by Midnight Freemasons Founder
Todd E. Creason, 33°
I originally wrote this piece for the Odd Fellows after I visited Tuscola Odd Fellows Lodge No. 316. They published it on September 22, 2017 on their Heart in Hand blog. I thought I'd share it here as well. I get questions about the Odd Fellows from time to time. In fact I wrote a piece back in 2015 on the subject called Are The Odd Fellows Part of Freemasonry? I'd like to thank again Ainslie Heilich and the members of Tuscola Odd Fellows Lodge No. 316 for their time and hospitality. Our two organizations have similar goals and similar challenges, and as I suspected in the beginning, there are things we can certainly learn from each other. We've both been around a long, long time. ~TEC
I’m not an Odd Fellow.
I’m a Freemason. You’re probably
wondering what in the world I’m doing here.
Well, let me tell you how I came to be here. It’s an interesting story.
I’m the Worshipful Master of Homer Lodge No. 199 in Homer,
Illinois—that’s the same as a Noble Grand in the Odd Fellows. During my term as Master, I want to try and
make our meetings a little more interesting by adding an education component to
each and every one of our regular meetings.
Sometimes as Freemasons, we get so involved with our business meetings
(reading minutes, and hearing committee reports) we forget why we’re
supposed to be there to begin with. The
purpose of Freemasonry is to make good men better. We strive to improve our
character, to learn to live a more virtuous and moral life, and as a result of
these improvements to ourselves, we become better husbands, fathers, citizens,
and community leaders.
There are Masonic libraries full of writings about
Freemasonry, but sadly, other than the lessons and allegories from our ritual
initiation ceremonies, many of our Masonic Lodges these days have gotten away
from teaching the application of these principles into our daily lives. There’s been a real push to bring those
teachings back. That’s what I wanted to
introduce into our meetings at Homer Lodge—some deeper discussion into the
self-improvement aspects of Freemasonry, the history, the esoteric teachings,
and the symbolism found in our ritual traditions.
It occurred to me while I was scheduling speakers and topics
for discussion, that there might be lessons Odd Fellows and Freemasons could
learn from each other. When I’d
mentioned the possibility of inviting the Odd Fellows to join us during one of
our meetings, it was obvious there was a great deal of curiosity amongst
Freemasons about the Odd Fellows. Our
members were interested to see where our two organizations are the same, and
where they are different.
So we invited Ainslie Heilich, the Noble Grand of Tuscola Odd Fellows
Lodge No. 316 to join us one evening in July to talk about the Odd
Fellows. As it turns out, our
organizations are very similar in some areas, and very different in others. Both modern Freemasonry and the Odd Fellows came
into existence around the same time, the 18th century, and both came
from the workers guilds—the Freemasons worked in stone, and the Odd Fellows
were the “general contractors” of their time.
Both groups made a transition from being “operative” craftsmen to “speculative”
craftsmen—as Freemasons will often say, we stopped building structures, and
started building communities. However,
what we learned from Ainslie was that Freemasons and Odd Fellows have very different
ways of going about that similar goal.
The Odd Fellows put the emphasis on service—doing good works
in their community. Through the
performance of good works the Odd Fellows improve the world they live in, and improve
their character through the process of giving of themselves.
The Freemasons on the other hand put the emphasis on
self-improvement first—as the ancient stonemasons did in shaping stones, we
work to create in ourselves a perfect stone for building by knocking off the
rough and superfluous parts of our character.
In the Freemason tradition, charity and public service are the nature
result of character and leadership development.
Now that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but what the
Freemasons and the Odd Fellows do have in common is a desire to make the world
a better place through our contributions to it.
The Freemasons and the Odd Fellows have a long history of attracting
industrious individuals, and in building strong communities.
A couple weeks after the Odd Fellows visited us in our Masonic
Lodge, I found myself climbing the steps of Tuscola Odd Fellows Lodge No. 316
with my two principle officers. We were
given the grand tour, and we learned as much from Ainslie about the Odd Fellows
as I hope we taught him about the Freemasons during his visit. And all three of us petitioned to be members of
the Tuscola Odd Fellows Lodge. I’m
looking forward to learning as much about the Odd Fellows as I have about the
Freemasons.
There’s a lot of talk these days that organizations such as
ours are slowly dying out, and one day in the not-so-distant future, we’ll be
relegated to the ash heap of history. I
don’t believe that for one minute. All
you have to do is visit Homer Masonic Lodge No. 199 or Tuscola Odd Fellows
Lodge No. 316 to see that our ancient societies are very much alive and well.
There will always be in our society, that small group of
individuals who are willing to serve the greater good. Those individuals who don’t just talk about
making the world a better place, but actually roll up their sleeves and get to
work to make it so.
And in that, the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows aren’t so
different after all.
~TEC
Todd E. Creason, 33° is the Founder of the Midnight
Freemasons blog and is a regular contributor. He is the award winning
author of several books and novels, including the Famous
American Freemasons series. He is the author of the From Labor to Refreshment
blog. He is the Worshipful Master of Homer Lodge No. 199 and
a Past Master of Ogden Lodge No. 754. He is a Past Sovereign Master of the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied
Masonic Degrees. He is a Fellow at the Missouri Lodge of Research. (FMLR) and a charter member of a new Illinois Royal Arch Chapter, Admiration Chapter
U.D. You can contact him at: webmaster@toddcreason.org
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