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why this confusion in the templeNot By Bread AloneCHAPTER Xdwight l. smithGo all out for materialism. Raise money; spend it. Build temples, institutions. Subsidize, endow. Whatever can be had by writing a check, get it. AN OLD LEGEND tells of an imaginary
conversation in which Satan was taunting
the angels with claims of superiority. The angels announced
proudly that a way had been
found to put evil to flight. "We shall plant lofty ideals and
challenging principles in the
hearts of men," they told him. But Satan only laughed the
louder. "You never can defeat
me that way," he said. "First I shall get men to create
organizations to propagate your
ideals; then they shall establish institutions to express them,
and victory shall be mine!"
It has been quite a long while since I heard my friend, M.W. Dr.
Thomas S. Roy, Past
Grand Master of Massachusetts, relate that legend. I have seen
nothing in the intervening
years to lessen its impact.
"The achievements of yesterday were the results of seeing and using Freemasonry
as a
force, and not just serving it as a form," Dr. Roy went on to
declare. "A force is that
which can be used; a form is that which must be served. The
danger in an organization
such as ours is that while it starts with ideals and principles,
the organization may become
the greatest enemy of those ideals and principles . . . What
happens is that the idea creates
the organization and the organization chokes the idea. We can
become so concerned
about keeping an organization going that we forget the ideas and
ideals that gave it birth.
We begin by letting a great ideal force our thinking and acting
into new channels, and we
end by serving an organization."
JUST WHEN I BEGAN
Even then I was unable to diagnose the illness to my own satisfaction. One day I
said
to a friend of mine, "Why is it that nine Lodge histories out of
every ten, with a thrilling
story to relate, tell almost nothing except to describe the
building of the temple?"
"Because," replied my friend, "most human beings are
materialistic in their thinking,
and Masons are pretty much like other men. They cannot
comprehend anything that
cannot be seen and felt."
Rather sad, I said to myself, because such a philosophy is the very antithesis
of
everything Freemasonry has tried to teach them!
And then one day I discovered the Worshipful Master of at least one Lodge was
thinking on the same subject. First he swore me to secrecy; then
he told me his story. He
had arranged a great homecoming occasion in his Lodge. It was to
begin with a banquet
and conclude with a ball. The ladies were invited. A
high-ranking Masonic leader was
engaged to deliver the address. "The occasion was perfect for a
great inspirational feast,"
the Worshipful Master told me, "but what did our speaker talk
about? He went into great
detail describing a construction program that could have been of
interest only to a
gathering of building contractors, and ended by pleading for
money to finance the job."
NOW, OF COURSE,
Yes, and I never fail to be thrilled to see the great heart of Freemasonry
attempting to
express its benevolent concerns through an institution, and I
yield to no man in loyalty to
the institutions maintained by our Craft—provided the work of
Freemasonry is not
confined to the maintenance of an institution.
The point I am trying to make is the same point I have emphasized repeatedly in
recent months: I have no patience with the fenced-in concept of
Freemasonry which
seizes upon one facet of our Craft and magnifies it out of
proportion to its importance.
The beauty in a mosaic is in the whole —not in a single, tiny,
irregular piece of colored
glass. That is the picture we should be always seeking to convey
to our candidates and
our Brethren. When our single-track minds are able to see in
Freemasonry no more than a
temple or institution, or a service club whose members wear
aprons, or a vehicle for
raising funds for someone's pet hobby, or cozy "togetherness"
with the ladies, or cheap
publicity-seeking wing-dings, or a political pressure group,
then we are failing in our job.
Hence, I can rejoice when a new temple becomes a
THINK WITH ME
1. The worship of
Now do not try to tell me the neighborhood deteriorated, because it has not. And
do
not try to argue that if the Brethren just had a parking lot,
and air conditioning, and no
steps to climb, all would be well. It isn't that simple. The
unpleasant fact is that the real
Lodge
2. For however pleasant and attractive a new building may be, it guarantees
nothing.
The theory that a new temple out at the edge of town somewhere will give a Lodge
the
resurgence it needs is getting the cart before the horse. The
resurgence had better come
first, or the heart's desire, once acquired, will be no more
than a lavish museum to house
relics of past glory.
3.
WE LIKE TO BOAST
Take old Brotherly Love Lodge, for example. By all standards of the present day,
Brotherly Love a century ago was a failure. It had only a few
members—20 to 25,
perhaps, and by the time the membership reached 40 the Brethren
felt it was time to
organize a new Lodge. They met in that horrid upstairs
room-—long flight of steps to
climb; terribly warm up there in summer, too.
Well, now that Brotherly Love has moved out on its five-acre tract as far from
human
beings as possible, and has erected its glorified country club
complete with everything
except a bar,
Now that it has the best that can be had in brick and stone, stainless steel and
glass,
aluminum and vinyl tile—all the
Now that it has a huge, cold gymnasium-like Lodge hall where five per cent of
its
members can sit and stare at each other across a broad expanse
of costly carpet, I ask you,
Now that it is comfortably air-conditioned and there are no steps to climb, and
now
that three of its five acres are paved with blacktop so the five
per cent can park their cars,
IN THE LUSH
And after the big Status Symbol is completed and dedicated, do the Brethren then
come flocking back to their Lodge with renewed zeal? If they do,
I haven't heard about it.
4. A materialistic Freemasonry is a Freemasonry with no message, no challenge,
no power.
TO THAT I WOULD ADD
5. The worship of
"LET'S UNSHACKLE
"Every spirit makes its house, but afterwards the house confines the spirit."
"The more we have organized Masonic groups and activities, the more we have
institutionalized our benevolent projects and charity, and the
more we have set up
programs and criteria for evaluating them, the more concerned
and disturbed we seem to
become over the results of our fraternal activities. May it be
that we have concentrated
our energies so largely on things, on the means for achieving
our goals, on techniques
rather than ends, that we have bound up the true spirit of
Freemasonry to the point of
ineffectuality?"
We had better think it through.
We had better be giving a little more thought to the true purpose and mission of
Freemasonry or our days of effectiveness will be few. Either we
should teach our
candidates and our members that
Man shall not live by bread alone.
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