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VWB Bob Jensen Deputy of the Grand Master in District 4 of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Washington for 2001-2003 Mailto: bjjcmj@aol.com 23313 94th Place
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The Lessons We Learn (December 2002)
Holiday Greetings to all. I hope you will have a great December however you celebrate the season. I look forward to the completion of Installations in the District so that the new Masters can get busy on programs that will benefit their Lodges. See Lodge listings and try to attend the Installations. Each Lodge will appreciate your being there and you will enjoy good food and fellowship at each of them.
Over the years we all learn many lessons. From the time we are babies, we are taught what to do, how to do it and when we should do it, along with thousands of ideas and plans for success in life and survival as we get older. Masonry has many plans for us, from the ritual of the three degrees to plans to make our Lodges and lives successful. However, many of us do not take advantage of those plans and we plod along in the same old way for years. Our Grand Lodge has many ideas and our Committees and their members offer new, interesting and successful methods for many phases of our Masonic life. Districts Four and Five held a joint workshop/seminar early in November. There were twenty Brothers there, with half of them being the Committee men or Deputies who were putting on the program. All those in attendance learned new ideas, new programs and felt that the three hour session was well worthwhile. I want to again Thank Green Lake Lodge for hosting the program. Those who missed it should ask those who attended about what transpired and what could be used to benefit their Lodge. There will be another similar program in the spring. Watch the Monitor for details as to when and where. Will you just plod along, or will you make a difference in your Lodge by looking to the future and helping to plan the future of your Lodge?
I just received a copy of an article written by an Australian Brother. He speaks as if he came from the year 2020 AD and has been allowed to come back to our time and tell us of the Masonry of his time. The multi-story building is owned by the Lodges in the area. Beginning with entering the four floor parking garage, and going up the elevator through main floor business and office space (all of which pays for the Lodge activities) and using his electronic card to get into the Lodge floor, he tells of the methods his Lodge uses. Minutes have been posted to the computer screens, of which there is one in front of every seat. Petitions, motions, elections etc. can all be viewed and voted upon by looking at the screen and touching yes or no. Ritual and pictures come on the screen for each degree, but a man can still give the parts perfectly by having an earphone and special glasses which show his part to him. Candidates can be better informed and all members who cannot attend can get the same material at home or office at the same time or at a later date. You also would select what you wanted to eat from a special menu before attending and it would be automatically sent in time for refreshments or dinner by the restaurant you selected. Billed to your Lodge card, it would also be subsidized by the income from the building rents and whatever your diet or tastes were, they would be accommodated. There is much more to this story and I will make copies. If you want one call or email me and I will mail one to you. While all this seems futuristic, all the electronic items he talks about are available today. It takes foresight and willingness to change from the old ways to make this work. One other small point. The Grand Lodge and Grand Master insisted that all Lodges had to have at least 200 members, and while not all attended, the information received and the attendance jumped dramatically, because interest kept pace with the modern way of life. Young men joined in droves, because all the things they saw in Masonry corresponded to the way of life they were used to in business and their personal lives. It was not an old fashioned, out of date system to them, but dynamic, dramatic and fun.
Well, I doubt very much we can jump into something like this in the near future, but if Masonry is to survive well into the future, we must think along modern lines. I have never advocated change just to change, but I see where many Lodges are doing the same things the same way they did when I joined over forty-one years ago.
SOME Lodges are successful doing business the same old way, but from the number of consolidations in the past ten years, the smaller number attending many Lodges and the problem of getting Officers, it looks like we will all be dodos and extinct before the year 2020 gets here.
The whole point of this is that we have some very good programs and some very good people working on our problems. From our Grand Master on down to the newest member of our Lodge, we need to rethink our ideas and plan ahead and this is being done. The Long Range Planning Committee has an excellent program for the Lodges to use. The rest of us need to join the parade for progress and help make our Lodges into the successful entities that they have been and can be again. I am sure that you want to help. Just how you can help is up to you. We each have different talents and abilities. Attending Lodge when and where you can, taking part in discussions and offering suggestions and ideas by phone or email can all make a difference. One vote can make a difference. One IDEA can change the world. Get busy NOW.
Thanks to both the Deputy of the Grand Master in District 4, and the Masonic Monitor which publishes his articles for allowing us to reprint them. The Masonic Monitor is published monthly (except August) under approval of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Washington. The Masonic Monitor can be contacted at: 6619 132nd Avenue NE, PMB 237, Kirkland, WA, 98033-8627, USA. Phone: (425) 822-4605 - FAX: (425) 822-2535 - Email: masonicmonitor@earthlink.net.