by Midnight Freemason Contributor
Bro. Adam Thayer
No load is too heavy if there are enough brothers to help
carry it. This is one of my core beliefs, and I am in hopes that soon you will
share this sentiment as well.
When I first started thinking about this topic, I was in the
middle of a Master Mason’s degree. Our candidate had just had his fateful
meeting with the third ruffian, and was on his emblematical final journey
through the lodge. As we were carrying him, I thought to myself “If any of us
tried to carry him alone, we would surely injure ourselves, but because there
are enough of us to help, it’s not that difficult.”
It’s a phenomenon we don’t really discuss amongst ourselves
very often. There we were, at the beginning of his Masonic career, showing our
new brother in the most literal way possible that there would always be enough
brothers around to carry him through the rough times in his life.
Less than a week later, I found myself carrying another
brother into that same lodge room for his true final journey: our brother had
passed, and we were requested to hold a Masonic funeral service for him in our
lodge building. Again I thought “What a fitting tribute to such a fine man and
Mason! This is only possible because there are enough brothers here who loved
him so much that they came to help carry the load.”
It was a perfect symbolic mirror; we once carried that
brother at the beginning of his Masonic journey, and here we were again,
carrying him on his final Masonic journey.
At the beginning and end of our Masonic journeys, there are
enough brothers present to carry us, but what about in between? Are there
enough brothers there to help carry us through the hazards and vicissitudes of
life?
The question could, of course, be easily turned around: we
carry our brothers at the beginning and end of THEIR Masonic journeys, but what
do we do to help them in between? Isn’t it the time between that gives us the
greatest chance for impact in their lives?
As I sat down to my keyboard, finally feeling ready to write
out these ideas that had been running through my brain, I thought about our new
brother, who has a great Masonic career ahead of him, and I thought about our
departed brother, who had a fantastic Masonic life behind him, but most
importantly I thought about these two fantastic quotes.
The first was from the great English poets The Hollies. Now,
if you aren’t familiar with The Hollies, they were a British band from the
1960’s, and their big claim to fame is that Graham Nash started his music
career with them. In their most popular song, they said: “The road is long, with many a winding turns that leads us to
who knows where. So on we go. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. His welfare is
of my concern. No burden is he to bear. But I’m strong! Strong enough to carry
him. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”
What a beautiful sentiment! Not only does it remind us that
we’re responsible to our brothers, but that it should be a joy to help each
other out. The promise of Masonry is to make good men better, which means it
should make us strong enough to carry our brother during his moments of
weakness, and caring enough to want to.
Of course, this shouldn’t be news to anyone who has learned
their Master Mason obligation - we promise to help our brothers when they ask
us for help, although I can’t help but wonder how many of us, myself included,
are too stubborn and proud to ask for help.
Gentlemen, our journeys are difficult, often painful, and
there is no guarantee as to where they will lead us, except to that final,
inevitable destination. If we attempt to undertake these journeys alone, we
will, without a doubt, utterly fail.
As Masons, we are obligated to help our brothers on that
journey. Their welfare is of our concern. We’re strong enough to help carry
their load, so they don’t have to carry it alone. No load is too heavy, if there are enough brothers to help
carry it. This begs the question, then, who is my brother?
I’ve found, and discarded, many theories as to who is
considered a brother. Is it only a man who is in good standing in a regularly
recognized lodge? If so, that excludes Prince Hall Masons in eight U.S.
jurisdictions, as well as a number of early American Masons whose Grand Lodges
did not conform to our idea of regular recognition. Even worse, it would
exclude as Masons a man who could not, for whatever reason, afford to pay his
dues. Does our duty to a brother really cease the moment he goes NPD? Expanding
on that definition, then, is it only a man who is in good standing with ANY
Masonic lodge? That presents difficulties too; it would include as Masons men
who are in jurisdictions that my Grand Lodge doesn’t recognize, but yours
might. Can you imagine the nightmare of asking a brother to prove his proper
Masonic affiliation while he’s suffering and asking you for help?
In trying to define who exactly my
brother is, I’m reminded of the parable of the Samaritan. In the Christian
Scripture of Luke, Jesus was teaching about loving one's neighbor, when one man
asked who his neighbor was. Now, very little context is given, but I can
clearly picture this man looking hard for a loophole.
Jesus, being a fantastic salesman,
replied by giving a story with three different examples, and asking which of
the three had acted in the most neighborly fashion. The answer, of course, was
the one who stopped to help the stranger, regardless of what had happened in
their past stations. I cannot begin to assume to tell
you who your brother is, but I would encourage you to think like the Samaritan
and use the broadest definition available to you, regardless of regularity and
recognition. I have no doubt that I just lost some of you at that. “Why
should I help a man who is a clandestine Mason? Doesn’t that break my
obligation?” Before the Jurisprudence Committee clamps down on me, let me
explain.
You, as a human, have an obligation to humanity, as dictated
by the Great Architect. In nearly every religion available to us, we are
charged with a duty to make the world a better place for each other, to help
and love one another, and in our Masonic degrees we are told that our Masonic
obligations are never to interfere with those duties. In my home state of
Nebraska, we are specifically told that Masonry should never interfere with our
duty to God, our country, our neighbors, or ourselves. Extrapolating that, with
what we’ve already discussed, I would posit that our duty to a man exists even
when he is a clandestine Mason.
Have the lawyers put down their pitchforks? Good, then let’s
continue.
I mentioned earlier that I had two inspirations for this, and
the second one is from 16th century poet-slash-cleric John Donne. In
the grips of a life threatening illness, he wrote a series of meditations, or
devotions. On the seventeenth day, while a fever was gripping his entire mind,
he wrote: “No man is an island entire of
itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be
washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death
diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to
know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
No Freemason is an island, which is
to say that we are all dependent on others for our well being and growth. We
are all a part of the greater whole which is Freemasonry. If one of us is lost,
we are all diminished. Our world becomes a little bit colder, a little less
filled with joy, when one of our own joins the celestial lodge.
All the more reason, then, to do
all we can today to fill our lodges with the joy of fellowship! Who wants to
stand at the funeral of one they loved and say “I could have helped him in his
struggles, but I didn’t because I was too busy”? Better by far to say “I gave my
all for this brother, and he never doubted that he was loved.”
I hope I’ve convinced you. I’m not
naive enough to believe that one short paper (ok, short for me at least) will
change the world, or even change Masonry. But I am naive enough to believe that
making a small change within a small group of people will, given time,
snowball, and change the world.
I’ll leave you with this final thought, from the great
philosopher Fred Rogers: “If you could only sense how important you are to the
lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never
even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting
with another person.” What are you leaving?
~AT
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