"Get out."

On February 6th, it was reported in the Hamilton Spectator, a local paper in Ontario, that three Lodge buildings in Caledonia, Cayuga and Hagersville, were defaced by vandals with hate speech. The article states that it may have been teenage vandals but they are not sure. The vandals wrote on the side of the building in Hagersville the words, "F*** your Secrets. We don’t want you anymore. Get out.”

"Get out." No matter how well we do public relations, there still remains in this world some amount of anger towards our gentle Craft. Although it is possible that this could have been teenagers, I am convinced that it was an adult. What could drive a person, an adult, to deliver this kind of hateful message? I really can't answer that question.

When I entered my Lodge, I knew there were Anti-Masons. I have been studying Political Science for years and knew the story of the Anti-Masonic Party. But I really have never met an "Anti" and I can't understand the anger that is aimed towards us. Perhaps the vandal was a former member, maybe he has a religious belief about us or he perhaps could be incapacitated.

As I described in an earlier post, when I speak with the public, I try to explain Masonry as fully as I can. Although I am not sure what to say exactly, I try to explain that we have been members of the community for years. We do good works for our members and the community. Many of the great men in the world have been Masons. Sadly, it seems that although we try to help people understand who we are, there is always someone who believes the conspiracy theories.

Even though I am sad that this event happen and my thoughts are with my brothers in Ontario, I think we can survive events like this. We are strong, this band of brothers and we must soldier on, never looking back when someone attempts throw us off our path. I am certain that the brothers of St. John's Lodge No.35, St. Andrew's Lodge No. 62, Enniskillen Lodge No. 185 and Hiram Lodge No.319 will dust themselves off. They have been a part of the community longer than anyone has been alive and will remain indefinitely into the future. We will not "get out."

What Should a Lodge Website Look Like?

Brother Greg Stewart over at the Masonic Traveler blog inspired me to think about Freemasonry on the web. I have decided to focus on one very particular aspect of e-Masonry (a term I hate), the Lodge website, in particular, the bare bones basic of what a Lodge website should have.

I have been pondering this question after I began to look at different Lodge websites. The quality and style varies completely from Lodge to Lodge, Grand Lodge to Grand Lodge. However, I thought it might be helpful for me to list what I think are the most important elements that a Lodge should include when creating a website.

1) A Welcoming Homepage

Lodges should strive to create a welcoming beginning for the curious searcher. One of the first elements that a person sees should be an impressive picture. It could be a picture of the Lodge Room, the exterior of the Lodge building, or even a video made by a Lodge brother about the Lodge. Also, when the homepage comes up, don't have music playing, it is incredibly annoying. I would also avoid old style HTML pages as they look outdated and are incredibly hard to update which is important in this fast changing world. It is essential that a person can navigate to nearly everywhere on the front page. Remember that the homepage is not a welcome mat but the entryway. We want people to feel comfortable the second they find us.

2) Event Calendar

The event calendar is essential for keeping brothers aware of the going-ons in the Lodge. It is important to remember that the website should be informative to both those from outside the Lodge as well as to brothers within the Lodge. The event calendar should be easily available, perhaps even on the front page. An event calendar is also helpful for brothers that are not a part of the Lodge by giving them an idea of when they can visit the Lodge and what to expect when they get there.

3) History and About Us

It is important that we tell the story of our Lodges. Every Lodge has a story, a story of when it was formed, by whom, famous members, interesting facts, etc. It is important that we tell the story and not let someone else do that for us. These stories become a single piece of the larger story of Freemasonry. It is important that they be made known.

4) Officer List

The Lodge website should list the officers of the Lodge. The reason for this is the same as the event calendar, brothers need to know who to contact if they have been gone for a while. It also allows those brothers in the line to give information back to the brothers about who they are.

5) Blog

I am a blogger so I have a vested interest in maintaining this most efficient way to communicate. That being said, a blog is invaluable in forwarding the immediate messages to the brothers or providing up to the minute news about the Lodge. It is easy to set-up and adding new entries to a blog is fast. Blogs allow for communications between newsletter issues. Blogs don't have the same expectations of journalism and allows for a conversational tone.

6) Third Party Web 2.0 Services

Do you have a lot of photos from the Lodge? Get on Flickr. Flickr allows photostreams to be embedded on to websites. How about a movie made about the Lodge? Just upload the video on to Youtube and embed the video on the site. The best part of all these sites: They're free! Why pay expensive bandwidth costs when Google and Yahoo will do that for you.

7) Contact Form

A contact form should be included to allow brothers, potential petitioners and the public to be able to get into contact with the Lodge. Brothers from out of town may want to visit the Lodge, while potential petitioners may want to meet to get better acquainted with the Fraternity to learn about what we do. It is also important that we give an opportunity to the public to speak to us about an event we may want to be a part of in the community, or perhaps someone has a question about a deceased brother. We need that buy-in with the community to again be relevant.

8) Online Petition

This element I am sure will cause the most discord, but I believe that petitions should be available online. It needs to be noted that the petition is only one part of the initiation process. In fact, in Minnesota, a brother needs two brothers to sign his petition to be considered to be eligible for the degrees. The petition section and the contact section should function in tandem, providing the potential candidate with the petition to read and a way to get into contact with the Lodge to be met by brothers of the Lodge. In the new era of Freemasonry, more brothers will be arriving without knowing someone who is a Mason. In my case, it was my grandfather that was a Mason who got me involved in Freemasonry and my father joined through me. However, it is more often than not that a brother will have no connection to the Lodge and very likely not knowing a Mason at all. Offering the petition online allows the potential brother to have control over his destiny in taking the path to Freemasonry.

Now this list is not in any particular order and I think all of them are important in improving one of the great communication tools that Lodges can use. Websites give Lodges and Grand Lodges the ability to define who we are and what we do and allows those potential brothers with no connection to Freemasonry to finally have a way into the Fraternity.

"What Do You Guys Do???"

As many of you who watch my Twitter stream may have seen, I planned and worked the Kids ID booth at the Farmington Expo on Saturday, January 31st. Kids ID is a program where we take height and weight measurements, fingerprints and photos and give the photo disk and info sheet to the parents to take home. During our time there, we, at the table, received a common question, "Who are you guys?" and "What do you guys do?" Normally, I am never for a lack of words but in this case, I was.

The person who asked was a woman in her thirties who worked across the street from the Lodge. She had described that she had seen our red door and was wondering what the heck we do. So I stated that we give money to various charities, including the Cancer Center at the U and the local committee on community charity but she wanted to know what we "do".

As Masons, we are given a canned response to the question of what Masonry is: "a beautiful system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." But this is frankly not really expositive of anything and makes the questioner feel like we are either being evasive or condescending. So we can then turn to Mackey who stated that "Freemasonry is not a system of morality, either its Speculative form or its Operative form, and was never intended to be, but is a fraternity or brotherhood of men of which the grand idea is work." (Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Part 3, "Ethics and Morals") So what we gave as an answer jives with this definition but the definition still lacks clarity.

So, here I stand as a Mason with an identity problem. I can talk to brothers about Freemasonry, guys who want to be Masons, even my wife and my mother who can't be Masons, yet I find it very difficult to explain who we are and what we do to people who cannot be Mason in the public. Are we a system of morality, are we a charitable organization, are we "workers", and if so, of what, are we a fraternity, or are we just a group of guys who get together to engage in old stuff.

The dust has settled rather thickly on Freemasonry and as the public seems less knowledgeable of who we are and what we do, we are going to need to find ways to shake that from the Square and Compass or risk becoming a further obscurity to the public.

I felt a little embarrassed that I could give her a better response. For someone like myself, I usually have an answer, even if it isn't right. There must be a better phrase, a better explanation that we can use to describe ourselves and our Craft but I just don't know it yet. I just haven't found the right answer yet.

Pop Culture and Freemasonry: The Last Templar Revisited

In the desire for completeness, my wife pointed out that the Last Templar has been posted on Hulu which I will post below. Sadly, for my readers not living in the United States, Hulu will probably not work. Therefore, I will also post the NBC website for the show here which has the show available for viewing in its entirety. I hope that works for everyone.

Part 1:


Part 2:

“One For All and All For One”

Freemasonry is a society. I know that this phrase is both simple and obvious but it is important to understand this concept. Masonry seeks to create a cohesive band of brothers and joins together many parts of our world. We are viewed as brothers; not based on our race, color, religion, national origin but only that we are members of this band. Freemasonry spans borders and joins brother to brother no matter where he lives. The most important part of all this is that a brother joins into the Lodge, becoming a part of the Lodge and a part of Freemasonry around the world.

A man may ask to become a part of our Fraternity for many reasons. He might know a current brother or is related to a brother. He might seek to be a part of a charitable organization. He may want to learn more about the world. He might want to be a part of a Fraternity and is looking for friends. What is common in all of these is the human connection that must exist for the activity to be effective. Yet, there seems to be an obsessive streak to do everything alone by using the term “self-improvement”.

I understand the statement that we are a self-improvement society. The fact that moral lessons are inculcated in our ritual cannot be ignored but I think the “self” of self-improvement has been given far too much emphasis. Self-improvement is not something you can do by yourself. In Freemasonry, a brother’s character is improved through the interaction with other brothers, whether it is the ritual, helping others or just getting together for coffee (or in my case, tea). We are taught to help each other out by applauding publicly a brother’s successes or quietly admonishing another brother’s missteps. Too often, however, brothers are treated as individuals only instead of being accepted and absorbed into Lodge.

The biggest problem that I see with how new brothers are treated is that we don’t explain to them our expectations as a group. Many Master Masons merely become an individual member of the Lodge. They join and become flies on the wall. We are failing them by not giving them tasks, instructions, in general, by making them included in our shared Lodge. Unfortunately, the solutions to the question of why member retention is so low center around what the new brothers want without any regard to what we want from them.

When I first joined, the sitting Worshipful Master of my Lodge asked me to take part in different Lodge activities. Although I was never required to do anything I didn’t want to do, I was strongly encouraged to take part in as many activities as I could. I was told what I was expected to do for the Lodge. How did this affect me? I became more involved in the Lodge, which, in my opinion, has made me a better brother and a better person. Now, I am at every meeting, participating as fully as I can, trying to help my Lodge and Grand Lodge grow and helping to spread what I believe is the greatest organization the world has ever seen. When someone notices my Masonic ring, I will immediately state that I am brother in Corinthian Lodge #67. I want people to know that I am not just a brother but a brother in my Lodge.

I title this post after the famous axiom of the Musketeers in Alexandre Dumas’ famous series of books as a rallying cry for our brothers. We must remember to seek each other’s guidance, to give good counsel, and to work together to build our great societal structures and improve our communities. We need our brothers to improve ourselves. My advice to new brothers is this (a phrasing original delivered by President Kennedy which I have modified), “Ask not what your Lodge can do for you; ask what you can do for your Lodge.”