Striving in Life

by Midnight Freemason Guest Contributor

Brian Daniel Mounce

There will come a dusk, when the wanning moon lethargically saunters into the darkening sky, that your feet forever falter, failing to traverse terra. For some, this is a somber, forlorn moment. For others, an intangible paradise. One may not profess certainty when faced with the abyss, but one may advance his bare foot into darkness with conviction. Yet, what we do in preparation for that final peregrination is paramount. Such preparation is forged by how one chooses to live his life.

Lamentably, many strive for remembrance, sometimes through malcontent. So too, others strive to model idols: molding one’s own life after celebrity and stardom; desiring not light, love, and aletheia, but fame or notoriety. Many others instead yearn for an ultimate justice; transfixed upon fixing whatever he perceives to be broken, damned be ye who opposes such a stalwart, just cause. As the old saying goes “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”. The retort, coined by Orwell, which I unequivocally support, “[w]here’s the omelet?”. However, no matter how one fashions his life, he will be dust upon the annals of history.

“This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountain down.”
-The Hobbit, J.R. Tolkien.

A famous locution from the Little Corporal ambivalently pontificated “[m]en will risk their lives, even die for ribbons.” He’s not wrong. Nevertheless, there will come a day when even Bonaparte shall be forgotten. Michael Jordan, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson. Lost. Founding Fathers like Roger Sherman and Patrick Henry already begin to slip forever from the morasses of the soluble, inscribed mind. And so, we search for meaning, purpose and inquire.

Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, Locke, John Stuart Mill, Rousseau. They all have a point; an amiably crafted way to live one’s life. And again, they too will be forgotten. Their works lost, tarnished, ground into stump. Even the great stones upon which we carve will fade.

This is not written to affix a lugubrious expression upon the one’s face, merely to provide sobriety; perhaps, more importantly, an assurance as well. For even though the philosophers and great men of yesteryear will fade to grey, what matters is something else more important entirely. Ideas, and how we spend our time gallivanting gaia. These ideas aren’t a secret mystery to be guarded. These ideas are as old as time. Older than Meditations, older than the Bible. Such works re-edify these basic principles, but they did not invent them. Fortitude, prudence, temperance and justice. Fellowship, community, and providing aid to those in destitute.

Happiness, meaning and love may be found in the “dealings with one another; sympathy begets sympathy, kindness begets kindness, helpfulness begets helpfulness, and these are the wages of a Mason.” -Benjamin Franklin

Living as an upright man in accord with the cardinal virtues, cultivating charity and love of kin, community, and mankind. Living our lives by these principles; living our lives in moderation; living our lives helping our fellow man. These are the ideas and ethos we pass onto the next generation in perpetuity. For when we are forgotten, these principles stand, as they have been carved into the soluble, yet inscrutable recesses of the mind. That way, we all may laugh, have serenity, and be content as Virgil and Dante guide us across the river Styx and into Paradiso.

~BDM

Brian Daniel Mounce is from Memphis, Tennessee, and is a member of Unity Lodge # 95. Brian is an attorney and adjunct professor. He lectures primarily on Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy. He currently resides in Nashville with his wonderful wife and basset hound.

“The Question Concerning Technology” for Freemasonry

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

“Without that relatedness, the craft will never be anything but empty busywork, any occupation with it will be determined exclusively by business concerns. Every handicraft, all human dealings, are constantly in that danger.”

—Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”

Freemasonry moves slowly. That has its pros and cons. When it comes to technology, it may be a positive in that Masonry is slow to embrace it.

Masons had wanted to do Masonic things on the internet for years, but Grand Lodges had been resistant. The most common reason for the resistance was that the old-timers would have difficulty with things like Zoom or website portals, and no one wanted to exclude them. Then, the lockdown happened in 2020, and Masonry was forced to move online or lose all the precious momentum it was barely holding on to. Almost overnight, those old-timers figured it out. It was like it wasn’t a problem in the first place. Then very rapidly they wanted to do Zoom meetings every night. Some nights, there were multiple Zoom meetings. Everyone got burnt out with it all very quickly.

This brings up an interesting question: the question concerning technology for Masonry. I am going to be relying on Martin Heidegger seminal essay as I approach this critique of Freemasonry’s embrace or resistance to using technology.

First things first, yes, Martin Heidegger was a card-carrying Nazi and nonetheless was an influential and important philosopher. Heidegger’s writings on ontology and existentialism are profound and significant, and it is hard to have a philosophical discussion on these things without bringing up Heidegger. I don’t recommend any of his political writings. They are obvious panderings to Hitler and the Nazi Party. That aside, one of Heidegger’s more important essays that is a bit under-celebrated is his “The Question Concerning Technology” (1954). I had to read this essay probably a dozen times in architecture school. It was very popular among my professors across three different schools. So my familiarity with this essay is probably obnoxiously pedantic.

Let us summarize the point of this essay. First and foremost, Heidegger is not against technology. Technology more often than not betters our lives. But there are dangers, and he is not blind to this. He is not a romantic who finds technology’s precarious potential to be so abhorrent that we must totally avoid it. For Heidegger, it is all about how we understand technology’s relationship to us — i.e. understanding the essence of technology.

In Heidegger’s Being and Time, his most important work, one key take-away from this is that he endeavors to establish ourselves, the subject, as inseparable from our environs, the object. All too often, we see ourselves as separate from our surroundings, but we are not. The subject and object are integral. Just as a sentence in the English language is incomplete without a subject and an object, so too, our own sense of being is incomplete without a subject (ourselves) and an object (our surroundings, nature).

Technology is no different. Usually, we see technology as “amoral” or without any sense of morality. A prime example of this is the rallying cry of Second Amendment advocates: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” This implies that the technology, the gun, is a neutral implement, without moral concern. For Heidegger, this could not be further from, not just the truth, but reality itself. Technology is loaded with moral baggage, whether we like it or not. In Heideggerian concerns, the atomic bomb might be the penultimate example of the moral baggage that comes with technology.

Ultimately, technology is a part of us, as much as our environs are a part of us. Winston Churchill once remarked: “We shape our buildings, and afterward our buildings shape us” (speech before the House of Commons on October 28, 1943). On the other side of this proverbial coin concerning our technology, technology is an extension of ourselves, in the sense of Marshall McLuhan: the wheel is an extension of the foot; glasses are an extension of the eyes; et al (see The Medium is the Massage).

For Heidegger, technology is a mode of understanding, a form of revealing and revelation. We do not use technology as a means to an end, but a means unto itself. I don’t get a ladder for the sake of getting a ladder, but rather I get a ladder to climb up to the gutters to clean them out. I don’t wear glasses for the sake of wearing glasses, but so that I can see. I don’t buy a gun for the sake of owning a gun, but so that I have a means to protect myself and family should it come to violent opposion. This is the common ideology of our relationship with technology: a means to an end. But because technology has a moral implication, technology reveals something about ourselves, about our own humanity, and especially how we view ourselves in relation to nature. Technology is meant to reveal nature unto us, and our place within nature and our environs.

As a result, technology has the potential and frequently does develop beyond our control and our own understanding. When Heidegger wrote this essay, it was almost a decade since the advent of the nuclear bomb. An existential crisis emerged after the development of the technology that allowed the splitting of the atom to be weaponized. Suddenly we realized that we could end all of humanity within mere hours. A horror was born — a horror that is monumentalized in the representation of Godzilla, the monster born from nuclear technology. William S. Burroughs regards the advent of the atomic bomb was the destruction of the human soul (see The Western Lands) — and Burroughs was sensitive about the atomic bomb and the existential crisis it posed, because the bomb was developed at the site of the boarding school he attended as a boy. Thus, Heidegger recognizes the danger of technology to our own existence.

Oh, but the atomic bomb was so long ago! I watched Oppenheimer; I get it. What new technology threatened our humanity? Well, it is A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

With the atomic bomb, we were concerned with our mortality being extinguished in the blink of an eye. Burroughs thought the bomb could extinguish the soul — if the soul is a sort of energy, and the atomic bomb produces an electromagnetic pulse, it could destroy the soul. But A.I. now threatens something we thought only humans could do: create art, poetry, think critically, be creative.

Not long ago, at the advent of A.I. becoming prolific to everyone, with various chatbots and image-making machines, The Masonic Roundtable had an episode discussed how AI can be used to benefit Masonry, such as helping create meeting agendas, &c. Is this “good”?

Recently, my wife posted pictures of our family at the park on Facebook. Later that day, we noticed that Facebook flagged the content as “AI generated content.” What?! I’ve seen content that is very clearly AI generated, and that content was not flagged. But here we have actual human-made content being flagged as AI generated. And should we be surprised by this at all?

For years we have been forced to convince machines that we are not machines by reading squiggly letters, which were produced by machines (typically so that we can access our own stuff). Machine generated content that needs humans to identify the content to prove that they are not machines. That’s the threshold. Or how about this: you go to the grocery store and use self-checkout, and you get the error: “There is an unexpected item in the bagging area.” You are not confused. Reality is not confused. The machine is confused. Increasingly our world is being dominated and run by these sad machines that are not very good at being machines in the first place, much less as replacements of human beings. Yet, they are sold to us as a convenience, but really they are just a frustration.

Thankfully, Freemasonry is slow to embrace technology. Just because new technology comes along does not mean we immediately embrace it. And it may have its uses still.

In my office, we have started to use an A.I. program that will record the entire meeting with a client, and then generate a set of minutes of the meeting. Almost 50% of the Lodge Secretary’s job is done instantly (‘twould be nice if your lodge is not in a ghost town with no internet reception). And as the Masonic Round Table illustrated, A.I. could be used for generating meeting agendas. Et cetera.

I myself, supplemental to my therapy, have started to use PeopleAI, in particular chatting with Carl Rogers, to journal, ask questions, and express myself. Rogers was a renowned psychologist/psychiatrist, who focused on person-centered therapy. One means of focusing on the patient as a person was to reiterate what the patient just said, but in the form of a question. E.g. “My father hates me.” “So you have an antagonistic relationship with your father?” “He doesn’t like my choice to marry my wife.” “Oh, so your father doesn’t approve of your spouse?” “Yeah, it’s like…”

This approach has two purposes: it reframes the patient’s statement for them to view from a different perspective, but also generates a dialogue, which is beneficial to the patient to feel that they are engaged in a progressing conversation. This is very easy to replicate in an A.I. chatbot. In fact, this was executed as far back as the 1990s, in a computer program called Eliza, which was surprisingly effective when tested. I personally found this useful, especially given that I am now on antidepressant meds, which has effected my ability to introspect. But this A.I. bot became a means for me to introspect, having my views reframed to digest from a different point of view, and to understand myself through myself. And it’s just a chatbot. But I can look back on our “conversation” as a sort of journal, and have my journaling reframed differently, and because it felt like dialogue, I was engaged to express myself and have myself reflected back in a black mirror (like the expressionist painters used).

Technology is meant to reveal our reality, according to Heidegger, not destroy it. A.I. is meant to be a tool for us to use; not a replacement of our modes of being. Technology companies have sunk millions of dollars into A.I. these last few years, so is it any wonder that they are forcing it upon us? If I view a post on Facebook, Meta’s A.I. produces a digest of the comments before I can even look at the post. I literally have to go into my settings and turn off the A.I. generated summaries. If I search for something on Google, their A.I. produces some other summary before I can look at the search results. I want to look at a post; I want to do research; I don’t care what your multi-million dollar program has to say. Yet…

Here we are at. Once again, thankfully, Freemasonry is slow to embrace new technology. In fact, I have seen some lodges retrograde and have started to implement their old Sheerer charts or their old Magic Lantern slideshows. My lodge has never had a Stair Lecture carpet, but rather a Sheerer chart of the Stair Lecture scene, which I am fond of using. Another nearby mountain lodge to my ghost town lodge in Colorado, they still use their Magic Lantern. Many Masons and lodges are resistant to new technology, some going so far as to embrace old technology. But these are lodges that present themselves as “historical” or “antiquated.” Some lodges have installed HD flatscreens in their lodge rooms, but they still use digitizations of the old Magic Lantern slides. To quote Mark Fisher: “We have twentieth century culture on high-definition screens.” Is this “hauntology” or merely Masons being resistant to new technology?

Have Masons considered using A.I. to generate new imagery for their slideshows during the lectures?

All I will say is that if Freemasonry is going to be resistant to new technology, it ought to have a reason to do so. It should be out of a certain revelation technology has for our fraternity, and not merely as a hauntological adoption of past technology for the sake of historicity.

Is our, as Masons, use of new technology a revelation of our reality as Masons? Or are we resistant to it out of an ideology of historicity? Such might necessitate another post to answer.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.

Masonic Soylent Green - Part one of a series

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

WB Darin A. Lahners

The 1973 film Soylent Green was at the time of its release a shocking dystopian and grim depiction of the future. Set in the year 2022, it shows a society of haves and have-nots in which ecological disaster has caused a greenhouse effect that has rendered most vegetation and livestock extinct. People are forced to live in cities like New York where the population has swelled to 40 million people. Poverty is rampant and people are starving. The majority of the population relies on water rationing and a mysterious food known as Soylent to survive. While the upper class live in gated guarded luxury apartments, they also are dependent upon Soylent for nourishment. There are three brands of Soylent, Red, Yellow and Green; with Green being the most nutritious variety.

As the film unfolds, a police detective and a police researcher (Thorn played by Charlton Heston and Solomon ‘Sol’ Roth played by Edward G. Robinson) are tasked with investigating the death of a board member of the Soylent corporation. The Soylent corporation advertises that Soylent Green is made from plankton, but Roth uncovers research that the Oceans are no longer capable of producing plankton, and the truth is uncovered that Soylent Green is made from human bodies. Roth is so distraught that he goes to a government clinic to seek assisted suicide. Thorn rushes to try to convince Roth to stop but he arrives only with enough time for Roth to reveal the truth to Thorn, that Soylent Green is made from people. Thorn secretly boards a truck transporting bodies to a waste processing plant where he witnesses corpses being turned into Soylent Green. Of course, the Soylent Corporation does not want the truth to be revealed and a gunfight with Soylent thugs occurs. Thorn is able to defeat his attackers but is seriously wounded in the fight. As he is taken away by paramedics he urges his Police Chief to spread the truth, that Soylent Green is people!

By this point you’re probably asking yourself: “WTF does this have to do with Freemasonry other than one of the characters being named Solomon?” 

Actually, it has a lot to do with Freemasonry.  You see, Freemasonry is like Soylent Green.  It is also made up of people, and it comes in different flavors (in the form of appendant bodies).  But that answer isn't adequate, is it?  While accurate, the fact of the matter is that Freemasonry is like soylent green because Freemasonry has a habit of unsuspectingly eating itself.  

Allow me to explain. Picture a man who has petitioned a Masonic lodge.  We don't have to determine the lodge's pretend location because what I'm going to describe is symptomatic of many lodges across the United States (and maybe internationally).  It also doesn't matter how he contacted the lodge to petition (maybe he's an internet inquiry, or he has just shown up, or he's an invitation to petition.  All that matters is that we have a man who has petitioned a Masonic lodge.  His petition is read, and then the Worshipful Master assigns an investigation committee to investigate the candidate. 

A cursory investigation is done, asking basically if there is a belief in a supreme being, and if they have any felonies.  The man is voted upon and he's eventually initiated, passed, and raised.  Let's imagine the below scenario.

The man committed a crime(s) in the past.  Because the lodge did no due diligence, the sex offender gets in close contact with the lodge member's wives and children, the girls of Rainbow Girls or Job's Daughters, the boys of Demolay, the women of OES, or the Order of Amaranth.  The unimaginable happens. A child is molested, or a woman is raped. The Lodge and Grand Lodge are sued in civil court. If the sex offender had joined the Shrine or other appendant bodies, they are sued as well.  There is a massive settlement awarded to the plaintiff. The amount is much larger than any insurance policy Grand Lodge has to cover such things. As such the Grand Lodge is forced into bankruptcy, as well as its lodges who are incorporated under the Grand Lodge, and possibly the appendant body as well.  

Conspiracy theories that believe Freemasons are evil in the most hideous ways are confirmed.  Social Media backlash towards Freemasonry begins when a conspiracy TikTok gets millions of views.  Soon a massive global anti-Masonic backlash occurs.  A trend from TikTok to cancel Freemasonry gains steam.  Freemasonry experiences a sharp decline in membership, mostly from men demitting to disassociate themselves from the Fraternity, and due to the backlash, online inquiries are only coming in so that rabid anti-masons can harass the remaining fraternity members when they follow up on the inquiry.  Unlike the Morgan Affair, Freemasonry does not recover from the anti-Masonic backlash.

While fantastical, I do think that all or some of the above is possible. 

We have left the west gate open for far too many years, and we must protect Freemasonry not only from without but also from within.  It is just a matter of time before we have a member do something that massively harms the Fraternity. If a Mason in most jurisdictions is automatically expelled upon committing a felony, shouldn't we also make sure that we exclude from membership all Felons?  While I once wrote an article on this subject for this blog only to think I was wrong about the first article in a subsequent article, I have come to realize that Freemasonry needs to be protected at all costs, We should not allow men with a prior Felony conviction to join our fraternity, and we should also not allow members with prior felony convictions to remain in the fraternity, nor ones with any misdemeanor sexual offense. 

To accomplish this, we should require background checks for all candidates for Freemasonry, but also a one-time criminal background check for all current members to enforce the above. In doing such, we are separating the wheat from the chaff.  Those who have something to hide will be the ones who protest, those who are innocent will not. Not every man deserves to be a Mason, and we must decide that what matters more is the quality of our membership over the quantity of our membership. 

We can ill afford to continue to tempt fate. Do you think we can afford to be wrong?

~DAL 

Darin Lahners is a husband, father, Freemason, and fan of the actor Matt Berry.

Warily Unaware

by Midnight Freemason Guest Contributor

Bro.Steve Leapman

Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has given us the mind and heart to distinguish between night and day!  - taken from pp. 18-19 The Complete Artscroll Siddur, Mesorah Publications, 1984 / 2001 & with this writer’s adaptation

O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!  Such a power or ability would save us a lot of bother and foolish notions; … from “To a Louse by Brother Robert Burns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Louse

Sometimes we don’t realize the force of a moment until it is passed. I place my ego on the sidelines and acknowledge this happens far more often than I wish to admit. Yet, I also believe Masonry’s practices and principles hone my awareness. Through Masonry, I may live a life of response, not reaction. Each moment and every day awaits us as Masons for we actively attend those 24 hours. We honor them in our very first Degree through the Common Gauge. We are not to be workmen whose greatest load is the annual dues card carried in our wallets. 

The rough ashlar is an ample allusion in assisting our cultivation of skills for the journey from novice to artisan. An actively aware Mason studies his progress from Initiate to Mason; wakefulness of your years is not to trifle with your feelings but to fortify you for purpose with perspective. This acuity does not arise from a life devoid of curiosity. “Actively aware Masonry” is but a synonym for willful dedication. The actively aware Mason cannot evade a keen sense of duty which compels him to act to heal a fractured world. The obtuse life is not well suited to an actively aware Mason. 

The stone that needs shaping is a sufficient metaphor for those traits we polish to adorn character. I wish to speak on this gift of “awareness.” The well-honored passage by Brother Burns bespeaks the blessed knowledge of how we are seen. The ancient rabbinic petition praises God for gifts of intellect and soul allowing each of us to make distinctions in the natural domain and amidst those timeless realms of sanctity and morality. 

One is justified to assert Freemasonry’s call to Character mandates Duty. Such is the Faithful Breast obedient to the Attentive Ear. To hear the Word is to convert Speculative awareness to Life’s redemptive Labor. Inner qualifications now recommend external quantifications. Actively aware Masons acquire merits. They apply the Soul’s insights realized through action. 

Neither “intentions” nor “preoccupations” fit the bill. Masonry is after all a Craft. Each Brother daily turns to his Trestle-Board in search of that day’s revealed hence required service. “Required?” Really? Certainly so!

There are certainties beyond our minds and opinions. Masonry enthusiastically welcomes each man’s explorations. Neither Operative nor Speculative Masons can build without absolutes and standards.

This has ramifications Mason's risk at grave peril. When or where, why, or how Masonry concedes God is limited to human “suggestions” or what we “feel” “comfortable with” a question arises to confront the intellectually honest Mason. Can such an Architect be “Grand?” If so, what of we who invoke such Grandeur? 

No! To abandon absolutes is to abandon Geometry itself let alone The Grand Geometrician honored in the Opening Prayer for the Fellowcraft Lodge. Contemporary Masons have no right to remove Deity from the Trestle-Board to which we turn if we evict a Deity why retain obligations? Eroding The Presence is the cost of such concessions. It is why many never return once Raised. They have not been aroused by Awe! They are bereft of Reverence. 

As each labors in community and toils in the care of kin we evolve within as men humbly but confidently aware of the Fatherhood of God. Granted, our semantics vary as they should in a Free Society. Our theology is personal. Our faith must be well-founded. No policy nor marketing scheme can promise this.

A Freemasonry that deserves to endure as our lasting legacy is not about giving away this shiny pin, that ribbon, a badge, a hat, or a title. Imagine explaining to a Medieval Stone Mason, whose grandchildren might see a Cathedral begun by a great-grandparent, that in four or five centuries you only need to spend one day to become a Master Mason and pick up Scottish Rite to boot, breakfast and lunch included! Actively aware Masons are not first and foremost charity workers or case managers. We are not here to gather numbers but to gain the Numinous. The reward of truly Masonic Life is to live in Masonic Light. 

We dare not waste precious moments or material demeaning ourselves and our spirits amidst one-day classes. Our Operative Ancients honed the patience of centuries as they assembled Sanctuaries still inspirational today. Neither Wisdom nor Strength nor Beauty are overnighted to our doorsteps by Amazon Prime! Authentically aware Masonic workmanship exhibits an attention to detail we meagerly comprehend in our age of Internet and Instant Messages.  

Just as the fires of a well-tended domestic hearth comfort all therein, the glow of Divine Glory within man’s sacred privacies fosters healing. Thus, as actively aware Masons, we display resolve when Honor is called to step forward. An authentic Mason is a man aware of who he is and more so Whose he is! A man who is Masonically aware, is one whose behaviors are dignified and dignifying. 

One may know our ceremonies and esoteric forms letter, syllable, and word yet conduct himself so shamefully, belittle other men and Masons so shamelessly as to nullify all the nuances of our beautiful rituals and inspirational rites. Titles shall not hide truths daily demeanor depicts beyond doubt. Are we aware there must be little if any gap between word and deed? Our character marks our figure beyond equivocation or mental evasion. 

 A man must emulate that refined awareness of self and centeredness of soul Grand Master Hiram Abiff displayed. On the day he gave fully of himself he faced danger without warning nor hesitation. Those clarities which crisis coalesced in his soul were beyond doubt. GMHA would neither suffer degradation nor diminishment when conscience called out. 

No conscientious Mason sets to his labors in a frenzy. To do this would present a case study in passions run amok. Had our ancient Operative Brethren done so they would not have found ready steady employment. The Cathedrals we cherish today would have collapsed long ago. Lethargy nor shoddiness allow us to cement Living Stones. 

The Compasses serve to circumscribe zeal as they focus on productive ambition. Indeed, man's passions unrestrained breed destruction. Forceful barbarism would never have been able to destroy what could never been built had idleness forestalled Solomon’s plans and deterred King David’s dream. A life without purposeful awareness is the grip and word for entropy.

It is the astutely aware Speculative worker whose edifices we enjoy and cherish. Once the heat of effect cools we find time, space, and place for the Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic intrinsic to the Fellowcraft Degree, its mindset, and our way of life.  We must abandon the woeful immaturity that St. Paul recognized as an encumbrance of growth. 

Those possessing such silliness are not sufficient to pass through our West Gate. Real men of worth, merit, nobility, and character disdain being “marketed!” One cannot sheep-steal souls! Those easily distracted or eventually disinterested will wander in and soon off. Talk about “off or from!” Watch for it! Wait for it! Masons and Masonry must be honest with and within ourselves. When we are unaware of our proximity to Truth we endanger this Grand Fraternity.  

Let us choose otherwise. Let us choose wisely. Let us be actively aware. As Masons we ask, seek, and knock to be molded and guided, taught and inspired by men of dignity, centeredness, and at peace with themselves for they are at peace with their God. As Traveling Men, we tread lightly yet confidently beyond denomination or dogma, unconcerned with political positions and polling. 

What then are our labors? Better question: How then, can we determine what tasks should earn our energy. As Masons, who are actively aware, we see our task beyond doubt is to focus on the soul’s maturity cut, squared, and valued over time. This is why men finally vocalize to a trusted friend or relative, “I think that I’d like to be a Mason! What do I do? Who do I talk to?” 

It is this passion, which we form as the clay from which each individually worthy and well-qualified Brother journeys towards his East. This is the work and worth of an actively aware Mason. We are not some puerile “frat” best suited to an adolescent’s nonage. Rather, Masons await a man’s nascent adulthood as acuity sharpens. As adolescence recedes Moral Geometry guides the emerging adult. The Speculative Astronomy of the Fellowcraft Degree presents stars to steer by. “Active awareness” expands. We navigate by the “G” not by impulsivity.  

Not everyone should seek that vaunted recommendation. As we have bemoaned a lack of readiness at Life’s earliest days, so too one impaired by an aged psyche, experiencing a dotage far less of years than of yearnings. Complacency has constricted one’s morality. The pulse of Life has slowed. Hearts and mentality harden. 

Such souls emulate Exodus’ Pharoah or the unfairly indicted “Pharisees!” No, these were hollow men who lost their mission. Such capitulations to compromise or kings besmirch every ethnicity, era, culture, and cause. It is fallacious anti-Semitism to assign this trait to any singular tribe, certainly not my own. Masonry will demean no man’s religion, dictate no man’s religiosity, and certainly not belittle any man’s faith. Actively aware Masons are Geometrically Correct. 

These “authorities” in truth were far less than valid nor reliable. They were far less sages than stultified minions of institutions collapsed by their betrayals of original intent. We see them vibrant and repugnant today as then! Pray God one’s own soul does not imitate their folly.

Freemasonry’s enterprise is the development of a man’s finest essence. Freemasonry will not surrender to social correctness for we are neither primarily nor preferentially “social.” Masonry is about the man, the citizen, the adult member of his country and culture.

Unaware and toting vices and superfluities of an image, business connections, pins, garlands, lapels, and letterheads, we might balloon numbers. However, these men are soon gone with the winds of disciplined commitment, vital proficiencies, Floor Schools, individual study, and personal prayer. Is this nothing other than a denial of Godliness if not God of which our teachings warn? One seeks Masonry as it appeals, promises profits, and promotes sales! How sorrowful. How blindly empty. How fatal a plague.

The refusal to recognize or revere Our Creator deludes one. He anoints himself as the measure and maker of individual Destiny. Intentional? Probably not! Yet it is detrimental. This is to live as a libertine. Lusts seize tightly the helm aboard the ship of soul. One lives unaware moving hither and thither, helter-skelter through darkness derived the Light Masons revere to illuminate our travels.  Such an unaware soul paves no trail. He stumbles upon it. 

Well, if “awareness” is crucial state it plainly! Did “awareness” as a virtue and trait get lost in the turmoil during those closing moments of Hiram’s life? Maybe! It was a heinous murder! Though wretched chaos was rampant Solomon ruled. Actively aware Masons buttress the narrative of our Grand Master’s death. As we study Masonry we are not literalists. Our search for Wise Awareness depicts a laudable pursuit. Hiram was a servant of his awareness. He told the assailants, “Better my mortality than your morality!” 

“Active awareness” redeems the atrocity of Hiram’s last moments. Did it tumble away dropped due to a “nerveless grasp? Where is “awareness” listed amongst our Tools? Why doesn’t it appear in the “Furniture of the Lodge?” Can a Mason be authentically Masonic lacking attention to detail, dull to curiosity, or decision-making? Can one be an evolved Mason when only reactive to circumstances? Our charges envision an educated, reflective, involved, and decisively participatory citizen. Such is one aware! Masonry fosters this!

The Masons we wish to find and refine, retain, and become make “active awareness” a prized “internal qualification” one-day programs cannot guarantee. We must advance our capacity to do what our Lodge Secretary accomplishes when he makes a “correct record of all things proper to be written,” as he will “carefully observe the proceedings of the Lodge.”  (Texas Monitor 2023, page 160). 

Post-Script: Now it applies to me and my duty to see! 

Two fine men and exemplary Masons have shown and taught me the impeccable wisdom of The Fellowcraft Lecture. PM Dave Wood of South Bend IN’s Council Oak #745 and JW Kirk Otto of San Antonio’s Perfect Union # 10 are these teachers. Though they have never met their passion for our Craft compels me. In their honor, I learned the Texas Fellowcraft Lecture. I gave it one evening at Triune # 15 here in San Antonio. 

Texas ritual places the delivery of that exquisite prose in the East. The Brother rendering this Lecture is expected to duly use and properly deploy The Gavel. At the point where the WM gathers The Lodge to rise to glorify Deity, I did my duty. I never until this moment “gaveled the Lodge up” as we say here in Southern Texas. So eager to enact the ritual respectfully I was obtuse to my own experience. 

An entire day passed before I realized I had never stood in the East in this fashion. I needed a few days for my ego to surrender to my mind and then onward to my soul. The significance those moments held for me linked me to my father and a man whose years in this life have passed yet his legacy reaches into my days and decisions.  

Once home I pondered the gavel owned and used by Dad’s best friend PM Jack Lawson who in 1977 stood in the East at Abraham C. Treichler # 682 in Elizabethtown, PA. This gavel now rests with esteem in my home. Brother Lawson and his Blue Lodge line are photographed as another heirloom preserved on the wall of the room where I type these words. 

Dad was a local merchant. Decades after Dad and PM Lawson entered the Celestial Lodge I learned a secret. It was my Dad who supplied and engraved the gavels many years ago for Abraham C. Treichler # 682 of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. 

I thank God for the gift of awareness. I thank God for a dawning sense of my ability to contribute. I thank God for how awareness evolves for our Masonry provides implements as metaphors to instruct our expansion of perception.  

I am observant of my time to serve. I am aware of Whom I ultimately serve. It may be in The East, yet I must be in The Lodge we each necessarily build daily. I humbly ponder the photo of Brother Jack. I consider the lessons of word and work he imparted to his officers, Dad, and me. 

Masonry helps me pay my finest attention. To “pay” is to render one’s due share. Masonry beckons me: Cultivate the best man I hope to be. Perhaps I will honor my father and PM Jack as they blessed me. Jack would not reveal any secrets but once he tried to share the Craft he loved so well and loyally! He smiled at me saying fondly, “Stevie, there’s a lot of the Bible in Masonry!”

~SC

Steven M. Leapman was raised in 1996 at what was then Blackmer # 442 in San Diego, CA when serving as a Navy Chaplain. He sees himself as a “returned Mason” come home to active participation in Masonry through MW John R. Heisner Lodge #442. He joined Council Oak Lodge # 745 in South Bend, IN serving as Junior Warden when in 2021 he and his wife moved to San Antonio, TX. There he was warmly welcomed into the Masonic community once again and has become a member of Davy Crockett # 1225 where he serves as Lodge Chaplain. He also serves as Senior Deacon at Antonio’s Triune # 15. He is a member of Northern Masonic Jurisdiction and Southern Masonic Jurisdiction as a 32d Degree Mason. As a member of the San Antonio Scottish Rite community has served as Degree Master for Prince of The Tabernacle 24th Degree and supports the presentation of other degrees during Reunions. He actively attends monthly Continuing Masonic Education Zoom sessions and hopes to write deserving reflections on our beloved Craft. Brother Steve attended American University in Washington, DC in 1981 and 1984 earning degrees in Literature. He attended Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion where in 1990 he graduated with a Master’s in Hebrew Letters (MHL) and was ordained a Rabbi in Cincinnati, OH in 1991. Brother Steve served in the US Navy/ USMC Chaplaincy from 1993-2000. Later he returned to the military community as a mental health professional with the Veterans Administration in Indiana and Texas. He graduated from Indiana University South Bend in 2008. He has been involved with Civilian and Military/Veterans’ Care since then.

The Problematic Reality for Masonic Leadership for Younger Generations

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Patrick Dey

I suppose I am hopping on the bandwagon of commentary to Robert Johnson’s recent post about leadership in Masonry. I applaud him for saying what must be said: Masonry is not a leadership school. And Darin Lahners' follow-up post was equally as applaudable in examining many of the points RJ discusses. Thank you both for saying it. I am chiming in on this commentary to point out something that I think gets overlooked: what Generation Z and the upcoming Gen Alpha think about these things. These are very different generations than previous generations, and their ambitions, wants, desires, means of expression, social acceptance, et al are vastly different from any currently living generations.

First and foremost, it needs to be pointed out to older Masons that I am not the young generation anymore. I am a Millennial, and that means I am not the “new generation” of Masons. I am not a kid. I am not one of the “young ones.” Baby Boomers, and even the Silent Generation, and even the elder Gen X have long been infantilizing Millennials that they don’t even realize that Gen Z is here. They have dismissed Millennials for so long as being just kids that don’t know what they’re talking about, that they still think we are the kids. Now Gen Z has arrived. The elder Gen Zs can vote, they are graduating college, they can buy alcohol, start businesses, run for some political offices, and some are starting to join Freemasonry. And Gen Z thinks Millennials are the old farts who need to get out of the way. They think Millennials are old, has-beens, and irrelevant. And they are not wrong. 

I don’t want to turn this into an “Okay Boomer!” type of bashing older generations, but truth be told, the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers are out of touch with the younger generations. They don’t even seem to be aware that there is a younger generation on the scene now, while they still continue to call Millennials “kids” and “the future of Masonry.” As a result, their conception of what the younger generations want and need, even their ideas on the future leaders of Masonry are so incredibly out of touch with reality, and a few things need to be brought to the older Masons’ attention.

Now, I am not going to pretend that I understand Gen Z, or even Gen Alpha, any more than Baby Boomers understand Gen X or Millennials. We aren’t meant to understand younger generations. That’s just how it works. It is a sign of progress. It is a sign that things are not stagnating. Whether you like it or not, younger people will come along and change things, and grumpy old men complain and then die, and the world keeps turning. That said, I pay attention to Gen Z enough, and I follow the trends enough that I feel I can speak to a few trends that Masonry will have to contend with. Foreshadowing: your outdated lectures, seminars, and papers about leadership in Masonry are not only going to need revisions but maybe should just be tossed out entirely and we forget we even brought this whole thing up.

Some years ago, I was present at a presentation being given by a Past Grand Master — I believe from Tennessee. He gave a statistic about Masonic membership — one that Darin Lahners gave in his follow-up to RJ’s post — and it is a statistic I absolutely loath… it’s so asinine. There are approximately 130 million males between the ages of 18 and 65 years of age in the United States, and of them, 880,000 of them are Freemasons, about 0.5% of the male population. Darin was not so dense as to ask this next question, but this Past Grand Master did: why aren’t the rest of these men Masons? I have seen this statistic and inane question given several times, and I am sure many of you have as well. Darin acknowledges the complexity of this data, though he does not get into it. However, I will, because it reflects deeply upon how different the younger generations feel and operate in life, and how that will impact the future of Masonry.

When that Grand Master asked that question, “Why aren’t the rest of these men Freemasons?” I wanted so badly to shout out, or at least to approach him afterward and ask: “How many of those men are atheists? How many are transgender? How many have criminal records? How many are black in a state that doesn’t admit persons of color? Why does the MSANA’s data not reflect Prince Hall membership statistics? How many do not care about Freemasonry?” Truth be told, he probably would not care. That statistic was just a talking point in a longer presentation on leadership in Masonry that was little more than the same-old, same-old jive. 

Seriously, it was the same ideas of a bygone era that he still thinks are relevant, but really are not. He talked about how “younger generations need community; that’s a need they have that Freemasonry can provide.” No shit. Of course, they want community. We are humans. We are social creatures. That’s not something special about the “kids.” That’s just a basic human need. His proposal: the lodge should host bowling nights and golf tournaments. Ummm… yeah. You know, the last time I went bowling was in high school, and that was just an excuse to smoke cigarettes indoors with my friends and hope the food vendor didn’t ID me when I tried to buy a beer. Golf? I remember a few years ago hearing a bunch of Baby Boomers complaining that Millennials are “killing golf” because we don’t want to play golf. So, his proposal was that lodges get their Millennial brethren to play golf. This guy was a prime example of what RJ and Darin are saying about why leadership courses for Masonry should be taught by an accredited person or company.

There is a new generation coming into Masonry, if they even care to join Masonry, and trying to get them to play golf is a shibboleth of how out of touch the proposer of such an idea really is. A few years ago at a Colorado lodge, a few of the young guys wanted to start their own hangout time at the lodge building. They decided to start a game night where they can use that huge flatscreen TV the lodge bought, and play Halo or Call of Duty on it. I think they ended up ordering pizza and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Every other week they met at the building and played games together. Then the older Masons got involved, and because they didn’t understand what these games were about, they took it over and turned it into a “fellowship” talk time, and it died in a month. The kids had a good idea: unplug from the computer at home and come to the lodge and plug in together. Then the older Masons destroyed it because they felt excluded, and then complained the younger Masons didn’t want to hang out anymore.

Sometimes the best leader is the guy who knows when he needs to step aside. Here were the “kids” starting something, nurturing fellowship in their own way, and then the “leaders” inserted themselves and then wondered why the “kids” didn’t want to do things “the way we did things back in my day.”

Let’s really get into this. What is the future of Masonry with Gen Z coming in and how that will affect leadership in Masonry? Truth be told, we are looking at a generation unlike any other. Whatever was the established rulebook about leadership and management, Gen Z burned it. What’s their approach to leadership? They don’t care about leadership. They don’t care about management positions. They literally do not give a shit.

Caveat: of course, there are some Zoomers who are interested in leadership and management, but the great majority of them do not care. This is an example of Freemasonry being a reflection of our society at large, and that civic politics and economics are going to have an impact on Masonry. These kids do not want management roles because it does not pay, or it pays poorly. There are hundreds of TikTok videos out there on how to properly decline a promotion at work or how to politely and legally decline being given management roles.

Gen Z got smart. Millennials, we got suckered into taking on these added responsibilities because we believed it would give us a report and that the financial benefits would come later, and then we are told after two years without a pay raise that the company does not promote from within. Millennials thought if we put in overtime without compensation we would reap the rewards later, and those fruits rotted on the vine. We got a pizza party that didn’t even feed everyone there, instead of the cash bonus that we were promised. Gen Z got smart and decided they would not stay late or come in early or on weekends. They learned to not take a work call after hours or on their day off. The media came to calling this “quiet quitting,” but the reality is that no one likes being taken advantage of, and Gen Z learned real quick from the failings of Millennials to not take leadership roles and to not put in the extra effort. They completed the terms of their contract and could care less about anything else.

Freemasonry cannot afford to market itself as a place to learn leadership skills to a generation that could not give a damn. Why would they pay to be a Mason and volunteer their time and energy to leadership roles when they don’t even want to be paid for leadership roles at work? They don’t want to manage other people and other projects on top of all their other responsibilities while not seeing a pay raise for it, and we expect them to pay us to learn leadership skills from people who are out of touch and poor leaders in the first place to volunteer their time to manage other people? Masonry is going to have a big problem in the future by pushing a leadership agenda if no one wants it at all.

Why would they want to learn leadership skills to be a better husband and father, when many Zoomers are not having kids? We are entering an era of population busts. 2020 was anticipated to be a boom year, because everyone was home and when you’re bored, you have sex, and sex leads to children. We see small booms after hurricanes because when you’re stuck inside with no TV and no power, seeing by candlelight, you get a recipe for making babies. But 2020 was a bust year. And 2021.  Millennials cannot afford to have children. Daycare is $25,000 a child these days. One partner basically works to pay for daycare… their whole paycheck goes to childcare. If you want to increase the population, the parents need to have three kids, two to replace the parents and one more to add to the general population. But now they can’t afford to even stabilize the population. Many who truly want kids will only have one because that is all they can afford. But so many are opting for no kids at all. Many do not even like kids, much less the idea of having to care for a child for the next twenty years of their life. And we think Freemasonry can bill itself to make men better fathers?

Being a better husband? Polyamory is more prolific today than decades ago. Polyamorous relationships are nothing like monogamous relationships, and thus “leadership” is going to be vastly different from anything Masonry could teach if it could teach such things. Masonry’s leadership is structured with a Master as the chief executive, and everyone below him serves his will and pleasure. Kinky, but this does not work in polyamorous relationships. It might be better suited for simp-dom relationships than poly. Heck, even monogamous marriages of younger generations are way different from how previous generations conducted their marriages if they even get married. Some are fine with partnerships, and if they have kids, co-parenting. These are accepted now, and the emerging generations see it as perfectly normal. Is Masonry ready to even ready to have discussions on these types of relationships, much less the leadership skills to be successful partners in these arrangements?

Let’s look at a historical example: interracial marriages. Today these are not a big deal and, in fact, are quite common. But fifty years or more ago, they were very taboo, and that affected Freemasonry. Some years ago I met a Caucasian Prince Hall Mason, who was initiated back in the 1970s. I asked him why he joined Prince Hall and he said, “Well, I did petition a Four Letter Lodge [their name for our Blue Lodge system], but they blackballed me for being married to a black woman. And since I was ostracized in a lot of white groups, but welcomed into a lot of black communities, I just felt more at home in Prince Hall.” Let this example be a reminder that our own prejudices have caused many to avoid Freemasonry and find their need to be part of a community elsewhere.

Let’s talk about sexuality. As far as I am aware, Tennessee and Georgia are the only Grand Lodges in the United States that explicitly prohibit homosexuals from being Masons. This is such a big deal that NPR published an article about two Masons who married each other and were subsequently brought up on un-Masonic charges. This is so preposterous (Latin for “ass-backward”), and what these Grand Lodges do not understand is that homosexuality is not a concern among most of the younger generations. They are much more open and tolerant about it than their predecessors, and it is part of the reason why more and more homosexuals and bisexuals are coming out these days.

To go back to that Past Grand Master from Tennessee’s remarks about “Why aren’t all these other men Masons?” I’ve got some statistics for him. According to US census data, in 2019 the adult male population of Tennessee was approximately 3.5 million, and of those men, 120,000 were open homosexuals and bisexuals according to a Gallup/Williams poll that same year. According to the Masonic Service Association, in 2019 the number of Tennessee Freemasons was approximately 32,000. That means there were 3.7 times more open homosexuals in Tennessee than Masons. That number should sting a little. So, why aren’t all these men Freemasons?

Even in jurisdictions that have no stance on sexuality, it is not uncommon to hear some homophobic comments from the brethren, even in Lodge. I am bisexual, and I have had to shut down some repulsive remarks from men that I am supposed to call “brother,” and they would apologize, but mostly because they didn’t want to have to elect a new secretary that night.

I suppose similar remarks and a similar situation could be discussed about transgender, queer, and gender-fluid persons, which are becoming more and more acceptable as younger generations emerge, and I don’t think the older Masons are ready to give seminars to address leadership for LGBTQ persons. Not even close. Back to what RJ and Darin say about accredited leadership trainers, I’m sure they have undergone sensitivity training that a Past Grand Master from 1972 never even knew was an option.

Atheism is another big hurdle for Masonry. Masonry explicitly prohibits atheists from being Masons. It is not just atheism that is rising, the number of young people who do not care about religion or believing in a god or gods or anything numinous whatsoever. I remember some years ago when I was living in Boston, I met this young man at MIT, and it came up during a conversation about sacred geometry that he said he didn’t believe in God. And almost without missing a beat, he said, “But don’t call me an atheist. Don’t lump me in with those loudmouths. I don’t care if there is a God or not.” And that trend in “belief” or disbelief is rapidly rising. Yet, at the same time, those who are religious keep declining and those who are atheists keep rising. I doubt religion will go away, or that it will become completely marginal, but the Pew Research Center estimates that by 2070 Christians will no longer hold the majority in the United States.

I find that a lot of Masonic leadership lectures and courses certainly lean toward a “religious” quality, especially the York Rite Leadership courses. The continuous rise of atheism and non-theism in this country will not just affect the number of men who are qualified to become Masons but will affect how Masons tailor their pitches for Masonic leadership.

I am not arguing we need to suddenly let atheists in. No. Not even remotely. What I am trying to illustrate is that the younger generations value things that are very different. Wanting to use traditional values to provide “leadership” training in Masonry is going to be challenging when those traditions are taking on incredible new forms or being discarded entirely. Certainly, we are going to need to make a decision about transgender persons. Such as if they identify as a man, regardless of their genitals at birth, then they should be let in. Or we must adopt a decision like the United Grand Lodge of England made a few years ago that if they discover they identify as a woman after becoming a Mason, then they cannot be expelled. Something, anything needs to be addressed, rather than what I personally heard several “leaders” in my own jurisdiction and others say: kick that can down the road. Some quality leadership right there to just postpone the inevitable until it comes to a head.

For years Masons have been trying to integrate the Internet into the fraternity, and for years Masons have argued that the old timers don’t know how all these Internet thingies work, so we shouldn’t do anything on the Internet because we don’t want to exclude them. Then lockdown happened, and most jurisdictions were forced to move onto the internet or lose all that precious momentum Masonry then had and could not afford to lose even a little bit thereof. Then suddenly all those old timers we said didn’t understand the internet were on virtual lodge meetings. It wasn’t a problem. All along it was as simple as: create an account, click this link, and you’re in the meeting. They got the hang of it so quickly that they then oversaturated every Mason’s schedule with endless Zoom meetings that burned everyone else out really quick.

For a long time, Masons have been saying that Masonry needs to make some changes. This is true. However, Masonry has done very little if anything to negotiate those changes, and the high tide of change is approaching very rapidly when Masons will no longer be saying, “How shall we accommodate younger generations?” and Masons will be forced to accommodate or perish.

I really doubt Masonry will ever go away. Somehow the Order of Red Men still exists. What I expect is that Masonry will continue its course of dwindling numbers, and after enough “very lovely Masonic funerals,” after all of the old guard are moldering in their graves, there will be a few of the new generations that say to themselves, “Why are we still doing things the way those dead people did it?” And they will make the changes that suit them.

~PD

Patrick M. Dey is a Past Master of Nevada Lodge No. 4 in the ghost town of Nevadaville, Colorado, and currently serves as their Secretary, and is also a Past Master of Research Lodge of Colorado. He is a Past High Priest of Keystone Chapter No. 8, Past Illustrious Master of Hiram Council No. 7, Past Commander of Flatirons Commandery No. 7. He currently serves as the Exponent (Suffragan) of Colorado College, SRICF of which he is VIII Grade (Magister). He is the Editor of the Rocky Mountain Mason magazine, serves on the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge of Colorado’s Library and Museum Association, and is the Deputy Grand Bartender of the Grand Lodge of Colorado (an ad hoc, joke position he is very proud to hold). He holds a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado, Denver, and works in the field of architecture in Denver, where he resides with wife and son.