MY SON
Among the most tender relationships in all Freemasonry is that
between father and son, when both are brethren of the Ancient
Craft. But because the bond of fraternity, doubled, trebled by the
blood tie, is so transcendental so also is it at times productive of
mental stress and difficulty.
"My son has never said he would like to be a Freemason, although
of course he knows of my membership and my interest. Shall I
suggest that he join! How far may I go - how far should I go?"
Many a father is faced with this problem and the answers are as
many as the situations. Nor can any Bulletin answer this troubled
brother, for circumstances alter cases and what may be wise in one
situation may be unwise in another.
Yet some observations may be ventured.
The unwritten law against proselyting is primarily to insure the
truthful living of Masonic ideals, and for the protection of the
Fraternity. To be a good Freemason a man must seek of his own
free will and accord." If he is sought, he is deprived of the precious
power of self-decision in a matter of great importance. Masons
who are asked into the Fraternity seldom value it as those who
have desired it of their own motion, and therefore, may not be as
good Freemasons as those who petitioned, unasked.
But the relation of father and son is totally different from that of
any other two men, one a Mason, the other not. The father has
guided his son through childhood and youth. The father has offered
counsel on many important matters; friends, choice of school,
advantages of one business or profession over another. He has
sought to help his son make a wise and a right choice in many, if
not all phases of human intercourse. To translate the unwritten law
against soliciting members to mean that a father should not advise
with his son about a major interest in life which the father has
found valuable and dear, is to be extremely technical.
But there is a vast difference between advice and solicitation. To
say to a beloved son on his twenty-first birthday: "I have found
Freemasonry of great value. It has promoted friendships in my life.
It has provided me with a satisfactory philosophy of living. It has
given me an interest in my fellowmen. It has afforded an outlet for
altruism and given opportunities for unselfish labors for others. I
suggest that you investigate it for yourself, and consider it
seriously as one of the privileges of man's estate," is quite different
from asking him: "My son, I want you to join my Lodge. Father
knows best, and this is one of the things you are now in a position
to dodo it, if for no other reason than to please me."
The first statement is one which a father might make to his son on
any important activity - such as church or school. In it the father
makes no attempt to force his son; nor does he ask for a petition to
any especial Lodge. In the second he has substituted his own
judgment for that of his son, and asked as a personal favor
something which should never be so considered.
It is not uncommon for a loving father to put a petition for the
degrees in his own Lodge, together with the fees, at his son's plate
at breakfast on his twenty-first birthday. And none who know the
hearts of fathers can question the loving kindness of such a gift.
But it is a matter for careful thought; in trying to be kind, may the
father perhaps succeed only in being unconsciously cruel? Suppose
the young man has already mentally selected another Lodge than
his father's? Suppose he has already made up his mind that he does
not want to be a Freemason? Suppose he has never thought of it at
all, and now sends in his petition just because father, in effect, asks
him to? In any such events, the young man is not likely to be
happy as a Freemason in his father's Lodge. Here, also,
circumstances alter cases; the petition and fee may be the most
welcome of gifts, but at least the idea bears thinking through
before action is taken.
"My son has said he wants to be a Freemason. Shall I ask him to
petition my Lodge, or suggest that he choose for himself!"
In a great many places there is but one Lodge which the son can
petition - his father's Lodge. In small communities with only one
Lodge holding jurisdiction, the above question would not be asked.
But in communities with two or more Lodges holding concurrent
jurisdiction over candidates, the matter may be one of some
importance. In large cities with many Lodges it may be of
overwhelming importance.
For "the old Lodge" that is Mother Lodge to a father, may be
anything but the type of Lodge which the young man desires. He
may - and undoubtedly will - want to go into that Lodge in which
he has the most friends. He may not want to be known only as "the
son of the old man" but to make his own place for himself. Father's
Lodge may be composed mostly of middle-aged or elderly men; a
young man may build a far happier career in a Lodge largely of
men nearer his own age. Father's Lodge may be a more expensive
Lodge than son would like to join. But father's Lodge is the Lodge
father loves, and unless the father make it easy for him to choose
his own, a dutiful son is more than apt to choose the Lodge of his
parent. It may be the happiest of choices: it may be less fortunate
than another. The point here made is that he is the wise father who
makes it possible for son to make his own choice (if choice there
be) as to that Masonic home in which he will, normally, live his
whole Masonic life, long after father has been gathered to his
forbears.
"One of my happiest experiences was seeing my son raised as a
Master Mason in my Lodge. But he now takes little interest, misses
many meetings and is inclined to take his dimit and drop out
altogether."
Alas, there is little or nothing that can be done. The damage is
probably irreparable. But much might have been done to prevent
such a feeling.
Why does the son of a father, raised in his father's Lodge, take
little interest?
No catagorical answer is possible. But some answers are probable.
Father may have been unwise enough to remember too often that
this newly made brother was the little boy he saw through all
childhood ills from measles to algebra. This small boy is not really
Brother Smith - he's only little Tommy, immature, inexperienced, a
mere kid! And so father contradicts him on the Lodge floor, won't
let him take his normal part in Lodge activities, insists on sitting
beside him at every meeting, prevents him from making his own
friends. It is not to be wondered at that young Brother Smith, under
such circumstances, "loses interest."
A certain father of a very positive nature, combative and virile, a
power in his Lodge, and a leader in all his circles, refused to take
his son's petition to his own Lodge. "Apply elsewhere!" he told the
young man. In my Lodge you'll be just Daddy's son. You'll never
be anything but Dad Jones' boy. Go where you can be Brother Bill
Jones with no father to hamstring your career. Carve your own,
Visit my Lodge and I'll visit yours, but you'll be the happier
standing on your own feet than on mine."
An unusual father, but a sensible one.
Occasionally it happens that the reverse is the case. Father may be
shy, retiring, gentle; the kind who never gets on his feet, who has
never held office, who loves his Lodge from a seat in the second
row. Son comes into Masonry all keyed up over joining his father's
Lodge. Father has always talked about it at home and the general
impression son has received is that father is a power in the Lodge;
that the Lodge really couldn't get along without father. Then comes
disillusionment. He finds that father plays but a small part. He is
resentful that father isn't on a committee (regardless of the fact that
father has doubtless refused a dozen committee assignments!) that
no one asks father's advice, that father just sits in Lodge and takes
no part. The young man, disappointed, loses interest. Nothing can
be done about it now; much might have been done if father had
given a more truthful impression before the young man joined.
And once in a while an impossible situation is created by a too
proud father who tries to force his son forward too fast. Father is
very proud of his Lodge. To have son in line, and eventually
Master, would be a matter of much pride. He is continually
prodding son to do more, speak more often, make suggestions, get
known. He wearies officers with importunities to get son on this
committee, do that piece of work. He bothers those with the
present or future appointing power, trying to get a pledge of the
appointment of son to the line. Gradually the Lodge gets the idea
that if young Brown is appointed in line, it will be Brown Senior
who will be the officer, with Brown Junior a mere voice for the old
man. Result, Brown junior gets the cold shoulder and - loses
interest.
He is the wise father who permits son to live his own life in Lodge,
without any help or hindrance from his elder brother who is also
Dad!
No father who has had the uplifting spiritual experience of raising
his son to the Sublime Degree but cherishes it in his heart. But
there are many to whom the raising of a son means much who do
not know just how valuable such an experience may be-and so they
do not give a thought to the possibility that they may play the
Master's part in a third degree in which the son is to be the
candidate.
"I never put on a degree in my life - I'm not a Past Master - I
couldn't learn the work - the Master wouldn't let me ......
In a majority of American Grand jurisdictions the Master may put
any qualified brother in the East to confer a degree, or any part of
it. In a few, only Masters, Masters and Wardens or Past Masters
may do any of the work. In the latter, of course, a father may not
raise his son unless he has present or past Masonic office. But in
most jurisdictions a father may raise his son, if he will learn his
part and convince a Master that he knows it. Indeed, in these
jurisdictions, Masters are usually eager to have fathers raise their
sons, knowing what tender sentiments cling about the ceremony
and sensing that the brethren enjoy seeing and hearing it.
It involves some labor. But it is labor well invested and the happy
memories thus produced can be evoked at will by both father and
son during the father's life, by son through many subsequent years.
There is no more certain way to make sure that a young candidate
will value that which his father values than to give the obligation
with the voice which the son has learned to revere.
Occasionally a Master, a Past Master, or a Grand Master has
opportunity to give his son the work; here, indeed is the full flower
of that Masonic sentiment which adds to fatherhood and sonship
the brotherhood of the Masonic Lodge. For when father not only
raises his son but is in the East during the whole degree, then
indeed is an ineradicable impression made on the newly-raised
brother.
Once in a long while a Past Master requests the privilege of
conferring all three degrees on his son. It is at least open to
discussion whether this feat of memory does not frustrate the very
end it is desired to attain. If Worshipful Brother Jones confers the
first, and Senior Warden Brown the second degree, and then the
candidate hears his own father's voice in the third degree, will he
not be the more impressed than if it is the same voice in all three
degrees'
It is not a matter any one can settle, except the father and the son
involved. But it bears thinking through by the father ambitious
enough, and ritualist enough, to contemplate putting on all three
ceremonies.
"Should I instruct my son in Masonry between his degrees? Or
should I leave hint to others?"
Again, a question each must settle for himself. But on the principle
that a physician is usually less competent with his own family than
a stranger, because of his intense personal interest, it may easily be
argued that a son will receive instruction more patiently and learn
the better from another than from his father. It is undeniable that
the more men of mature years the young man finds interested in
Masonry, and in him, the more apt is his opinion of the Fraternity
to soar to greater heights. Yet circumstances may dictate the
contrary - the instance is recalled of a young man who stuttered
badly. With his father he spoke naturally, easily; with strangers
haltingly. For any one else to have attempted the instruction, or to
have conducted the examination in open Lodge, would have been
tragic. But as a general rule son learns more easily and quickly
from another than his father.
Finally, let it be said; there is much in Freemasonry, that crawls
into a man's heart and nestles there - much that he will not admit to
any but himself and his God. It is the great strength of the
Fraternity that she creates such sentiments and holds so many
hearts in a bond too strong for breaking, too tender for telling. No
part of that bond is greater, tighter or tenderer than those strands
which unite in brotherhood a father and a son. It is something to
look forward to - it is something to exult in having - it is something
to keep in memory's precious gallery of pictures, to take out and
muse in after years with loving and gentle thoughts.
Happy the father with the Masonic wisdom to make the bond mean
as much to his son as it does to him; happy the son with the wit to
see how much it may mean to the older man, and, therefore how
much that is high and holy it may mean to himself.
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