What Do Masons Do? (revised) 9/18/07

People who want to know about Masons often ask that question. One of the "pat" answers is that we take "good men and make them better." That is all well and good but how do we do that?

Men have been joining the Masonic fraternity for centuries. (Notice I did not say "from time immemorial. Centuries will do.) They do it for various reasons. One of the reasons is for connectedness. They want to connect with a parent or a grandparent. Their father, grandfather and in many cases great grandfathers were Masons.

Another reason is to participate in a community and "fellowship" with those of a like mind.
On one web site I visited recently the following activities were all listed:

Back To School Fun Fair
Universal Brotherhood Banquet
Fourth of July Parade
Child Identification Program
Cleared a School library for renovation
Grand Lodge visit to Veteran’s Hospital
Feed Athletes at the Special Olympics

If you just looked at that list you might think that the Lodge was a "service club." However, upon further investigation, the Trestleboard reported 12 candidates that were “in the works” or awaiting investigation.

One thing we "do" is to make Masons. For a person to become a Mason he must go through three separate initiation ceremonies which last about an hour and a half each and require the participation of many members. The ceremonies are all done from memory and in most places require him to do a good deal of memory work before he can advance to the next degree. it takes quite an effort on every one's part.

There is a lot more that we can do that we don't always do. Our Grand Lodge has a "Lodge of the Year Program" which you can look at here.Arcadia Lodge has won the "top in state" for that award for the last three years in a row. It is good to be a member here. There are other Lodges that are also excellent. My other Lodge Acanthus in Des Moines is also excellent. Great bunch of guys in both Lodges. Active and both of them have a great Secretary (In case you didn't know I am Secretary for Arcadia).

So, we do "things."  We have activities, sometimes with families, we eat together, we perform initiations, we practice ritual, we visit other Lodges, we hold meetings, etc.  There are more things we could do but basically band together as Brothers who care for each other and lend each other emotional support and in so doing we become better for it.  Could we do the same thing elsewhere?  Of course, but there are so very many reasons that the Masons do it so well.  Centuries of experience has made it so and they do not "rest on their laurels."  Ever since I joined the Masons there have been constant efforts to improve Masonry. Efforts to "make it better" to share what we do with good men who want to join with us in trying to make ourselves and consequently the world a better place.  That is what we "do."

If there was one thing that I think could be improved in both my Lodges it would be the study of Freemasonry and discussion of the Landmarks and the history and "esoterica" of our symbolism. But I guess I could do something about that myself.

Another thing which Arcadia needs to do right now is help our DeMolay Chapter. We are down to about three active members and we really need to get it built back up. I am on the Board and I have been neglecting it as my other Lodge meets the same night. Last night I stayed in Ames to attend DeMolay and the only one who showed up was the DeMolay Dad. Football practice interfered with the meeting. That is always a problem. The schools have scheduled so many activities that it is hard for us to have activities. I remember when we still had Rainbow that school activities were generally the conflict.

Well, I see I am getting off the topic again. I think my posts tend to get to long. I will just refer you to this poem by Brother Rudyard Kipling entitled"The Mother Lodge" in it he says,

We ’adn’t good regalia,
An’ our Lodge was old and bare,
But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
An’ we kep’ ’em to a hair;

I will leave you with two thoughts that may or may not apply to this post:

The chief need of Freemasonry is not to advance the moral standard of Freemasonry, but to bring the morals of Freemasons up to the moral standard of Freemasonry.

You cannot tell how much religion there is in a church by the horse-power of the motors standing in front of it, any more than you can tell how good a Freemason is by the size of the badge he wears upon his lapel.

Tyler-Keystone, August 1923

So I don't know if I have answered the question What Do Masons Do but at least this is a start.

Be Loved, Hugs jcs