motivating masons
by
Clyde E. Hegman, PGM, MN
Personal needs of early man
motivated him to action. They compelled him to plan and achieve a goal –
self preservation. Self preservation of himself and of his family demanded
that he hunt for food to satisfy his hunger, and that he find a cave or
erect a shelter for protection from the elements of weather, from wild
beasts of the field, and even from birds of prey. These needs, these goals,
motivated ancient man to fashion and become skillful in the use of his club,
efficient with his bow and arrow, or adept with his hands to manipulate
crude tools. But before he did all these things, he used his mental
resources, his brain, his God-given power to reason.
Ages have passed since the
early day of that ancient man. We are living in a society benefiting from
the advances of science, technology, technocracy, automation, skills, and
know-how, which have reduced the drudgery of manual labor and even mental
labor – yet raised the standard of living in the greater part of the world.
But the shorter work week, with more leisure time, presents even a greater
challenge – motivating people to make the best use of their time and talent.
The fundamentals of motivating people are still the same as they have been
over ages past.
Today in our economic, our
social, our religious, our fraternal walks of life we motivate people – how?
By giving them a goal. People are motivated by goals and responsibilities.
Every Brother Mason who has
become one of our Fraternity has subscribed to the Masonic principles of
character building, with the objective of living a life founded upon those
principles. Temperance, fortitude, prudence, justice, faith, hope, charity,
relief, truth, and brotherly love are only a few to be mentioned. They all
combine to form on our individual trestleboards, guidelines and patterns for
achieving a goal – the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God.
The Brotherhood of Man.
Let’s talk about it a little while this morning.
Brotherhood is the greatest
motivating principle in the world. Whether you are working with Masons, men
of other fraternal groups, churches, business, social life, administration,
public life, brotherhood in the greatest motivating principle in the world.
It is the basic principle of all the great religions of the world, and has
been over the ages past. It is the principle that Jesus used for all his
preaching on “love thy fellowman,” “love thy neighbor” – not just the
neighbor next door, but every man on the earth.
I direct your attention to
the story of the Good Samaritan; not to the man who had been beaten and lay
by the side of the road wounded and bleeding, not to the Samaritan who came
by and befriended him, not to the innkeeper; but to the other two characters
in the story – the priest and the Levite. What did they do? They walked by
on the other side. My brother Master Mason, have you ever walked by on the
other side? Or are you motivated by the spirit of compassion to help one who
is in need of a little of the milk of human kindness?
The Carpenter of Nazareth
2,000 years ago learned the skills of working with tools, learned them in an
operative trade serving as apprentice, I suppose, to his father. He learned
the proper use of the working tools, the square, the level, and the plumb.
Then after about 30 years, motivated by a higher power, he left the
carpenter shop to put the symbolic working tools to use in an even more
practical way over the short span of the next three years. He used these
tools to teach and to inspire men to build their temples not made with
hands, to build lives of usefulness to fellowmen; and the world has never
been the same since.
In the ancient days the
Samaritans were considered, if I may use the crude word, lice. The city of
Nablus, in old Samaria, even in the Biblical days was considered to be a hot
bed of what you might call unregenerated thinking. A Brother with whom I
talked about ten days ago, told me that he visited Nablus in 1927 with a
group of students from Harvard. Their group was there to study educational
programs in that part of the world, in the Holy Land. He said to me that “We
passed through Nablus like ‘greased lightning’ because we didn’t dare stay
there lest we get shot at.” Here was a group of 30 Harvard students and
professors in the year 1927, not B.C. but A.D., who didn’t dare stay in
Nablus over night lest they be shot at. The other day, less than two weeks
ago, in September 1967, it was in the town of Nablus, now in Jordan, that a
train was blown up; many of you read about it in the newspapers. What did
the army of Israel do? They took everybody out, put them on a hill, and blew
up the town. This was only two or three weeks ago. Brethren, the old hatred
toward the Samaritans still exists, and the hatred of the Samaritans toward
the rest of the world still exists 2,000 years after Christ.
Somehow something has to be
done by thinking people who will do all in their power to promote goodwill
among nations of the earth. Is this a challenge to Brothers of the Masonic
fraternity? But if we are going to put to work this spirit of brotherhood
which is a Masonic principle, how do we do it? How do we do it now? Can you
think of anything that should motivate you more, my Brother, if you believe
in it?
Why do some people do
selfish things? Why do many people do unselfish thing? People do unselfish
things for personal satisfaction perhaps. Yes, in some cases a man will give
$1,000 to your Masonic Home to get his name of a brass plate on the door; or
he may give $2,000 to your Lodge for some purpose and await reading his name
in the local paper. Or if he is of that economic position he may give a
million dollars to endow a college and be pleased to see his name on the
cornerstone or over a doorway. But I am sure that these are the on-half of
one-tenth of 1% of men and Brothers who do and give unselfishly.
But when you do something
for someone else you create a response, a challenge and a response. It was
Toynbee’s phrase for the whole basis of developing civilization that went
something like this, as I remember it: “Here is a challenge, for example.
You use it to meet the challenge of the day, and when you do, you grow. Then
there immediately arises a still greater challenge and you rise to meet
that. Without this challenge and response civilizations die.”
What were the challenges to
Master Masons in this land 200 years ago when the Brothers whose pictures we
viewed on the screen last night – George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John
Hancock, and others of that day – served their country by fighting and
working for freedom and the rights of the individual? What were the
challenges 140 years ago when a Brother named Simon Bolivar freed those
South American countries which today are Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador,
Panama, Peru and Bolivia from the dictates of the Spanish monarchs? My
Brothers, what do you believe to be the challenges to Master Masons today?
Someone has said that the
achievements of our predecessors are sometimes overshadowed by our leaders
of today only because the stairs are there making possible the attainment of
greater heights. My Brothers, the stairs are there for you and me to tread
upon, not because we built them, but because someone who preceded us
planned, worked, fought to build them for us. The patriot of this nation 200
years ago, the patriot in the South American countries, men who helped to
build these great nations, founded and made a heritage for us. The steps and
stairs are there.
What is our challenge
today? What is our Masonic responsibility? Defined in simple terms, it is to
protect the oppressed, right the wrong, raise the fallen, relieve the
distressed, enlighten people, serve well the common weal, and be fruitful of
good works. What have you done, my Brother? What have we done recently that
would warrant us being disciples of the principle of the brotherhood of man?
First and basic, we have to
be inculcated with the principle before we can put it to work, or else it
dies. If you have a muscle in your arm and you tie it in a sling, it
atrophies. If you held your arm in a sling for ten days you would find that
you would have trouble moving your arm in a sling for ten days you would
find that you would have trouble moving it when you removed the sling. My
Brothers, if you work in terms of, think in terms of, principles of good
works, but you don’t put them into action they atrophy, you atrophy, and
your principles and ideals die.
It was Alfred North
Whitehead, the mathematician and philosopher, who said, “When your ideals
become practice you stagnate.” When I first heard this I questioned, how can
this be? “When your ideals become practice you stagnate.” We talk in terms
of putting ideals into practice: but here is what he meant. If you only put
your ideals into full practice and by rote keep practicing that ideal, you
don’t keep hold of that elusive ideal of stretching forth even further, and
unless you do, you stop. Is this a Masonic principle of motivating people,
motivating Masons? It was Browning, I believe, who wrote, “Ah, but a man’s
reach must exceed his grasp, or what is heaven for?”
You have all read letters
from children to God. One little boy wrote a letter to God thanking him for
being such a fine pitcher.” The boy gave the letter to his teacher in
school. She was intrigued and asked the little boy to explain. “Just what do
you mean by this letter to God complimenting him for being such a fine
baseball player?” “Well, it’s very simple”, said he, “Every afternoon after
school I go home, I get my baseball and my mitt and go out in my back yard
and I throw my ball up in the air as far as I can. God holds it for a little
while, and then he throws it back to me.” Is this a Masonic principle
motivating Masons? My Brothers, are you and I motivated by Him who holds the
ball for a little while and then throws it right back to the little boy?
The railroads have a
slogan, “Keep your hand on the throttle and your eye upon the rail,” but of
course it means eternally keeping your eye further forward, further ahead,
never stopping.
Brothers, were it not that
you and I were challenged to live up to the ideals of Masonry, to put them
into practice, and to see to it that we don’t stagnate and stop with that
specific practice, but edge forward and press on, each of us might well have
still remained in the rubbish of the temple in the southeast corner.
How do we put these ideals
to work into the most practical expression? Each of you can reminisce on
what has been done by you and your Brethren in your respective Grand
Jurisdictions by way of putting Masonic principles into practice. We have
just heard what Indiana has been doing, for themselves, in their fine
Masonic Home and Hospital, and now they are going to do something for
others.
How do we put these ideals
to work into the most practical expression? If you, my Brothers, close the
door of the Lodge and leave there having learned only the fundamental
teachings and don’t do something about them, high as the ideals may be, you
and the Lodge will die.
All day yesterday every
Brother who spoke from this podium referred to something that can be done by
Masons for a Lodge or for others. Suggest to you that motivating Masons
begins in the Lodge where a man has knelt at the altar and viewed the Holy
Scripture and where, my Brethren, you have inspired him, shall we say, to
thinking in terms of the lofty ideals of Masonry. But unless our ritual, our
ritualistic work, our floor work, our lectures, the demeanor of our officers
and all who take part – unless they perform it with the dignity and the
decorum that is due, a Brother is not going to be stimulated to make Masonry
a vital force in his life.
In this Conference so much
has been done during the past 18 years by way of presenting programs for
education, challenging Masons to develop thinking minds, as well as
understanding hearts
We heard about scholarship
programs today. Some Grand Lodges sponsor them. And Kansas does a remarkable
job in helping young people to further their education via scholarships. In
Minnesota we are carrying on in a very modest way a program designed to help
our juvenile court judges, not as a lodge, not as a Grand Lodge, but as
Master Masons who will go to the juvenile court judge and say, “Mr. Judge,
Your Honor, how can I help you in the problems of the day? Can I take a boy
over the weekend who is a problem to you? Can I take a boy or girl into our
home? Can I help him or her to get a job?
Our Masonic Memorial
Hospital at the University of Minnesota is the gift of Masons of our state
to the University. The hospital serves with care and treatment patients who
are suffering from cancer. In two statewide campaigns Masons of Minnesota
made voluntary gifts to build the hospital in our University Medical Center
at Minneapolis. The first campaign in 1955 netted $1,000,000 to pay in full
for a two floor 80 bed hospital. The second campaign in 1963 produced
$1,100,000 to double the size of the hospital. Here is an example of
opportunities offered our Brother Masons to “give not until it hurts, but
until you fell good.” They gave and they feel good, and each giver is proud
to have paid for some of the bricks and mortar and steel.
It is sometimes suggested
that the Masonic Fraternity needs to hire public relations men to publicize
Masonry. Brothers, may I simply say to you that you and I can be the
greatest public relations men for Freemasonry when we wear that square and
compass which we saw on the screen last night. But first, last, and always,
let’s remember when we wear it to act like Masons. The hero is one who
kindles a great light in the world, who sets up a blazing torch in the dark
streets for men to see by; but the saint is the man who walks through the
dark paths of the world, himself a light.
In closing may I quote the
lines from Brother Edwin Markham who wrote:
We are blind until we see
that in the human plan
Nothing is worth the making if it does not make the man.
Why build these cities glorious if man unbuilded goes;
In vain we build the work unless the builder also grows.”
Motivating Masons then is
your job; it is my job. Let all of us at this Conference go back to our
Lodges in these 12 states – where there are 1,250,000 Master Masons – and
let us dedicate ourselves to lives of precept and example. Let us kindle the
fires which will spread and challenge Masons to work, strive, and reach for
that goal of Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God.
“Three things I know must
always be
To keep a nation strong and free:
One is a firm and steady hand
To work and serve and till the land;
One is a hearthstone bright and clear
With many happy busy people near;
One is a worn and beaten way
To where the people go to pray.
So long as these are kept alive
Nations and people will survive.
God keep them always everywhere –
Our land, our home, our place of prayer.
“A man’s reach must
exceed his grasp, or what is heaven for?” My Brethren, how high are your
ideals? How high is your grasp?
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