Red Tape in a Blue Lodge

There is value in tradition. Rituals carry the legacies of the past. Symbols preserve the unspoken wisdom of the ages. Men continue the path well worn, beginning their journey as all have and following the countless footsteps laid before them. The traditions, rituals, and everyday practices of the lodge fasten today to yesterday and remain the umbilical cord of modern Freemasonry to its ancient and storied history.

And yet the world must change. Every generation supplants and surpasses the one before it. Is this not the secret dynamic of the art? Equilibrium? So must not the Order change as well?

In mere decades, the computer has revolutionized every facet of the human span. Microchips and the wizardry of science, sure to hang us all in a not so distant age, allow us now to govern our lives from the palm of our hand, to reach across the shores and time itself. Who could have foreseen this?

Is there yet a place for secret grips and tokens now that the Brethren carry printed dues cards and join lodge groups on facebook?

I say yes. I hold that the age old traditions of Masonry are the backbone and nervous center of the Order. The rites and rituals memorized through the succession of worthy and well qualified men are in themselves a Constitution, a Law and an Act of will. They are the foundation. Still, though we rest our homes, our cities and even our civilization upon such foundations, each generation expands its understanding, enhances its tools and reaches to greater heights of architecture and the sublime arts of the humanities.

The circle will always be a circle and the square always a square. The balance and the measure will never falter. The line will be drawn and the compass will make its arc. The laws of the universe, so like the laws and traditions of the lodge, will and must remain. But we have all lost our vision if we cannot renew the lodge...if we cannot build the lodge for the Modern Mason.

Young Masons must not be afraid to take up their rightful place as Architects in the New Order. Yet any new Mason must be readily and rightfully forged. Is it enough to give the man his third degree and brand him a brother Master Mason when he holds no knowledge, value or even understanding of the title he then carries? No. We should all be exhausted by the procession of the fruitless...men who are not so much seekers as joiners. Yet what do they know to seek? Do they even comprehend the foundation they stand upon by that right and the Work that they themselves embody...each Mason a Lodge?

Too many lodges are perishing because they refuse to understand the very reason or benefit of the traditions and rituals they hold so dear. They march men mindlessly through the degrees chafing and guffawing when a line is crossed as though they are the masters. And fools they are. Hiram's secret has become a myth of idealism and demagoguery.

The Master would not laugh, but embrace. The Master would teach. For every true lodge is built within the hearts and the minds of the men that occupy it. They are the lodge. Each brother Master Mason becomes the embodiment of the Order itself. No one is greater than any other. This is a Truth evident in the Foundation for those who would sincerely Seek It.

And so that Foundation must be strong. Each Apprentice and Fellow Craft must proceed by the Guidance and the Knowledge of his Brothers. Each man must be the Pillar of his Brother for the Lodge to rise so it may too wait upon the coming centuries. What then might rise above the Foundation so well fashioned for the ages?

Where now is the vision of Leonardo? Who now holds the craft of Michaelangelo? Freemasonry must embrace its Arts...its Vision. It must remind its young Masters that they are born of men of pedigree and promise. Virtue is their birthright by the blood of knowledge and wisdom past. So noble a venture might yet again transcend the vicissitudes and tyrannies of Time and State.

What has Freemasonry accomplished? Nothing, if it is stripped to the uselessness of cargoes lost ashore from a once proud ship...now wrecked and forgotten because its stewards lost their way. We have the tools but we must artfully apply them. Stone walls become glass cathedrals. Signs and symbols soar the silicon arrays.

Masons remember why they so carefully follow the steps of their forebears. And yet they make their own way.

...

The Crisis of Our Humanity

The human condition is...

"Suffering" says the Buddha. "Whatever works" says William James. "The result of natural selection" says Charles Darwin. "Submission to Allah" preaches Muhammad.

Random. Created. Evolved. Fashioned. Continuing. Chance. Hopeless. Faithful. Ironic. Miserable. Beautiful.

Biologist Richard Dawkins is an atheist. He would have you believe that we are all the evolved products of billions of years and millions of generations. To Richard...we are genes and memes. Simply put, man is the culmination of physical and psychological patterns that have developed over massive epochs of passing time. We are walking and breathing systems of reproduction copying whatever works best to survive forward into the abyss. Surely, this is a gross oversimplification of the matter. But shouldn't any answer be simple?

Of course, you might ask fellow evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould about Dawkins. He would tell you that Dawkins is the one oversimplifying things. More agnostic than atheist, Stephen thought that God was not the subject of empirical research and represented a kind of unscientific bias in Dawkin's thought catalog.

Perhaps unaware of his vast lineage, man has fallen by the billions to the pox, to war, to cataclysm. The fact that any of us are alive today is a sure testament to a struggle if nothing else so eloquent. We all ask the question at some point why we are here...what is the meaning of it all. In the end most of us either live in denial of an answer, find some personal motivation or seek the solace of an answer in a shared faith...a religion perhaps.

There are plenty of religions to choose from to be sure. Out of his cave man looked to the stars. And under foot he found revelation in the local plantlife. A constellation would steer the mind as well as the navigators of human destiny. And a mushroom would let the man look within. Astrotheology and shamanism painted caves, constructed pyramids and gave rise to stories, and myths...more explanations.

What is real? Dont ask me. Ask the likes of Stephen Hawking or Carl Jung. Again, one looks to the stars for his answers and one looks deep inside the Self. Is the Self, the psyche, God? Are we the myths made flesh and blood? So many, such as the mythologist Joseph Campbell, would think so. But man doesnt know his place after all. The travail of mankind is that each individual decides his place and, like the Biblical God, fashions himself in 'his' image.

We either entrap ourselves or free ourselves by our own perspective. What we believe to be true...becomes true. Ask the orphans of madness populating the behavioral centers. Ask them what is true. Are we all mad with faith? Go ask Bill Maher who sees faith as 'Religulous'. It is clearly ridiculous to him to believe in something outside of what he chooses to believe in. Perhaps we are all a bit more 'Religulous' than Maher would like.

At the end of all of our philosophies, our religions and our ideologies we stand the naked ape before the stars. Ask the young woman of the pain of her births. Ask the soldier the worth of killing. Ask the old man on his deathbed what he lived for. And ask the sick, the wounded, the terrified...in the end is the pain of life worth the living it?

Be at peace...yet we are not peaceful. Go to war...yet we are mortal. How many untold agonies tell the true tale of the human struggle? 55 million of us died in World War 2. Is that not Apocalypse? What of the unspeakable brutality of the murderous Inquisition? Man is Gladiator in the arena, spilling his own blood and crying victory.

Damn them all for being anything but a Humanitarian. What belief can justify the horror of murderous war? What god or religion is still calling for human sacrifice on altars that must be, must only be, profanities in the analog of our species? So many of us now are Stalin...men of steel. And like that tyrant, we steel ourselves against the suffering of nations, of our brothers, our sisters...our other selves.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is the golden rule. Buddha, Jesus, Krishna...they all said as much. Or look away...stand as god among mortals. Live forever in contributing to the suffering of others. Is not such a thought madness? For all of us are mortal after all, aren't we? All of us suffer and bleed and eventually die.

It is not a miracle that we rise in the morning and greet the warmth of the sun. But there is no explanation for it. Science is not qualified to philosophize. And the rational mind must know at once that 'the answer' is elusive by our own relative perspective to it. And so we each greet the sun indifferently, accepting our fate under the heavens.

We are not so blind now. We cannot excuse ourselves in ignorance. We are learned men and women...or so we tell ourselves. Only in the moment of your pain may you judge the pain of others. Only at the moment of your death can you know that we are all the same you and I.

We are builders. We are creators. In spite of all of our weaknesses, man has raised civilizations, built bridges and artfully expressed the inexpressible beauty of a stunning likeness to god within...the works of Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Beethoven...

And yet...we spend our lives surviving in third world countries in war torn chaos like animals. Or the more fortunate gorge themselves on heart wrecking fast food, driving the right cars and wearing the right clothes. We evolve Dawkins says. In his view, we are no better than enlightened monkeys. Few of us, if any, prove him wrong in the end. We are vacuous, banal, and self serving. My life. My generation. My time. My ...

If we don't wake up in time, then the dream may become a nightmare and we may always sleep in terror of waking. At the dawn we must confront what we are left with and we must, at last, embrace it and live a life that is genuine by all accounts.

I am a man, he says. And I see that we all are.

The Craftsman

Can we brothers better our natures? Can we brothers improve ourselves in Freemasonry?

There are a good many self help systems out there. You can find 'Unlimited Power' through Tony Robbins. You can learn the 'Power of Intention' under the tutelage of Dr. Wayne Dyer. You could try manifesting and attracting your wealth, security and happiness via 'The Laws of Attraction.' Perhaps Kevin Trudeau has that 'Natural Cure' you've been looking for? Learn to see with 'The Teachings of Don Juan' by Carlos Castaneda. Allow Eckhart Tolle to show you 'A New Earth,' or Norman Vincent Peale to guide you with 'The Power of Positive Thinking.'

Religions are something like self help systems as well. Perhaps you can find your personal answer in one of them. Christianity sacrifices the ego. Judaism is an enlightened path. Islam submits man's will to a Higher Authority. Hinduism contains a rare beauty of ideas. Buddhism harnesses desires through compassion.

Are the answers there?

It really doesnt matter if there are answers in the myriad self help tomes and systems available to the general public. And here is not the place for religious discussions; beliefs all too subjective to the believers.

What Freemasons really want to know is whether or not Freemasonry actually 'can' help a man improve himself. Many Freemasons even want to know exactly how it can. Most Masons are seekers on the path. They have followed that first step with many after. But they want to know...in the end...where that path is leading them.

Does the Masonic Path...do those steps up the ladder lead to the York Rite?; perhaps the Scottish Rite and Albert Pike's opus 'Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite?; or is it into those halls of fellowship and frivolity found in the Mystic Shrine?

I have followed the Path from its beginning in the Blue Lodge and continued my journey through each of these Masonic 'systems'. And so like Alice moving through the dreaming depths of Wonderland I have met brothers and friends along my travels and faced dangers, challenges and even an enemy or two.

We men who seek to learn to improve ourselves in Freemasonry must begin with the belief that Masonry is a system of ideas, symbols and even instructions. But we must go fearless onto that Path and begin first at the side of the Angel of Faith. Soon enough we will have Hope. And if we toil long enough...and learn well enough...perhaps we shall rectify ourselves at that higher plane where alone waits the Angel of Charity...Love.

If you are indeed a Freemason then you should already be aware that atop that stairway to heaven is the Light. And before that Light is the Angel of Charity...the Angel of Love. This is a symbol...the most profound of Masonic symbols. The author Ram Dass recently released his third book in his trilogy of enlightened works entitled 'Be Love Now.' Love is a state of Being he insists. It is the key to the true mastery of the self and the revelation of the infinite Light. Call that what you will.

Where have we many Masons misplaced our Brotherly Love? I have still found waiting daggers in the hands of Brothers. Men set foot on the Path and lose their way...discouraged because the Light is unclear to them for all the secrets we keep...even from ourselves. Unworthy men have set foot on that same True Path. These men did not come to that place to learn to improve themselves...these men only came to empower themselves. These men are brothers but to themselves.

Worthy Brothers, discarded Ruffians, keep your heads along the way...and Pay Attention! It is true that you will find what you are looking for. Certainly we Masons are all looking for brothers in the Order...friends...family. But Do Not take that first step of Freemasonry and shame yourself and your Order along the Path because you are content that Masonry is a means to a social end...or empowerment in business or something else.

Freemasonry is a Light in the Darkness. But so long have men clouded the way with their own preconceptions, desires and prejudices that you will likely find the Path a perilous one...with little reward for your undertaking.

If you are daring you will cast aside your preconceptions, remove the hoodwink and cable tow to stand at last on the edge of a yawning precipice. Your world, the self you were, lies behind you. The Angel of Faith awaits you and you must walk where the ground is uncertain...where the familiar is no more.

There are many answers for the true seeker in Freemasonry. How many Masons, too afraid, cast aside the teaching in 'Morals and Dogma'? How many Masons know the Order's teachings save the Lodge procedures and degree rituals?

So many brothers have I spoken with who were yet lost along the way and simply disgusted because they have learned to improve themselves only in fellowship. There is more...much more. But most either do not know, pay attention or dare to look into or apply those most relevant of Masonic teachings.

To learn to improve yourself in Freemasonry is not simply a call to learn the motions of the Order. It is an Oath to apply the teachings of the Order...teachings obscured because many Masons are afraid to face that most fearful of all things...themselves.

Wait in the chamber of reflection and look well at what you see. Mortal man, alone and weak enough before the tides of time and fate. The other Angel waiting...Death.

Are we not all rough ashlar, so like an unfinished cast out corner stone? Each day we live, our character is revealed as that coarseness is chipped away. What is the Image of the Man we will each find inside once we are finished? Man in the Image of God?...or simply so obscured by passions, jealousies, hatreds and small mindedness that what remains is too awful to look upon?

Masonry is artistry. It is a profession with tools and labors. And we are each the Craftsmen of our own likeness. In its teachings and through its admonishments, our works - and that final 'self portrait' - is often tried by that Great Architect. Only a worthy work...only an Image revealed at last beneath the ashlar to be as beautiful as the Original can stand before the Light.

Take up your work not without care then. Safeguard your tools and learn your Master's teachings well.

To make a Good Man a Better Man...is a Craft.

From Darkness to Light

Many new Freemasons today complain that Freemasonry does not live up to the hype or its potential or to those supposed 'secrets' it is alledged to impart. Following their 3rd Degree initiation, a number of men feel they have simply joined a social order governed by antiquated and repetitive rituals along with weathered allegories, dogmas and moral platitudes. In short, men enter the lodge with hopes of learning something they couldnt learn anywhere else...and find they could have simply Googled it all...and saved themselves the time and the dues.

What's going on? And why arent the bodies of Freemasonry, particularly the Grand Lodges, paying more attention to this?

The problem lies in the true Lost Word of Freemasonry. Most Freemasons simply lack the knowledge of their own Order or resist its implications after they have labored to study it. How many men have read 'Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite'? How many men have poured over the massive Masonic libraries or the wisdom of the Lodge of Research?

I daresay very few indeed. If they had...they might realize that such wisdom, though perhaps readily accessible, cannot be simply processed with a keystroke query on an internet search engine.

Long ago, Freemasonry represented something of a quest. Great men of learning cast their very lives upon the shores of this quest and many of these men died to protect what they had learned against brutal despots and tyrannies. Today, most Masons all but flee from even the very idea of what they slander as 'esoteric' Masonry. For these men, it is enough that Freemasonry is a social order; a charitable institution; and, for many more, something of an honorable addendum to their own cherished religious beliefs.

This quote might surprise these men then...

"The purpose of Freemasonry is not charity nor is it a fraternal society. These are but attributes which have developed. The real purpose of Masonry is the eternal search for truth, the truth about God, and the immortality of the soul. The various degrees represent the different levels through which the human mind passes while moving from ignorance to knowledge. The collecting of all the symbols and mysteries throughout the ages is but man's search for the divine truth. As we say in our ritual, 'from darkness to light.'"

- Rt. Ex. William Adrian Brown (Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Virginia), 'Facts, Fables and Fantasies of Freemasonry.' Missouri Lodge of Research. 1968.

There are certain facts about Freemasonry that cannot be dismissed or denied. While academics and Masonic scholars argue incessantly as to Masonry's origins, one glaring reality stands steadfast under the aegis of the Light...Masonry is an esoteric society.

Indeed, as men utter the proficiencies and repeat the myriad of rituals of the Lodge and the Rites, how can it escape the reason of so many of them that Masonry has a purpose? It has a doctrine. And it does, after all, possess secrets for the worthy.

Quite to the contrary of many of the modern religious pundits influences upon the image of todays, and especially American, Freemasonry, Masonic teachings as they are presented in rituals and degrees owe their estimable beginnings to the ancient philosophical mystery schools; teachings of Jewish mystics and Kabbalists; neoplatonic idealists and renaissance thinkers; eastern and asian religions; and even world myth.

Within the Rites, the philosophies of Masonry seem to exist as a distillation of the ancient mystery teachings of those 'esoteric' societies that coexisted with the mainstream reigning theocracies of the day. And in those days, that 'dark age' of religion over reason, those very philosophies were anathema and forced into secrecy. Is it really so very different today? In some lodges one might be fearful to ask for any book but the Bible to be placed upon the altar though it is Freemasonry's primary dictum that it is open to those of all religious creeds. Perhaps the age is still a bit dark?

Albert Pike, the great Masonic writer, composed a virtual opus of Freemasonry in his 'Morals and Dogma'. But as much of it was a philosophical treatise on comparative religion, mystical studies and 'esoteric' sciences, this book is now casually passed off among the brothers as dense, obscure, difficult and simply archaic...as in outdated for our more modern understanding of Masonry.

Modern understanding? Just who are we kidding here? Those ritual characters of Masonry are not modern men at all. These stories and truths are ancient. Solomon? Hiram Abif? With their inclusion, these are specifically Jewish stories. And are they understood at all? How many Masons are aware, for instance, that the name Solomon derives from 'Sol' and 'Amun' ... both names for the Sun...as in Amun Ra. How many others realize the deep connection between Egyptian and Jewish mysticism? Maybe those of you familiar with the Scottish Rite degrees will recognize a bit of what I am mentioning here. But do you understand what it means to teach you?

At its heart, Masonry is philosophy. But it is also an arrow in flight. It has an aim. It possesses a purpose. This purpose of Freemasonry remains the purpose of the Egyptian priests, the Jewish mystics, the Buddhist teachers, the gnostic seekers, the pythagorean sages, the Greek philosophers, the sufis, the alchemists, the Rosicrucians...and the scientists.

Truth. Knowledge. These are well and fine. But truth without purpose and knowledge without aim are lackluster Promethian gifts from the sacred garden...gifts that have no need of an angel with a flaming sword to guard the gates. The first Tiler.

The aim of Masonry is to raise a man from darkness to light...from death to life. Knowledge alone does not suffice. A man must walk the way laid out before him.

Freemasonry is a map for those with 'ears to hear ... and eyes to see'. It is a revealing of the human condition, the meaning all men seek with their lives and the guideposts of those who have gone ahead of them.

To that end, where is Freemasonry leading us? Stories; Myths; Rituals; Histories; Methodologies? Masonry leads its seekers to the Light that lies beyond truth or knowledge in a passive state, though very few will reach so far.

All too many Freemasons endlessly repeat rituals they dare not deem to understand. These men content themselves with the darkness and the mere possibility of light beyond. They content themselves with their religions and stupify themselves with the fear that Masonry may indeed possess that forbidden fruit. Many fundamentalists, Masonic or otherwise, fear a certain 'craftiness' in the Craft and are wary of a serpent in Masonry's tree of knowledge.

And so, generation after generation, the 'Craft' erodes and devolves to better suit the comfortable beliefs of the men of the times. It is more palatable to some as an innocuous social fraternity...or a charity. God help the man who questions the blazing star.

The Center. The Light. The Great Architect. It is only a concept and certainly no idol. It is as blank as the white page, as bright as the suns rays. And virtually no man, Mason or otherwise, comprehends its mysteries.

Behold a man lost in the desert. If a stairway should descend from the very heavens above should he fear it? Should he study it? Or should he ascend upon its steps to what lies beyond? For is not the stairway alone a grace...and an invitation?

And so Freemasonry is an invitation. We are invited to understand ourselves, our place in the cosmos, our equality as men and, most importantly, our relation to nature and the Divine. The degrees themselves are metaphors and allegories whose teaching, like the parables of a spiritual teacher, can be revealed and yet kept secret for those who are truly prepared to understand them. They are acts of submission and of sacrifice. They are the stairs to be climbed. They are the path to be followed.

What one will find outside of his own search is simply interpretation. When a man resolves himself to the Center he will not find his own reflection there but the reflection of every other man so resolved. For the Light is the face of all men who at last recognize that Universal Point, that steadfast and unwavering foundation that all living men are raised upon.

Ruffian Resolution 2010

Fraternal Greetings and Happy New Year to all Fellow Ruffians!

Now that it is Officially 2010, it is time for us to look at ourselves 'squarely' in the mirror and take some stock of what we find there.

Are we as tolerant as Masonry urges us to be? Are we dutiful? Are we supportive of our Brothers? Do we endeavor to learn more about our Order and do we dare to look within and learn more about ourselves?

Indeed Brothers, I recommend that our Ruffian Manifesto must include a New Years Resolution to climb the stairway, walk the sands and travel to the East each and every day. It is not enough that we endeavor to "Make a Good Man a Better Man" because it is not a goal so much as an ongoing process.

This year remember to 'Be that Better Man', for your God, your Family, your Brothers...and Yourself.

Tend to the Light my Brothers. See that it shines Brightly in you.

SMIB
Brother Free


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