful idea to the young person; that he has left one life and is entering another. He is putting away an old life and taking on a new one.

Now, in the case of males, it is inherent to the nature of manhood that males be assimilated into it by other males. Men have to be initiated into manhood by other men. This is true across every culture.

And this is why I firmly believe Freemasonry to be an essential institution for men. The truth is that women do not have to be initiated into womanhood, as men have to be initiated into manhood. Unlike women, there is no defining moment that proves for a boy that he has become a man, or that he is entering manhood. His mind does not mature at the same rate with his body, nor does his body take on immediate physical changes that are observable to the outside world.

Even in societies where there have always been initiatory rites for women, such ceremonies have related to menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth. Thus, girls’ initiations are determined by a mystery natural to the female sex itself. Such rites have never been based on an “origin myth.”

Conversely, in the case of men, initiation ceremonies are always focused on “invisible” realities. We learn a sacred history that is not evident; i.e., it is not known to have existed in the physical experience. In the ritual ceremonies of Freemasonry, for instance, we observe that everything happens because certain events took place in some historical or mythical time which changed the human condition. For us, initiation represents an introduction into a world that is not immediate. It is a world of spirit and culture. Ours is not a rite of puberty, but a rite that incorporates us into society as responsible adults; a collective consciousness—a society of men.

Being initiated into manhood means that the initiate is consciously aware he has entered onto a path toward mature masculinity. And the journey to manhood begins with this awareness. A man’s awareness begins with understanding who he is, how he feels, what makes him feel, and how his feelings have been effected by outside attitudes and influences in his life. He has to know what “doing the right thing” means. His perceptions and enforcement of responsibility must come from within. There is not supposed to be an internal competition between reasoning and impulses, where the outcome of this balance determines his status as a man.

Rather, the path to mature masculinity starts with his becoming consciously aware that he is accountable for his own actions—that he alone bring responsibility to his work, his relationships, his behavior, and the choices he makes in life. Mature masculinity also implies that he is consciously aware of how he represents himself to others.

A man’s integrity is clearly within himself, to himself, and for himself what it is to others. To claim our manhood, we have to take charge of our life.

And for young men, this process is always best facilitated by other responsible and mature men. One of the key ingredients of a man’s growth and development is making friends and maintaining friendships with other men. It is as vital to our health and happiness as believing in ourselves. We need older men as mentors in our life. We not only need the stamp of approval from our fathers; but from other men in our life.

Manhood does not come from our mothers. We can be nurtured, comforted, educated, sang to, and nursed by our mothers. But mothers cannot teach us how to be men. That is the role only men can play for each other.

And here is where Freemasonry has been so critically worthy to the culture of men for so many generations. To be sure, there are certain rites of manhood which connect young males with the collective masculine soul, to the spirit of being a man, and to the community of men—sports, college, military, sex, bars, occupation, to name a few. But there are few that teach what a good society expects of men. There are even fewer which give him the lasting standards of male responsibility. There are still fewer that teach the magic of manhood. There are fewer yet which can affirm a sense of belonging to a traditional male brotherhood. There are few institutions which eliminate the generation gap by the very act of belonging. There are few that facilitate an understanding of true fellow feeling—that feeling which is at the heart of Masonic ritual, symbolism and lodge space.

Freemasonry exists first and foremost to transform men. And that transformation takes place because one is initiated into a fellowship of men. It is within that fellowship that he is introduced to his own path to self improvement—the journey which enables him to harmonize his individual need for fulfillment with a collective well-being. This pathway is nothing less than the road to mature masculinity.

The corporate task of freemasonry is to not only erect this path, but to make sure that its members are on it themselves; and those who come after them will also be on it.

The inherent role of any morally based male-only organization is to take on the virtues of manliness, to enhance and extend the male tradition; and to embrace that tradition irrespective of how formidable the demands any present society may place upon it.

Freemasonry’s strength lies in the fact that it offers the right model by which men can grow and achieve balance in their human and spiritual lives. It tenders a medium for collective dialogue in the ways of virtue and ethics. It offers the role of patriarchy to men—male role modeling, if you will—which guides younger men from a sort of boyish impetuosity to mature and manly judgment. It does this by leading them back to timeless, ethical, and spiritual traditions which facilitate their own transformation and rebirth into manhood.

And it has done this for every generation of men for more than 400 years.

A Dilemma of the War on Terrorism

2007-08-20T16:14:00.001-05:00

As long as humankind is inspired by the notion that there is a Deity, that some form of metaphysical reality exists beyond our finite world; and this unearthly principle also has the ultimate power to penalize or reward our actions and can decide the kind of future we may have beyond our mortal days--then we can be sure we will also always have religion.

I suspect this same innate ambition which drives us to believe we are all immortal will also insure that we will always have wars which begin over religion. In fact, history is replete with examples of such conflicts—conflicts over one man's "vision" that his religion was right and all others were wrong. It’s the age-old fallacy of humankind—there’s always some guy or some group out there who believes he/they have dominion over the "truth" about Deity.

The reality is that errors will be built into ALL faith systems for no other reason than the interpretations of faith are always man-made. So what’s all the fuss about over who’s right anyway? If we can accept and understand that we have "errors" in our own faith (we just don't know where they are), and equally accept the same of other faiths, why would we want to "fight" over a mistake? If you're going to fight over something, fight over something that you can prove - something that has certainty. In the meantime, be satisfied that "you" have discovered what is "true" to you and don’t demand that others agree with you.

The Golden Rule is a common thread of most all religions and boils down to a really simple principle. We are to live our own lives without dictating our understanding of Deity to others. Live the example others will want to emulate; always taking concern for the one stone in the quarry that we actually control and shape--our own rough ashlar.

One would certainly think that hastily applying dynamite to all the rough ashlars at once is more counterproductive than allowing each to shape his own ashlar at his own pace. Yet, as simple as this may seem, there appear to be some fundamental problems with it as a solution in an era of religious terrorism.

First, I would suggest that, while we have heard the Golden Rule stated in every religion in the world; the rule is, in reality, an insipid truism that has no force of law and certainly no force of meaning to a terrorist. The terrorist always calls on the religious authority of his faith as his rule of law. God becomes his sanction to kill or maim. In fact, most terrorists would never kill except in the name of God.

Further, since most monotheistic religions of the world were born before the New Testament era (an era which at least suggested that God was a God of Love), the more prevalent historic ideal of sacred authority is based on the premise of God’s role as a warrior. As an example, the Thirty Years War (a war fueled by religious hatred between protestants and Catholics--1618-1648), left more killing and devastation behind it than any event since the Black Death. It created the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which was the first legal instrument calling for the separation of church and state. It didn’t matter that much that the wrecking of Germany, for instance, was brought on by cynical leaders. In their hearts, most of the combatants believed they were carrying out acts of piety. When the war ended, many cities had less than half the population they had before; many towns had only one-fifth.

The conflict left a mark on the West that cemented our attitude for church-state separation. In fact, the fundamental reason the West has worked so hard to keep religion out of dealings between states and nations is precisely to banish religion from the repertoire of acceptable reasons to wage war.

But as the world turns more religious, more adherents of the great faith systems, particularly the newer cults, seem to be placing violence back in at the heart of their beliefs. As the economic and political state of countries get poorer and more unstable, a platform exists to spread sectarianism. This is the kind of seed that often brings extremists to the forefront of those who will kill in the name of God. And it is important to understand that we are not dealing here with the traditional ethical rules of war. When a war is waged by a perceived sacred mandate, we can be sure there will be little compromise from the true believer about the sacred. There is one God; one Truth.

Tolerance is not an intrinsic part of any monotheistic religion because the outcome of a conflict cannot be ambiguous. When the issues are sacred demands, there can be no bargaining. The believer cannot compromise on the will of God. Killing becomes an end in itself. The extreme believer wants a lot of people dead and may not care whether a lot of people are watching, as long as God sees that what has been done is in His name.

The Bible’s division between those who belong and those who don’t belong makes it natural to see life as war. We all know the imagery of battle occurs throughout the Old Testament. This same violent imagery is also a part of the earliest Islamic writings. Raiding is common, people are killed, and blood feuds are pursued. God’s angels intervene on behalf of the Muslim combatants.

The point is that scriptural emphasis on warfare in the world’s great religious traditions has armed successive generations with powerful mental images of an embattled world. The community of the faithful is perpetually in crisis, or at least on the edge of one.

There is even a growing sect of American Christians who also embrace the notion of a cosmic war. More Christians are becoming fascinated with apocalyptic speculation and with signs that the events depicted in Revelation are at hand. Books based on prophecies in Revelation are being sold to millions upon millions of folk. A recent Time/CNN poll suggested that fifty-nine percent of Americans believe the future will unfold in accordance with Revelation. The fact is that whether we see it in our church pews or not, we are a more religious country today than we were when we were founded. The new approach to Christian fundamentalism is that the coming war is a war to create God’s government on earth.

We can be sure the attack against America on 9/11, 2001 was an act of consummate religious devotion. Those who committed it were deeply pious. They expressed their motives in indisputably religious terms. And they saw themselves as carrying out the will of God. To them, the hijackings were the performance of a sacrament, one intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam and their Muslim collaborators.

The reality of 9/11 was that the motivation for the attack was not political calculation, strategic advantage, nor wanton bloodlust. It was to humiliate and slaughter those who defied the leadership of God. It was to please Him by reasserting His primacy. It was an act of cosmic war. What appears to most of us to have been senseless violence which violated all our known treaties about war, actually made a great deal of sense to the terrorists and all those who sympathize with them. For them, the act of killing was an act of redemption. Our modern notion of separate realms of the religious and the secular is simply inconceivable to a religious zealot.

How then can a simple and dignified ideal that we follow the Golden Rule find application in an eastern religious system, or even a Western fundamentalist system that almost universally agrees to some form of struggle for the sake of God? Can any moral and ethical system of thought improve mankind if it cannot find a venue where the duality between Toleration and Liberality against Fanaticism and Persecution cannot be reconciled?

As challenging as it seems, it really does come down to the Golden Rule. No one knows with certainty what Deity has in mind and therefore can have no divine sanction to condemn the faith of others, marking them as heretical. Likewise, there is no moral or ethical basis to approve of any actions that endanger the peace and quiet of great nations, or their people, by indulging in a fancifully imaginary philanthropy, imagining one's self to be "different" enough to be separated and self-proclaiming in one's holiness.

Such activity can be more harmful than the ambition of kings. Such intolerance and bigotry have been more repeatedly harmful to mankind than ignorance and error. Surely it is better that we know that our "truths" are not perfect and accept these errors than to live under persecution. How absurd it is to think that when we cannot even understand our fellow man, we can begin to expect to understand Deity in any uniform manner. Torturing and killing other people simply because they do not think and believe the way we do is indeed an absurd thought~ and should be to all men.

The gist of all this is that it is perhaps a much better aim to simply offer moral progress rather than dogma to the world. Just as we each individually grow by unlearning what we learn before we "see the light," mankind is also growing. It, too, can outgrow its own childhood and never go back. It is, after all, only human laziness that gets in the way of such advancement.

The object is to be a good man. The good man does the good when he gets the chance, often because he has the chance. He does it because he wants to - he loves the duty- and not merely because some law (by God or by man) commands him to do it. He is true to his own mind, his conscience, heart, and soul, and feels very little temptation to do unto others in a way he would not like to be done unto. He really does keep coming back to the Golden Rule.

And such men are found in all religions over the world. This is how a society becomes free and does the work it is meant to do.

Old theologies and philosophies of religion of ancient times may no longer suffice. We must advance. The duties of life are to be done. There are errors that we must replace with new truths. There are great wrongs and evils that must be righted and outgrown.

Why is it that mankind can't seem to learn from history- from our past atrocities? Why do we continue to ignore these powerful warnings of the unspeakable evils which follow from these past mistakes and errors in the matters of religion? What religion can actually invest the God of Love with such cruel and vindictive passions, of such man-made ideas?

Man has never had, nor will he ever have, the right to usurp the unexercised prerogative of God and condemn and punish another for a different belief. No man is entitled to positively assert that he is right where other men who are equally well-informed hold a directly opposite opinion. Each thinks it impossible for the other to be sincere, and each, as to that, is equally in error.

"What is Truth?" was a profound question, the most suggestive one ever put to man. But never forget that what once was believed, we now find incomprehensible. These startling insights give us a fresh glimpse of the human soul. If we cannot understand our own soul, much less the souls of all mankind, how can we expect to be able to have a full and error free understanding of the even more complex Deity which encompasses all souls? How can any one man possess such knowledge? None do.

This is why Toleration is so important. It is our chief duty, without which we stand for little. We can be tolerant of each other's creed because each faith holds excellent moral precepts. One does not have to look far in any teaching to find "good" teachings. The common thread, again, seems to be the Golden Rule, and the goal is goodness and getting along with our fellow man.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that intolerance of religious beliefs has afflicted the world worse than any other evil. All the treasure and human labor we've lost throughout time in such silliness would be enough to have now made the earth and all its inhabitants a Garden of Eden.

Old Glory Flies For All Of Us

2007-08-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

I remember how easy it was to grow up in America. My father's generation had already survived the Great Depression of the 1930s. Many from that same era then crossed the ocean their forefathers had once sailed, but the other way. They sailed to Europe to fight World War II and defeat a global challenge to America's idealism.

And when all the military strength and national rhetoric had run its course, the world was once again at peace. We had fought the great fight. We had rallied around "Old Glory." We had won the "Big One" once again.

I came along as a product of that celebration. There were more of us born in the 10 years following WWII than in any other decade in history. We were the "Baby Boomers," and over the past half-century, we have been the beneficiaries of sustained economic innovation.

We have moved to the suburbs and traded radios for televisions, typewriters for computers, telephones for digital message centers, letters for E-mails. Over the Internet, we transact important business deals with people we never meet. We own every device imaginable, from remote control camera blimps to digital TVs posing as framed pictures. We dance apart, endure music which cannot possibly be harmonic, and consume microwave meals with our diet pills. We drink flavored coffee and imported beer, and we can count on one hand the times each year our entire family sits down together for a real meal, served at the same table, at the same time.
Now, this may not be exactly the America our fathers envisioned when they came home from the Great War. And it most certainly is not the America our forefathers founded. But it is the way we define ourselves today—with things rather than ideals, with self-interest rather than national pride or social unity.

And, to make matters more complicated, we live in a multicultural world, with many different personal sentiments and ethnic interests. It is much harder to have a sense of national unity. It is not easy to know what being patriotic means. Our children have no understanding of military conquests. We no longer rally around the same icons, such as the flag. We no longer have a single public spirit in America. There is no one event which makes us feel a sense of togetherness. We have made being an American a very complicated thing. Indeed, it is alarming to ponder if we still have a national heart.

And yet, amid the rapid movement of technology, the burgeoning influx of people, and our materialistic path to self-reliance, our flag still waves above much of the public architecture across our great land. But, today, rather than being the symbol of national unity, "Old Glory" has increasingly become the icon of public diversity.

To those who are the veterans of long-forgotten military campaigns, it represents the principles we cherish as Americans. To Baby Boomers, it signifies unlimited opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. To many others, it represents freedom to be, to love, to believe. To still others, it symbolizes the right to live in this country and hold to cultural values of another homeland far from our shores.

The challenge today is how we make all this diversity work together in harmony for the good of the whole. To be free means that we are each free to express our cultural differences, attitudes, feelings, and opinions. And to be an American means that we all have the same duty to tolerate the differences in our fellow Americans, and to be careful not to impose, by regulation or any other means, our beliefs on others. The first act of tyranny is to legislate that everyone should feel and think the same way. Such actions of law hinder free will and violate our constitutional rights as citizens of a free country.

And yet, to remain free also requires some personal sacrifice. Every generation has an equal duty to understand that the collective intelligence and wisdom of its people determine the greatness of our nation. National unity is more important than individual, ethnic, religious, or any other pride.

A collective consciousness is the only thing that can hold us together as both a people and nation. Social responsibility is more essential than cultural isolation. Patriotism is the steady dedication of a lifetime of people who realize they are one nation together.

It is true that we cannot legislate or force patriotism any more than we can force another person to attend the same church. Matters of faith and public spirit are matters of individual choice in America. And it must stay that way, or it may no longer be the America we inherited.

The question is how we teach each new generation of Americans that our national consciousness must still be connected to our past. The past must be known to every generation of Americans. The past must meet the present through education and national understanding. The spirit of those who labored to establish the foundation for free government must be felt in the spirit of those who benefit from the opportunity it has given. Every generation is a vital link in keeping America strong and great.

Yes, we have made being an American a very complicated thing! But, above all the rhetoric and progress of our times—regardless of our faith, creed, color, lifestyle, or national origin—each of us still has that same timeless duty to first have a national heart.

When we do, then we can still rally around our national symbol, "Old Glory"—because it flies for the sake of our ancestors, our children, our institutions, our country—and it flies for each of us!

To Be The Heroes We Are Supposed To Be

2007-08-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

Like the archetypal hero, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

One of the powerful icons of antiquity is displayed in a section of a votive relief at the Louvre in Paris. From the Hellenistic period, 1st century, B.C., the sculpture is titled "Offering to the Dioscuri." It represents Castor and Pollux, the most famous twins, dioscuri, of Greek mythology, riding magnificent steeds across the heavens. According to the myth, one of the twins is mortal, the other immortal. One represents the divine principle within us; the other signifies the energy in life which we must eternally encounter and transform. As the story goes, the twins spend alternative nights in the heavens and in the netherworld seeking, through their experiences, the light of tomorrow.

We commonly think of them as the zodiac sign Gemini. In astronomy, they are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini.

Contemplating the imagery of this myth, we can see the twins as heaven and earth, day and night, past and future. Also, they represent the tension of opposites within ourselves at the very point of our transition from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge. Thus, this relief carving offers a pictorial description of the classic journey of the hero—the journey each of us is to make in life. It is an uncertain, often dreadful, and always dangerous night journey into the deepest reaches of ourselves. But through this journey, this confrontation with ourselves and our experience, we each can transcend to a new level of awareness and attain a veritable rebirth.

Only a hero, which we all can be, can wage such a battle. For it is only when we have an unrelenting resolve to overcome our deepest fears that we are enabled to know ourselves and fulfill our true potential. We labor and strive and learn in this world so that we may hope to live perfect in the dawn of eternity. That is the quest of the hero.

Of course, the symbolic meaning of the "Offering to the Dioscuri" is the same as depicted in Masonic ritual by the young Fellowcraft as he passes between the pillars of the Middle Chamber. At that moment in his life, he begins his journey into the greater mysteries which will enable him to become transformed into his better, truer self.

In contemporary Masonic symbolism, the Fellowcraft is the exemplar of the Gemini twins. His spirit is integrated by the dual nature of the pillars. Everything which represents the opposites in his life—passion and reason, aggression and cooperation, weakness and strength, anger and compassion, selfishness and charity—he takes with him on his subsequent quest toward self-improvement. Every emotion, experience, and lesson he learns on his own life journey, represented by the winding stairs, he integrates into his being.

He has only to make this hero's journey—this path of initiation, separation, and return—to see the Light of Lights and understand why Masonry is itself a timeless Truth, like the myth frozen in a piece of stone from two millennia past.

In the Scottish Rite (the college course in Freemasonry), our hero's journey is reinforced time and again. In the 13°, the candidate makes the descent into the cavern of his own life to discover the Lost Word. In the 18°, he finds, from his own journey through darkness, the light of the world. And in the 30°, he becomes the Dioscuri yet again, this time in the symbol and form of the black and white double-headed eagle.

Thus, when he becomes a Master of the Royal Secret, if he has taken seriously the path of the Rite, he is enabled to look back to the pillars of symbolic Masonry with new eyes—the eyes of a hero—and marvel at what Joseph Campbell has called the "song of the soul's high adventure," the path of his own self-meaning.

Perhaps it is really not so hard to be a hero. Maybe we need only to dream of a magnificent steed that will carry us aloft to a castle that knows no East nor West, but reveals the treasure of our soul's deepest longing.

Or, as Scottish Rite men, maybe we need only to know in what we are engaged--to be the heroes we are all supposed to be.

Intolerance is a Catalyst for Social Decline

2007-05-31T08:56:00.000-05:00

Many oppressed members of our society believe they cannot have friends in mainstream America; even if we could all agree on who mainstream America represents. Gays and lesbians, AIDS victims; immigrant rights groups, sufferers of racial profiling, child custody casualties; terminally ill patients who want a medically aided end of life; privacy protection advocates, tobacco users, feminists and anti-feminists; Intellectuals, Pagans, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Masons—these and hundreds of other such groups have tended historically to be the victims of cultural stereotyping. And even when the victimized groups get fed up and become motivated enough to push for a political/religious agenda to right such biased labeling, their mission more often than not becomes only a defensive act. However well intended, they will seldom win over their peers by playing defense. They just can’t score enough points against those who oppose them.

The problem is that almost all so-called mainline groups who oppose what they term the societal fringe--the outsiders—also, in fact, make these same groups out to be victims. But it is a different kind of victimizing. The moral do-gooders are experts at creating us vs. them strategies.

To me, the perplexing thing about this is that while these self-appointed moral legislators seem increasingly to gain public attention as our nation becomes more culturally diverse, many of us still aren’t sure how we personally come down on many of the above named groups. We may share similar biases toward one or more of them, but when it gets down to forcing all of us to agree with some of us in regard to turning attitudes into more restrictive laws, the real majority of mainstream Americans don’t care much about being on board with our do-gooder friends. When the issue gets down to our own personal level, no one of us wants to be told by others how to live our life. We can feel empathy toward those oppressed in our society. We are fundamentally opposed to overt discrimination because it represents a restriction to our own basic freedoms.

Further, a lot of us weary quickly of frontal attacks which attempt to turn one societal group against another. We have enough problems of our own to be paying much attention to who’s bashing who in our greater society. And in America, when things seem to get too rigidly defined, we tend to ultimately draw the line by referring back to our founding roots; that we are a country erected on principles of equality and toleration.

The greater question may be why we put up with so much intolerance in the first place.

It’s not so much that we don’t comprehend the fallacy of intolerance. It is just that many of us appear not to care. Perhaps we see all this name calling and political correctness stuff as a mere inconvenience because it hasn’t yet taken away all our rights. The problem with being tolerant is that we end up tolerating too much intolerance. Through our own longing for privacy and seclusion, we, as the real silent majority, often end up allowing other extremist groups calling themselves the majority to manipulate the field of battle. By the time our own civil and personal rights become eroded to the point that we ourselves say; ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!, we’re already playing a game of media and political catch-up with those whose opinions have taken on the collective voice of a movement.

I can rally around a great cause as well as the next guy so long as I can clearly see that society will be improved and no one will be hurt because of it. But I am also painfully aware the more common characteristic of movements is that they generally tend to restrict, rather than expand human choice. And when movements catch the attention of the media, lawmakers and public authorities, the result can too easily be the overturning of individual and societal protections—those same protections guaranteed us by a constitution that permits us to be truly free.

Perhaps the issue would not be so important if we didn’t know so much about the characteristics of intolerance. Fortunately, we have the benefit of having observed it throughout much of the world’s history. We know that it is almost always driven by hatred or fear. And it often thrives on apathy. There is an inherently stubborn tendency in humans not to openly admit to ignorance and lack of understanding which is the seed from which intolerance grows.

To a mindset that wraps how it thinks around platitudes which feel politically correct, it becomes far too easy to simply turn an opinion into truth, and then abolish or censor all other points of view. The saner option of working on the transformative nature of learning and growing through education, knowledge and experience; of balancing faith with reason, of independent thought and analysis; just seems too rigorous a process.

So the impassioned voices of a few grab the public spotlight and influence the morally upright and ethically unwary that they represent the mainstream. All we have to do is endorse or follow the ideas of the gifted few and everything will be kept morally good and equal with the status quo (conveniently forgetting there is no such thing as the status quo).

When Americans buy into such babbling, it is the same as taking the next step toward social tyranny. We can be sure the masterminds responsible for influencing public opinion around a cause know that using political or religious strategy in creating follower-ship, if popularized, will have the effect of restricting or eliminating another’s equal right of opinion on the same social, political or religious issue. Their goal is to ultimately make the opposing position disappear. And it is easy for us casual observers to forget that such techniques violate the foundational criteria for a free society—that we must keep diversity of opinions in full view if we wish to enjoy our own freedom of conscience and expression.

The fact is we live in a politically and socially diverse world. It is much too late in our own cultural evolution to hope to find much ground for common expression. There is so much diversity in America in our time that we really can seldom be in total agreement with each other; let alone among groups and divisions within groups. We must surely know by now that one characteristic of sustained growth in any population born of diversity is that factionalism and a sense of otherness will exist. As cultural diversity in each generation expands, each generation’s sense of history tends to focus more on ethnicity than nationalism. The result will always be a loss in commonality of perception and purpose. This is why public discourse is so important to social stability.

This is why it is equally important that we also embrace equality. It may seem much easier to oppose diversity. It is easy to see and fear it as a disintegration of society. But we must not forget that a single point of view will seldom aid in re-creating a united purpose. We don’t help America by stifling other opinions, lifestyles, groups, and behaviors which we perceive (or at least can effectively argue) to fall outside the mainstream opinion; i.e., our own opinion.

All of this is really just “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.” We must remember that the highest price to be paid for freedom is to allow others to be free. This means they can practice their religion even if we find their practices wrong and repugnant. This means that we allow the free and full exploration of an idea, even if we think it wrong and dangerous. It means that we permit people to live their own lifestyles, even if they shock ours. The point is that principles should always prevail over sentiment.

Any time one group of people declares war on another, morality is lost. A free society is not about always winning. Rather, it is about understanding the real enemies of human freedom and dignity. And tyranny would seem to me to be an obvious enemy. An oppressor riding over the oppressed is a powerful image, and one can see the wrongness of it at once.

It would behoove us to recognize that tyranny is not always historical. It occurs in the here and now. It takes place whenever any person or group says: “What I want is more important than what you want. My desires are more important than yours. I matter more than you matter. My views are more right than yours. Do things my way, or else.” And when such attitude is backed with force or power, oppression is added to tyranny.

A minority can tyrannize a majority; a majority can tyrannize a minority; a single man can tyrannize a nation; a man or woman can tyrannize a family; a teacher can tyrannize a classroom; an employer can tyrannize an employee; a religious faction can tyrannize a sect; a sect can tyrannize a religion; a political or social movement can tyrannize a society; a nation can tyrannize a state.

The point of this rambling is that no man, no interest group, no state, no religion, no nation, has the right to insist that it knows the Truth and that all others are wrong. Yes, we all have the personal right to pick our interests, our religion, our lifestyle, our passions, our advocacies. But we do not have the right to assert: “I have the truth, the only truth, and if you dare to disagree with me, I have the right to condemn, oppress or harm you until you come around to my way of thinking.”

Every religion and philosophy known to man has its equivalent of “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Yet, we sit in judgment of our fellow humans every day; and resent it when others judge us. It is not easy to be a just man, to constantly review our own actions and carefully make the better choice. But it is the path we should take. A wrong done to another is an injury done to our own nature, an offence against our own soul, a disfiguring of the image of God--the Beautiful and the Good.

We must learn to have a respect for religion. It exists, and has a place in society. Many of our own people are devoutly religious. But religious groups should not be permitted to actively promote a political message as they do now; at least not without also being classified as Political Action Committees or lobbying organizations, and their current activities proscribed by tax and other organizational regulations.

We must grow beyond our political correctness, fundamental beliefs, and old leftist ideologies because, in the end, all are doctrinaire and become dysfunctional in a diverse culture.

Intolerance may ultimately burn itself out because a human’s capacity to love is too great for any form of fascism. But it does so only at great cost to society. We must always view it a social illness that cannot sustain a civil society. Our contemporary challenge is in finding a cure.

Democracy May Not Work in a Digitally Connected World

2007-05-04T18:07:00.002-05:00

Democracy has not been an easy idea in history, even in its beginnings with the Greek city-states. Plato didn’t like it for fear that it would give power to those who are the least intellectually capable of governing. He needed only to remind us of the judgment against Socrates, the wisest man of Athens, condemned to death by a so-called peer democracy.

Aristotle did not believe in equality any more than Plato, and thought no better of democracy, considering it equal only to tyranny and oligarchy. The only consolation he offered was that when the worst democracy was corrupt, it is better than the best democracy when it is corrupt. The Romans didn’t much like democracy either, fearing direct participation by the people in the affairs of state would produce a society devoid of excellence. In fact, democracy was not sanctioned as a western ideal until the 17th century enlightenment period. And even the enlightenment philosophers weren’t too keen on it.

Thomas Hobbes was convinced democracy could only lead to anarchy. He believed power in governance should be absolute. Even John Locke, who championed the voice of the people in societal improvement, argued vehemently that society could only advance through some kind of social contract. The great enlightenment encyclopeodist, Diderot, favored a constitutional monarchy. Voltaire thought an enlightened monarchy would be best.

The issue of the rightness of democracy was wholly unsettled even with the founding of America. The word is not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Jefferson and Hamilton saw America as a republic. John Adams considered democracy “ignoble and an unjust form of government.”

The point of all this rambling is that it would seem the concept of democracy is fraught with ethical, political, economic and social questions which are difficult to answer. And in considering just such questions, we may be faced with an even larger issue in our own time.

To be sure, our present definition of democracy is different than that of our Greek, Roman, Renaissance, and Enlightenment thinkers. The founders of America were men of vast learning and refined intellect. They lived in a somewhat elitist culture and mindset. A widespread public reverence for greatness facilitated a process of governance in which it was expected the very best of our nation’s citizens would rule in our behalf. We must remember that in America’s beginnings, citizens did not directly vote for the president, vice-president, or members of the Senate.

Back then, it was generally acknowledged that the two forms of government most favorable for falsehood and deceit were despotism and democracy. The great 19th century Mason and philosopher, Albert Pike, wrote of despotism; “the concern was that men would be made treacherous through fear.” Pike added, “under democracy, the fear was men would become treacherous as a means of attaining popularity and office, or from their greed for wealth.” Our founding fathers were firm in their conviction that when office and wealth become the gods of the people; when the most unworthy and unfit most aspire to the former; when fraud becomes the highway to the latter, the result will be nothing less than chaos.

Unfortunately, our American experience seems too often to show that when our public offices are open to all, merit, integrity, dignity and honor are rarely attained.

Of course, it must be recognized our concept of democracy today has an entirely different meaning than the historical context I have just reviewed. We just assume our fellow citizens will abide by the laws and policies of those agencies of government whose activities control our community life. We feel sure in our protection that our consent to be governed will be protected by our constitution and by our freedom of thought and speech. The philosophy of our current democracy is that people are to be respected as an absolute end in themselves, and must not be used as a means to some political purpose or external end.

Hello! We may have a problem! There is something missing in this relatively new model of the will of the governed. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t for a long time. And the reason it doesn’t work is that we have changed the ways in which we communicate with each other. The key to how well our government works is based on how we communicate. Good government in the context of democracy can only be assured when people actively participate in its success. Democracy can never work when the majority of the people who are supposed to make it successful by their participation choose to be apathetic toward it. John Stuart Mill perhaps said it best: “Let a person have nothing to do for his country, and he will not care for it.” He argued that active participation of the governed in the process of being governed is an essential component of a democratic system.

Myself, along with a lot of my fellow Americans, are not caring enough these days. Even Tocqueville understood that indifference is the death of democracy. There is a direct relationship between objective involvement and the degree of public good rendered to all. There is a relationship between the kind of government that works best and the means of communication available in it.

The problem is that we don’t all have the same education, we do not live in the same homes with our parents and grandparents, we do not stay in the same place, we do not have the same feelings and attitudes. We do not share the same traditions, or enjoy the same fortune. Indeed, we hardly know each other.

There is no longer a movement of ideas. There is only information.

In the past centuries, we could depend on the printed word to supply us with ideas and knowledge. Since we only had one means of inter-community communication, what we read in newspapers, magazines, and journals created for us a national conversation. Our world was filled with essays on almost every subject of interest, and the same printed word was available everywhere. The influence of the printed word was powerful because it was the only means of communication. For the first hundred fifty years of our democracy, there was no television, no radio, no internet, no movies, no ipods, no CD’s. The public business was channeled into and expressed through print. It was the model, the metaphor, and the measure of all discourse.

The result was that Americans didn’t converse. They discussed. And their conversations were more like dissertations. Whenever people went to hear a political speech, a sermon, or a lecture, they expected an oration no different from what they were reading every week in print. People thought and conversed as if they were writing, rather than talking, to each other.

The bottom line is that those who framed our democracy knew nothing about instantaneous information, interactive media, info-commercials, television political campaigns, and all the dressings of our post-modern culture.

Instead, they invented our democracy on the assumption that there would always be wide public discourse. And a majority of the people would pay attention. Community debates would be based more on critical thinking skills, historical perspective, and a knowledge that meaning demands to be understood; rather than on immediate information, irrelevant feedback, and quick fix attitudes. To engage language means to follow a line of thought, which, in turn, requires considerable powers of classifying, inference making and reason. It means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions and to connect one generalization to another.

A democratic process is never enriched without language with content, individuality with intellect, and narrative with balanced meaning. If we wish to revive the essence and rewards inherent to a democracy, we cannot be satisfied with a world limited to quick and easy access to information. Rather, we will need to engage ourselves in the slower, linear, reflective forms characteristic of the good old printed word. This was the recipe for good democracy.

If we can’t get back to this level of communication, then we may as well take another look at a constitutional monarchy.

Is The Pledge Dividing A "Nation Indivisible?"

2007-04-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

When California physician/lawyer Michael Newdow won a lawsuit on behalf of his nine-year-old daughter challenging school-sponsored recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance because of its inclusion of the religious phrase “under God,” many people were taken by surprise. After all, we are dealing with a national icon here. Few Americans can remember when the phrase “under God” was not included in our Pledge. Generations of homegrown Americans have recited the Pledge in schools for decades and never thought a thing about it. Indeed, one of the shortcomings of learning anything by rote is that the words are seldom symbolized. When we recite something over and over again, it becomes as automatic as tying our shoes. We don’t think about it; we just do it.

Too, when it comes to the Pledge, we are buoyed up by the inviolability of the icon itself. It is as permanent as a landmark. In fact, previous efforts to have “under God” in the Pledge declared unconstitutional have failed. But now we have the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of Mr. Newdow’s petition. There’s no doubt when this lawsuit makes it to the Supreme Court, it will be one of the epic battles of all time in the age-old separation of church and state controversy.

But let’s look at the issue purely from the standpoint of law and individual protection. The original court declared that public school sponsorship of a pledge containing “under God” runs afoul of the religious neutrality required by the Constitution. In rendering the decision, the Court stated, “A profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus,’ or a nation ‘under no god,’ because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.”

The Court went further by concluding that “The coercive effect of this policy is particularly pronounced in the school setting given the age and impressionability of school children, and their understanding that they are required to adhere to the norms set by their school, their teacher and their fellow students.” In other words, children who happen to come from a different faith system than the majority can be ridiculed and made to feel powerless simply for questioning why they have to conform to something that is not a part of their family or religious heritage. It doesn’t feel right to them. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t care. To most of us, our emotional reaction is “more right” even if it reeks of intolerance.

But setting aside the emotional reaction of most Americans (who feel rather strongly that our forefathers firmly intended “God” to have a central place in the purported spiritual ambiance of American virtue) and getting back to the ethics of law, the appeals court decision shows, at a minimum, a just respect for freedom of conscience. In the context of public schools, it is not realistic to expect children, regardless of their beliefs, to refuse to participate in activities their peers do.

As a matter of First Amendment law, this should be an easy case. The high court should affirm the 9th Circuit’s decision. The Constitution is a secular document. That the Founders made it clear they believed an American’s religious or philosophical beliefs should be irrelevant to the government. One can be a patriotic American regardless of his religious belief; or lack thereof. A government should never coerce school children, or anyone else, to make a profession of a religious belief. When the Rev. Francis Bellamy penned the Pledge in 1892, he spoke of “one nation, indivisible.” The last thing Bellamy wanted was a Pledge that would divide Americans along religious lines.

It’s also an easy case from a pragmatic policy perspective. Our country is becoming increasingly diverse. Public schools now serve children of many faiths; and many with no faith at all. It should certainly not require students to make a religious profession as the price of expressing patriotism.

But on the other side of the debate, one can well argue that such symbolic uses of religion as in the words “under God” and “in God we trust” have been stated and printed so often that the government’s use of such religious terminology has, in effect, long drained the words of any religious significance. The words themselves have become ceremonial, rather then religious. Such God-inclusive phrases can be found everywhere in both judicial and legislative undertakings.

Regardless of how well intentioned our sentiments are in this issue, the eventual Supreme Court consideration of the matter will be a media feeding frenzy because few national groups will likely see the constitutional correctness of it. Politicians have already widely blasted the decision of the lower court. President George W. Bush further announced that, although the federal government was not a party to the case, the United States government would intervene and pursue an appeal. Then, when the Circuit Court declined to re-examine the ruling, it left only the Supreme Court to settle the dispute. There is no doubt the implications of the judicial action on church-state issues will be far-reaching.

As a fervor will most certainly boil around this controversy, one thing remains hopeful. Even though overwhelming political pressure will undoubtedly be placed on the Supreme Court--through email campaigns directed by the Religious Right, in briefs filed by friends of the court, petition drives by citizens asking that the words be retained in the Pledge--all of these gestures should remain largely symbolic. While such moves have historically swayed elected legislators, judges are expected to base their rulings on the Constitution and the laws of the United States alone.

The high court ruling will likely come down to whether the justices believe the phrase “under God” is considered too benign, or incidental, to be a violation of the First Amendment. There is no question that, if any American is forced to make a religious affirmation as a condition of expressing his love of country, then that affirmation inherently breaches the wall of church-state separation. Prior to 1954, the United States had a pledge that did not divide Americans along religious lines. It is probably safer that we go back to that. Perhaps it was an error of shortsidedness in 1954 when we added the “under God” sentiment to the Pledge. Perhaps we even violated our own constitution then. Perhaps we should have let a sleeping dog die.

But we didn’t. So, if the Supreme Court upholds the 9th Circuit Court ruling, the present public sentiment favoring the religious pronouncement in the Pledge will likely launch a drive by the Religious Right for a constitutional amendment designed to force a union of church and state. It is doubtful that many political leaders will have the backbone to stand up and say why altering the First Amendment is a bad idea.

The larger question may well be: Is the risk of a constitutional amendment fueled by the Religious Right worth taking? I think not. As much as I personally like the symbolic unity and spiritual satisfaction I get from thinking I am living in one nation “under God,” I am also quite prepared to acknowledge that all humans live in places “under God.” In the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, it is the meaning of the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God.

The Question(s) of Ethics

2007-04-11T13:41:00.000-05:00

This paper was presented at a statewide youth leadership conference to

young people, ages 13 to 18. During the workshop, the students divided

into groups and worked on a number of very challenging ethical questions

not included here. The response was very good; the topic always timely.

I have lived more than a half century. I still do not know all the answers to life. In fact, I'm still wrestling with many of the questions. But I do know this: You will never find contentment and fulfillment in your life until you figure out who you really are. What makes you distinctively you in your own eyes? What makes you different from other people you know? What makes you special? What is there about you which people like, or accept, or would want to imitate? What is there about you that you think people may not like? Are you changing how you think about things as you get older? Do you think you're different now than you were, say, ten years ago? Does who you are becoming matter to you at this point in your life? Are you going down the path that you know is right for you? Do you think one can take a different path anytime he wants to? Are you satisfied with the risks you are taking? Are you unhappy with yourself? Do you like the way you look? Would you like to be like someone else? Are you unhappy with your fears? Do any of these questions really matter to you right now?

You may not think so; but trust me--they do. Or they will. I have been asked to talk to you about ethics and why it is important to have ethics. And I can also assure you that everyone has ethics. We have no choice about that. The choice we do have is what our ethics are going to be. What they are going to be to ourselves and to those whom we come in contact with. We will all live some kind of ethical life. The question each of us has to decide is what ethic we will personally choose to live by.

So, if you can accept the idea that you cannot be truly happy without knowing yourself, then it stands to reason that the sooner you get on with this task of finding out about yourself, the earlier you will find happiness.

But it is also not so easy to know oneself. To know who we really are, we have to know what we stand for as a man and as a human being. This doesn't mean what religion we prescribe to, or what politics we favor, or whether we are part of the most popular crowd in school. Or even if we have not yet found what it is that makes us special, or in what area we might excel. What matters is what we do and how we think and how we respond to our life when the chips are down.

What do you do when faced with a dilemma in your life? How do you personally react to issues regarding your own freedom, or the freedom of others? What rights are important to you? Do you believe everyone should have the same rights as you? Whom do you admire the most? Whom would you like to be like? What inspires you about them? Have you ever hated anyone? If so, why? And for how long? What has been the greatest accomplishment in your life? Are there things you hope to do better? For what in your life do you feel the most grateful? Why? How much do feel you are in control of the course of your life? When did you last yell at someone? Why? Did you regret it later? Is it easy for you to accept help when you need it? From someone other than a parent, or family member? Will you ask for help when you need it? What are your most compulsive habits? Do you regularly struggle to break them? What is most important to you in life? What do you wish to strive for? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other peoples? What from your childhood has proved most beneficial? What has proved most difficult? Have you ever considered suicide? Or known someone who has? What is so important to you that without it, life would seem not worth living? If your friends could bluntly and honestly tell you what they really thought of you, would you want them to?

These are all serious questions. They are the questions about who we really are; questions about our values, our beliefs--questions about our life. And in our life, the big questions; the ethics-based questions, will relate to sex, integrity, generosity, pride, morals, honesty, justice, power, principles, trust, money, friendship, responsibility, accountability--and even death. These are the issues which will define us, and how we relate to other people. They are all important. They are all essential to our ultimate success and fulfillment.

As a young person just beginning your journey into adulthood it is not too early to begin thinking about the issues of ethics you may have already encountered. Here are a few more questions that may have already surfaced in your life. Think about how you would answer them for yourself. If you decided to do something and your friends strongly advised you not to, would you do it anyway? Do you frequently find yourself--just to be cool--saying things you don't really mean? Why do you do this? Is it sometimes right to be a little bit dishonest? Would you be willing to commit perjury for a close friend? For instance, might you testify that he was driving carefully when he ran over a pedestrian even though he had been joking and not paying attention? If you were having difficulty on an important test and could safely cheat by looking at someone elses paper, would you do so? At a party, your friends start belittling someone you all know. If you felt their criticisms were unjustified, would you defend the person? Would you rather play a game with someone who is more or less talented than you? Would it matter who was watching?

You see, these are all questions about who we really are; about our values, and how we are seen by others. It may be that we can get by wearing a mask that we think others expect us to wear. It may be that we can be a little dishonest, have mostly conditional relationships, take advantage of some people some of the time, put ourselves above others who might be less fortunate, or handicapped, or from some other ethnic background. It may be that we can go through life just being average, and meeting everyone elses average expectations of us.

But never forget that you are building your own life. You are perfecting a stone that will one day be placed in the Temple of God. What you do, the actions you take, the choices you make, the paths you choose, the life you will live . . . is yours alone.

And it will effect others until the end of time.

Ethics is about deciding for yourself what kind of human being you will choose to become.

The Significance of Example

2007-04-03T11:19:00.000-05:00

I can well imagine that every man can look back over the journey of his life and quietly remember in the days of his youth those men who had a positive and/or profound influence on him. In my own case, I would not ever want to forget them. I can remember thinking that such men were the very best of men; that such men were the men we were to look up to; that they must indeed set the standard for what men are supposed to be. The men who had the most impact on me were of my father’s generation. These were the men Tom Brokaw claimed in a recent best selling book as the “greatest generation.” To know men in that generation seemed very special to me. I thought surely these men had to be the best of the best. As a boy, I wondered if I could be like them.

But, in looking at such things from the past, we also have to have the perspective of the past. In my case, I was just a young man from a small town in northwest Oklahoma. It would not have seemed possible at such a young age to think of oneself as ever becoming well known or respected. Most of us adolescent males just barely out of puberty knew that it was all we could do just to try and make amends for the sins of our own adolescence. And I was dead certain I had born my share of iniquity.

Oh, it wasn’t that I did anything different than any other healthy red-blooded American boy. It’s just that almost everything I did could be counted as a sin by someone else’s moral standard. Back in my time, you didn’t have to actually commit a sin to be guilty. If you just thought about committing one, you were a sinner. And most sins of which I had any knowledge I rather enjoyed thinking about.

Unfortunately, it was also the bane of boys in small town America of my era to be constantly judged by stern-faced righteous looking old women who wore a perpetual scorn of mistrust upon their countenance, which seemed amplified by a pronounced, raised eyebrow which they quickly maneuvered into place whenever we came into their presence! The matriarchs of any small community had a way of knowing that men will be boys for the longest time before they finally become men. Their role in life, I think, was to keep us feeling guilty enough about being guys to compel us to hurry along the process of our own growing up so we could grow out of all the fun of life, and simply become men whom they could then control.

This brings me to the point of this rambling. Regardless of how we have been programmed in our past to learn, obey, and follow the cultural rules in which we were raised, part of the process of taking on the responsibility of manhood is to become aware that we are the same kind of men our forefathers were. Perhaps the moral training of the women in our life molded us to become good men. But we have all of the same qualities the generation before us had. We have the same passions, the same faults, the same shortcomings, the same biases, the same prejudices as our predecessors. We are, after all, only men. As the poet said, there is so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it ill behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.

In the overall scheme of things, what our past represents is really of little importance. If we feel that somehow we are not as worthy as the men who came before us, there is only one thing to do. We start making different choices about how we live and think and relate to others. Just as we are who we are today because of the choices we made yesterday; likewise, tomorrow will be the result of today’s choices. As the author Mary Crowley so rightly said; “We are free up to the point of choice, then the choice controls the chooser.” What she meant is that once we choose, our choices control us.

As we grow into responsible manhood, we have a higher duty to look after our own behavior in such a way that we will bring credit to ourselves and to our gender. We become the examples that younger men watch when they are deciding what choices they are going to make as they begin their life as men. We are supposed to be the right kind of men for them. Our hope should be that we will ourselves become the greatest generation—great by what we know; and great by how we practice what we know.

It is largely about commitment. What we commit ourselves to become will change what we are and will make us different men. It is not the past, after all, but the future that conditions us—what we do with what lies in front of us is far more important than anything that has already happened to us.

As men of integrity and honor and nobility, there is but one question to ask. What are our commitments going to be tomorrow? The day after? Where are we going? What are we going to do? Who are we going to be? What example will we set? What legacy will we leave?

These are our choices. Our choices will become our life.

And if we want to check ourselves as to the rightness of our own example, we need only to look back over our shoulders and commit to become the kind of men we thought we once knew. Perhaps unknowingly, those men have taught us that it is seldom who we are, but who others perceive us to be that defines our life. We behave in the manner that is congruent with the behavior of those we admire the most so that we can serve the role of modeling the behavior of those who will come after us.

This makes today a remarkable day in each of our lives. It is such a moment that, if we commit ourselves to the meaning of honor and integrity as men, then providence will move with us. And everything will change. As the poet so eloquently said:

"Be such a man, and live such a life,
that if every man were such as you,
and every life a life like yours,
this earth would be God’s Paradise."

The Path Less Traveled Makes All the Difference

2007-03-22T17:22:00.000-05:00

I have invested a good portion of my life as an active Freemason. It is the oldest fraternal society in the world. In fact, it predates all fraternal orders created in the past 300 years. That’s a long tenure of service to humankind and the ideals of manhood. Freemasonry has impacted more than 30 continuous generations of men.

It is not easy for people outside the Craft to understand anything about our fraternal teachings. We have always been a very private society. Indeed, we are a part of the ancient mysteries tradition. We are a secret organization for men, and we have always been so. Our information is closely held; for it can only be transmitted to those who have conscientiously prepared themselves to receive it.

For this reason, we never concern ourselves with exposures of our rituals and ceremonies. Without the proper tools one can no more interpret that which is allegorical than a craftsman can build a house of strength and beauty. Freemasonry, like personal growth and spiritual enlightenment, is a uniquely personal path.

Freemasonry is known as a quiet organization because it was never intended that it have a public face. This simply means that, as fraternal men, while we are to be out in the world actively working to solve the problems of our communities, state, and nation, we are to be doing these things as individuals, and not in the name of Masonry. Yet, Freemasonry itself is not apathetic, but inclined toward individual action. It provides the catalyst for individual inspiration. Freemasonry teaches men to lead a positive and productive life. It admonishes us to live an active social life. Thus, it is a guide for self and societal improvement. It needs no other reward.

We improve ourselves in the name of Masonry so we can improve society in the name of our thoughts and actions. It is this balance, or harmony, that comes from self and social improvement that makes us good examples for others to follow.

Yet, as Freemasons, we also realize one of the challenges the fraternal movement encounters in today’s fast-paced world is how to overcome the perception that our teachings are no longer relevant. The current model for success in life has little to do with what one knows or can do for himself; but it has everything to do with what others see him doing for the larger good. People pay attention to the organizations men belong to when, in their mind, those organizations make a difference in the world. This has always been the central dilemma of our private group.

It is hard for today’s men to invest in the meanings of things, or in the interpretative process required to assign meaning to their life. This is precisely what the degrees or lessons of Masonry are intended to do. And these offer no easily interpretable contemporary context or associations which will enable a man to immediately apply Masonry’s lessons to life. Instead, it adheres to a more reliable and enduring paradigm—one that has met the test of time. In so doing, it addresses a remarkably significant current societal dilemma.

In the contemporary experience of manhood, one is seldom made aware that the achievements of today are the sum of the thoughts of yesterday; that tomorrow’s accomplishments will be based on today’s ideas; that knowledge has an enduring validity. We live in an information-based society which offers little hope for making decisions based on the accumulation of knowledge. Yet, wisdom can only be derived as the product of information and knowledge working together.

Today, it seems almost natural for a man to think forward to the future. It is much harder for him to understand how the past influences it. In the larger picture, it is seldom where we are today that counts. It is where we have been and how where we have been influences where we are going that has the larger impact on our lives.

The teachings of Masonry lay very important groundwork for erecting a path of life that connects the past and present to the future. Here is how it works.

Each of us is taking as well as making a path. There is an important difference. It is easy to simply be on a path. If we do nothing more than live and breathe, we will take a path which will become our life. The problem is that this path alone may not lead us to happiness and fulfillment.

This path may be the path of job and work, going through steps and grades of a pay plan for 45 years, only to retire and wonder if we have personally made any real difference with our life.

It may be the path of home and family, going through the rituals of husbanding and fathering, and wondering in our old age if we really did set a good example.

It may be the path of faith, attending religious services for a lifetime and wondering all along how we know that our chosen faith speaks the truth.

It may be the path of isolation, failing to be involved in service to others or failing to make real friends who can bring meaning and fulfillment to our life.

If we are fortunate, these paths may well bring us financial reward or the security of a home, family, and a spiritual life. But they can also lead to disillusionment. That is why it is so important we also make a path for ourselves while we are taking the usual path of others. For it is the path we make for ourselves that teaches, rather than carries, us.

The degrees (stages of growth and insight) in Masonry enable men to create such a path. Our degrees have been around a long time. They were written for the moral, ethical, social and spiritual interests of men.

The teachings of Masonry give us the tools to become better informed, to be more conscious of what is really important, to be aware of what the past gives to us, and to realize how we can use this information in positive and successful ways, thus facilitating our path to understanding, wisdom, and personal fulfillment.

In the overall scheme of things, Freemasonry teaches that the answers to the great issues in life are within us. We can accomplish remarkable things through deep understanding and the sharing of our wisdom with others. When we pass along these many valuable lessons in ways that resonate with the contemporary men in our society, then the past meets the present, and the new path——or, rather, the old path of truth and right and understanding——is laid for the future.

The new man of today’s fraternity can benefit immeasurably by taking and making such a path. Just as the senior Brother is reminded of and intuitively understands what has illuminated his own life, his own path.

Freemasonry is about path-making. It is indeed relevant work for our time—and all time.

The Disharmony of Spiritual Change

2007-03-22T15:05:00.000-05:00

I want to think there is a global movement afoot that is bringing spiritual principles to bear on the disharmony of our times. There are certainly hopeful signs that we are beginning to see a period of correction in the collective consciousness that is moving the world to a God-centered kind of unity. But, the same signs give me fear.

It is true that people from many cultures are trying to get together in spirit. There are certainly more spirit-based programs than ever before. There are more universal centers of worship than at any other time in our history. And the "old information" is back and more available than ever. It would seem this data and effort together might move our world to a more loving status.

But, the problem is there are also some bad signs--more violence, more wars, more gangs, more drugs, more hate--less values, less integrity, less tolerance, less compassion, less love. It deeply concerns me.

Everything is moving about the edges of the circle of progress. There is no center from which the real light of Grace is emanating. I fear the result may be the wrong kind of awakening. When I look at history, every awakening we have had has been a move toward more fundementalism or orthodoxy--which has created a more intolerant world. And that has always led to revolution.

In my view, some organization(s) will have to surface which can direct our culture to a different kind of equilibrium. And the guidance will have to be given to our next generation of adults--today's youth. The central problem I see is that we are rapidly becoming a cross-cultural society. Our country is receiving immigrants in record numbers. Many of these people come to us with deep ethnic divisions, age-old religious conflicts, and long hostilities to the point of fragmentation, even within single nations. They have no perspective of, or interest in, cross-cultural understanding. Yet such understanding is crucial to our survival. And that kind of understanding won't just happen on its own. It must be learned. Reconciliation between and among those who have migrated to America won't just occur. It must be learned. And both of these things will require that toleration be learned and practiced. If it's not, then I fear we cannot keep our national identity.

I have seen it in some of the foreign students I have met. They don't understand my personal values, or the culture in which I have been raised as an American. In some cases, I have even seen attitudes which represent a kind of personal intolerance. For instance, I have found male attitudes especially demoralizing to women. It's very much like the red-neck mindset we have in our own country (the old "find her, feed her, fuck her, and forget her" thing--which debases the integrity of womanhood).

So, there may be cultural and personal intolerance in the making.

And, even worse, is religious intolerance. And it is beginning to sweep the country. I'm not sure it can be stopped! The religious right is attempting to legislate how we can think on things, and what our children can read. Haven't we been here, before?!!

The problem with any form of religious zeal is that it shifts people from reason to emotion. Televangelists and right wing preachers are successful not because they have any real credentials; but because they understand the passion they can create from heated devotion and radical enthusiasm. They become convinced they have saved themselves and, having done so, think they have every right to then judge everyone else on the state of their souls. History has clearly proven that any time a charismatic leader decides he has the single answer to salvation, and then declares that the world must come to his same conclusion; will lose all sense of ethics to achieve his mission. He will eventually become an accuser who resents tolerance, abhors intellectual activity, and will literally lead his following to more darkness by preferring schism, hate, and separation; to understanding, reason, and love.

This is a sad litany, but I fear that those of us who "feel there is something in the air" are far more likely to find the above kind of change than the more beautiful and sacred spiritual awakening that our souls are crying for us to experience.

In the midst of all this, one of the truly wonderful things I feel about myself is that I don't confuse the path with the destination. I am on that mystical journey which drives me into myself--to that sacred flame at my center.

My goal is to find the path which allows me to see the flame (have the insight), and live the mystery.

When I do, I will be warmed and ignited beyond the physical. I will have found my connection to the Source...

...and then I will have learned how to live!

Some Thoughts on Faith

2007-03-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

Some Thoughts on Faith. . .

[Note--the following musing is not the result of a single setting in front of a computer monitor. I wrote this over a period of time as a continuing dialogue with myself as I was contemplating the validity of my own faith system. I had just completed a rather exhaustive reading of the world's religions, and the pagan beginnings to religious thought; and I was discouraged by the church's seemingly impotent understanding of its role in aiding people to know the basis of their faith, and what the overall religious experience is meant to do for humanity. I cannot say I have completed this work; but it represents my present perspective on my own confession of faith as regards the sacred in my life. I remind the reader that the words are mine; and, while I love'em, they may not represent truth, or wisdom, to you. So, take what seems to have meaning to you, and accept the balance as the musings of one who perhaps thinks too much about these things --Robert G. Davis]

The French author, Voltaire (a freemason), once said, "If there were no God it would be necessary to invent him." It is the view of many intellectuals in our modern society that that is precisely what man has done.

It can hardly be debated that organized religion has created its own versions of God many times over. I think perhaps the reason it is so difficult to personally decide if one is a Christian is because the church has, through the past 2,000 years, invented Jesus. And. regardless of which religion we may belong, since most of us simply follow the faith of our fathers--without ever really studying the relevancy or reliability of that faith--it is remarkable that we can proclaim on the subject at all.

The great question posed by Pilate, "What is Truth?", has always burned at my psyche, and I have spent a considerable part of my adult life wondering about the answer. While I now know that it is not in the provision of man to know, I still feel fairly certain about some things. One of them is that everyone has a religious experience. We are all connected to history; to the history of ideas, to the experience and ways of our ancestors. And, while we have largely desacralized our modern world, we have never totally succeeded in doing away with religious behavior in our lives. Many of our daily or yearly rituals were born in religion. I profess to be a Christian, and Christianity has validity in my mind and heart. But my declaration of faith is built upon Christ as metaphor; and is not tied to the dogma and doctrines of that faith. I am also a Buddhist because Buddhism provides me the understanding to live a life in harmony with all things.

I freely admit that my own faith has little or nothing to do with the function of church. I see little hope for the future of the established church. I'm not angry at the church, although I could make a strong argument it has many faults--not the least of which is its own failure or refusal to understand its mission. But for all its pettiness, its corruption, its emotional conflicts, and its own negligence in establishing an adequate understanding of the message of Christianity--still, it provides an important societal function which enables people to discover that their own life can be improved; can be transcended.

Perhaps the best way to look at the church is to see it as a space different from the ground on which it stands. It symbolically represents a place where passage from one world to another becomes possible. When one opens the door to the interior of the church, he crosses a threshold between the two worlds in which he lives. This threshold then becomes the boundary between his profane and his religious life. It represents an initiatory passage from one form of life to another. Every human being needs such a sacred retreat, or precinct, which enables him to transcend his own profane world. It is in such places that communication with the gods is made possible. It is in such centers that man becomes centered on the moral duties of his life. And if such a retreat space did not exist, the world in which we live would ultimately have little meaning. To the extent the church fulfills its mission as a sacred space, or retreat, for man, we should strive to help it improve. But, like in so many other things, what needs improvement is the model in which its message is delivered so that it can work in our lives.

We already know that, if that model is not improved, our modern society will create its own replacement for it. We have already seen the beginning of this in the proliferation of many little sects and movements; all seeking to offer a more meaningful path to a feeling of sacredness in the life experience. The reason for all this experimentation is that we each need to create this sacred space for ourselves. By whatever ritualistic way we construct it, it reproduces for us the work of the gods. It is important to understand that a fulfilled life is not really possible without an opening to the transcendent. We simply cannot live happily in chaos. So, I think in evaluating our own concept or understanding of faith, it is important that we look at religion and the church as two different ideas; two separate things. The church is a consecrated authority, but it too often fails its religious mission by allowing itself to become more of a human institution than a godly one. One should be careful not judge whether it is valid for him to be a believer based on his feelings about the church alone.

In my own reflection on these things, I took a closer look at the church itself because my biggest disappointment with religion has always been in the apparent failing of this most significant symbol for it. Assuming for the moment that we can agree that the message of Jesus has validity, then the central problem is that "organized" religion is too indecisive, and is therefore ultimately a rejection of the real and pure message of Christ. There is no divine rationale for a divided church. Yet, churches and denominations divide themselves almost daily. And every time they do, they reject the message. It is a sad thing to have to admit that there is much in the history of the church that represents rejection. I can give some examples of a few such major church ideas which represent the rejection of the message.

Triumphalism, which puts confidence in the power and the splendor of the church rather than in the power and love of God; is a rejection. Parochialism, which is too willing to prevent the Spirit from inspiring those who aren't, say, Baptist, or Catholic; is a rejection. Dishonesty, which tries to obscure the human failings of the church organization; is a rejection. Authoritarianism, the worst of all evils, which attempts to compel people to be virtuous by coercion; is a rejection. Stereotyping and scapegoating, which blame other people for what is wrong in the world in the name of God; is a disgusting perversion. Right wing Christian fundamentalism today is centered around just such a mindset.

Pietism is a failure because it confuses the meaning of commitment. Zealotry is a failure because it makes us think we can demonstrate our commitment by forcing a commitment on others. Rationalism is a failure because it ultimately refuses to admit the possibility of the intervention of God in the person of Jesus. The New Age movement is a failure because it confuses being spiritual with penetrating the root questions which all men must ask.

So, is there no wonder there is a crisis of faith in our times?

All of the above are an evasion of faith. We use so many masks and props in the formal ceremonies of Christianity that many folks are no longer sure there is a "wedding feast"--and certainly are not sure they want to go to it! It's a real shame.

Now, given all this discouragement, why and how can I claim to be a Christian?

To me, the Truth lies in the symbolism of Jesus and the gospel story. I will try to communicate to you my understanding about the Myth of Jesus. But, it's not an easy concept to interpret, so bear with me.

It's important to think about Jesus in mythic terms. As you know, to say Jesus is a myth is not to say he is a legend. As Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist, has so aptly taught us, the mythic image enables us to realize that the life and message of Jesus was an attempt to demonstrate the inner meaning of the universe and of human life. Religion, in the context of myth, becomes a set of symbols which provide us a "meaning system" that can answer our fundamental questions about how to interpret the universe. It's critical that we affirm religion in this sense, because to not do so would mean we could not interpret the meaning of problems like death. To not do so would immerse the world in chaos because there would be no motivation for the erudition of the sacred in our life.

How we create our world becomes the archetype for every creative thing we do, by whatever plane of reference we choose. Every construction of our own cosmology becomes a paradigmatic model for society. When our archetypes are defined only by our contemporary human activities, we fail to include the essential basis for truth-the archetypal image has to also meet the test of past generations.

I do not choose to limit my universe to the contemporary human experience alone. History has given me ample warning to know that, whenever we create our own world, then our own paradigm become its cosmology. Any attack from without, then, becomes a threat to the personal model we have built. Our response is to defend our model, even in its impurity. This constant variance in human interpretation of such things will most assuredly result in chaos.

I must therefore believe that the universe was created by a higher force than man; that man did not construct it, that there is hope that, in living a transcendent life, we can, in fact, resanctify the world as the sacred space it was created by the gods to be. For, to not do so will mean there is no hope for happiness. We would be thrown into the reality that time is our only existential dimension. It is linked to our life; hence, it has a beginning and end, which is death. In such a world view, we move only toward our own annihilation. I need to feel that what I do does not always represent a human experience alone, without any possibility of a divine presence. I need to believe that time is more than recorded history; that it can be created over and over again. I need to hope that there is a therapeutic purpose of which is to begin life again. Since life cannot be repaired, it surely can be repeated. This is my paradigmatic model of cosmology, and one in which I believe to be the model for all creation.

The point of any faith is not that man believes in God, or that every man requires the sacred in his life, or even that every man agonizes over these kinds of problems. The point is rather that most of us need some sort of answers to the questions of whether life has meaning; of how good people live; of whether good triumphs over evil; of whether we are capable of establishing relationships with God, or if an unwordly connection is necessary to staying the moral path. Our religious and/or spiritual symbol system is the only thing which enables us to interpret these questions for ourselves.

So, in the model of Christianity, since Jesus is the central symbol, his story becomes a symbol system designed to answer our questions about meaning in our life.

We must accept or reject the story (or message) of Jesus on the basis of whether or not it answers these most fundamental questions. To me, this is the real test of validity of faith. If we reject the message, then we must also ask if there is a different symbol system that will enable us to find the answers. If we accept it, then it must also lead us to believe that everything will be all right in the end. It is on this ground that we accept or reject Jesus--not on matter of papal infallibility, or the virgin birth, or the existence of angels, or whether or not the church has anything relevant to say about social reform, etc.

The reason I accept Jesus and believe in him is because I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, and thus is, himself, every man and woman. It is suggested even in the beginning. Human nature did not begin with Adam, but existed forever in Jesus. the Archetypal Man, the eternal Christ. The incarnation was God's commentary in Genesis, "Let us make humankind in our own image, and according to our likeness..."

You see, from the beginning there had been a second person in the Trinity--a Christ whose nature included the man-type. The plural form is used to represent the male-female principle of the creative form. Also the Trinity--God, the father; God, the son; and God, the Holy spirit.

The likeness does not imply a physical similarity to God, but that we are a reflection of God's glory. This concept is explained in the sephirah of the Kabbalah (which, although Jewish, is the best description of the nature of God I have ever found). Man refers not to the physical, but to the intellect. The origin of the word "man" means "mind." God created "mind" in its own image. So, the Divine archetype formed our intelligent nature--our ability to reason, understand, imagine, and think--all attributes of the Divine Intelligence, God--the Three in One. To me, the power and truth in this idea is extraordinary to contemplate. I have found it in all religious symbol systems the world has ever known.

And this idea that Christ is an agent in creation is confirmed in several scriptural passages (Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 1:10, Philippians 2:6, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 3:11, 1 Corinthians 15:24-28). But it becomes clear in the Gospel of John--the last of the early biographies of Jesus. The prologue begins with the words, "In the beginning was the Word" (Greek, meaning Logos, the creative and controlling principle of the universe)--that which turned the void (chaos) into order (cosmos). It is called the En-Sof in the Kabbalah. The significance for Christians of John's prologue is his suggestion that Jesus and Logos are somehow one, that what took human form as Jesus had always been ultimate reality. The creation myth then, incorporates this new sense of Jesus' divinity.

Christ is the ideal, representative man (incidentally, Adam is the concrete, imperfect type of the archetype). In Christ, the pure archetype is imparted in man. As Christ is the image of the Invisible, so we are all transformed into the same image. It's not too much of a stretch for me to visualize that God (an ineffable idea) used the human form to communicate the essence of Its message to us--which is Love. And, without providing the way in which this message could be transformed into human terms, there is no way we could have ever understood it.

Since God is undefinable, it seems necessary to me that It should most appropriately have used a vehicle which would have been knowable and capable of being understood by our kind. To believe that Jesus was the first-born of all creation, that creation is affirmed through him, that he himself was in the beginning, and through him the vehicle for the meaning of God was expressed as we are capable of understanding it, is to accept the message of Christianity.

Because of Jesus' journey on earth, we all carry within us the "plan of the Perfect," as Plato said. Thus, to believe that God would manifest Its essence in man through Jesus, means that that same spark of the Divine is also within all of us. As Jesus was God, so we are all God, and capable of the same glory. Of course, this is also the Royal Secret in Freemasonry. And I believe this with all my heart. If you can accept this, then all that is left to understand is the message of Jesus. Because everything else in the New Testament is borrowed from other, older traditions.

I think there is yet another failure of the church. It has always feared (and refused) to teach us from whence it came. Yet, Biblical scholars and historians of religion know that the story of Christianity is a synthesis of beliefs and doctrines which had their origins in other lands and among various peoples. They were all combined to make the gospel of Jesus. I think this is what it means when they say Christianity is a world-affirming religion--not that it is prevalent in all world societies.

I can give you some examples:

a) The use of water for baptism, the savior born of a true virgin mother, the vivid concept of heaven and hell, the belief in demons, the universal judgment--all derived from Persia as a contribution of Zoroastrianism.

b) To the Catholic faith, the trial by ordeal, use of excommunication, prohibition against conversations with heretics, pilgrimages to shrines, severe sanctions against remarried women, degrees of legality in marriage, scripture revealed to official hierarchy alone--all derived from Brahmanism.

c) We must practice brotherhood, charity; before God all humanity is equal, we must love our enemies, rid our minds of anger, turn the other cheek; there must be a conversion to see salvation; religion should be separate from civil government--all of these tenets came from Buddhism.

d) The last judgment; the immortality of the soul; communion with bread and wine; that only through a mediator between God and man can salvation be possible; that Sunday is the Sabbath day; that December 25 is Christ's birthday--all of these came from the Rite of Mythra.

Egypt gave the world the God-man savior. Persia filled us with fears of hell, the hope of heaven, and the last judgment. The Jews gave us the priest-state. The Buddhists gave us renunciation, which made sex, family, wealth, labor, and comfort into crimes. The Greeks gave us democracy. The Essenes were Pythagoreans who provided the religious synthesis which Jesus absorbed--the God-man sacrifice and resurrection.

Therefore, since so much of the Bible is not original, and its words not literal, then the important question to ask is: What is the common element in all these traditions that brings validity to us? The answer is that religion is the study of myth. Man has two ways of expressing meaning. He can do it by using concepts and ideas which he develops himself, or he can use symbols and images through stories which convey meaning to him. In fact, one becomes wise by using both rational thinking and symbolic thinking. The stories of the Bible are not all meant to be literal; many of them convey a hidden meaning which direct us to investigate the darkest and brightest sides of our own nature. The synthesizing emphasis of all the mythic images outlined above is that all saviors, past, present, and future, were incarnate gods. This is the central reason I can accept the Jesus myth as an affirming testament of faith. Through the mythic interpretation of the stories represented by Jesus’ life, I can discover myself. I need only study their meanings. And if the traditions and belief systems of Christianity also offer me ways that I can associate them with all the other mythic systems in history, then all that's left is the message. And, in a human sense, the message is equally important.

And the message of Jesus is Love. The point is as relevant today, as it ever was. Unless we believe in the Supreme Being, the Heavenly Father, the Really Real, who has created in us, in our genetic map, the Divine ability to love to a point of unworldly generosity, we human beings would simply otherwise be incapable of being generous in our love of others. What Jesus is saying is that unless men are prepared to commit themselves to the vision of a divine love that he came to preach, they will not be able to love one another.

Selective compassion, which is so common to all of us, has nothing to do with the message. We must strive to see the world from other's perspectives. The white racist must strive to understand the black's militancy--the black must try to understand the racist's fear. The old can't write off the most repulsive of the youth culture--and youth must understand that the generation gap is not a virtue, but a barrier. Scapegoating, no matter how popular a human activity, is not permitted in the message of Jesus. We are only villains to ourselves. There is no such thing as a "little bit of hatred." Any cause which allows just a little bit of wrong to infiltrate it will ultimately be destroyed by it. This message is taught so often in the degrees of the Scottish Rite, which is a ritual and mythological system which attempts to discover the synthesis in religious forms, and, thus, the universality of religion..

Jesus was saying that we must be stubborn about the point of unconditional love. His message is absolutely meaningless unless it produces men and women who respect and reverence their fellow citizens.

If we accept the gospel of Jesus, we reject nothing that is good in the world. We are to go about our lives with no fear. What we do is much less likely to distinguish us from others than the way we do it. The way we do what we do is the way of the man who has found the meaning of existence. This is the message. Accept it, and you accept Jesus. The details, the opinions and authority of the church, and the community of Christians; none of these really matter.

If we do not see many Christians whose relationship with their fellows is a reflection of the message of love as told in the sermon on the mount, or as reflected in the good Samaritan story, the reason is not that Christianity has failed. The reason is simply that there haven't been very many Christians.

The church doesn't matter. Those who persist in judging the message by membership and leadership of the church, have set up criteria which Jesus explicitly rejected. The best the church can do is to facilitate the message. Again, it offers a symbolic sacred space that enables man to understand that he lives in two separate worlds and he has an inherent duty to connect his being to both. Everything else about the church is historical development. The Christian faith hangs upon a historical revelation. That revelation is an incarnate god in historical time that guarantees the validity of all older religious symbol systems. The history of religion only adds new meanings to the symbol, but it cannot destroy its symbolic structure.

The resurrection doesn't matter--it's from an older tradition, validating the myth. It can't be confirmed by historical fact. Even biblical scholars agree it is too much a leap of faith that a human being can be risen from the dead. The meaning of the resurrection, and not the fact, is what is important. And the meaning of the resurrection is a transcended life.

Again, it is all symbol. It represents a greater event. It is the vindication of the kingdom, a symbol that nothing can stop immortality. It is God's love that is the event, the cause; and the new, or transformed life, is the effect. We need only to believe in love to accept the gift of a new life. The resurrection is merely the event that vindicates the message of love.

And our focus must be on the whole message.

To follow Jesus is to think of ourselves as freely and generously offering our lives in the service of others. To live respected, so that we may die regretted. Our life should be seen as an exercise in gift-giving. The question Jesus would have us ask ourselves is, are we giving hope and love to the many people around us? We are called to give life--to give life to others by giving our own lives to them. The idea is to teach others how to love by the power of our love. It's a pilgrimage of the conscious acceptance of the Divine will.

I think it is valid to be on the hero quest with Jesus. His is the journey of all heroes. It is the same journey we all seek. It is the journey we also teach and strive to understand in the world's great myths; and in our own symbol systems. Don't worry about the theological details, organizational structures, or historical verifications. The issue is the same today as always. Do we want to go on the pilgrimage? Do we wish to trust the Absolute? Do we believe the claim of Jesus to be one of the guides for the pilgrimage?

In the end, religion is a quest for self knowledge. It is a hope for immortality in which every new birth, every life lived, is closer to the Source in understanding. It is an insight that human life is not felt as a brief appearance in time between one nothingness and another. Life is preceded by a pre-existence and continues in a post-existence. And, while little is known about these two transcendent stages of human life, the history of religion has shown us they are known to exist. Hence, for religious man, death does not put a final end to life. It is but another modality of human existence.

Even more, science has confirmed that all of this is, in fact, ciphered in the cosmic rhythm of things. We need only to decipher what the cosmos says in its many modes of being, and we will understand the mystery of life. This is why both the study of religion and science are important. The two together provide clarity beyond doubt that the cosmos is a living organism, which renews itself over and over. As our brains continue to develop into a collective consciousness with all other beings, we will come to understand that consciousness and intelligence derive from a mathematical root which has always been known in the cosmos. The mystery of our own inexhaustible appearance of life is bound up with the rhythmical renewal of the cosmos.

Since I plan on participating in the unraveling of this mystery, and being part of the rhythm of my own immortal transcendence, it seems to me that to strive to live with love, balance, and harmony in my life is to work at being a microcosm of the infinite macrocosm. When I place myself into the perspective of being a religious man, believing that the world exists because it was created by the gods, and that the existence of the world itself "means" something, "wants to say" something, that the world is neither mute, nor opaque, that it is not an inert thing without purpose or intelligence--then, for me, the cosmos "lives" and "speaks" to me. I form a part of the divine creation, and I find in myself the same sanctity that I recognize in the universe. My life is homologized to it. Then, as a divine work myself; the cosmos becomes my paradigmatic image of human existence. And that is the only paradigm that will ultimately free me and my world from chaos.

So, as long as I believe in a god-created universe (and I must because I cannot see the almost infinite number of complex life forms organizing themselves from random chaos), that order in the cosmos was pre-arranged by a supernatural power and intellect, that such power is manifested in me so that I can ultimately have cosmic awareness and existence myself. It is my mind which is eternal, and since none of these things can yet be known in my present reality because my brain is still evolving, then it is not irrational that I have faith--faith that I am a part of the cosmos, that it is not bigger than me, but is connected to me and includes the equation which will eternally guide me to improvement. Of all the faith systems in the world, the model offered by the Jesus myth offers for me the necessary metaphysical connection to lead me to cosmic happiness, order, and harmony. Jesus works for me because he is both historical and divine. Through him, I am able to access that sacred space; he is the threshold, or door, which links me to my spiritual side.

To follow Jesus as a model for an incarnate God, and as a reflection of us, is to recognize our true selves in what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul's high adventure"--a journey into our own unknown to discover our relationship with the overall significance of things.

To me, it is a pilgrimage worth making. And that has made all the difference.