Which Way Masonry?

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|The Craft's Future?                                                   |
| In the last few weeks I have enjoyed playing host to several Masons  |
|from other countries.  That, our growing Masonic world on the Inter-  |
|net, and a few recent, more traditional errands for the welfare of    |
|the brethren of my own lodge have led me to consider that "indissolu- |
|ble chain of sincere affection" said to link Masons together.  How is |
|it formed?  Will it continue?  How do we come to make such strong     |
|friendships in our own lodges, and why are we ready to offer friend-  |
|ship and extend our trust to one who can introduce himself as a Mason?|
| Our experiences of working together, using the opportunities for "the|
|exercise of brotherly love," is what holds our own lodges together.   |
|We welcome and trust the travelling mason not due to his certificate  |
|and a few tokens, but because they indicate a man who was accepted by |
|another lodge that (presumeably) shares our ideals, and who (again we |
|assume) has had his own Masonic education: learning to act upon the   |
|square, circumscribe his desires, and all the other lessons in our    |
|school of harmony.                                                    |
| It would be better to be able to treat all people with such ready    |
|trust and regard, expecting that they all had benefitted from such    |
|lessons.  Perhaps that day will come; I choose to think that Free-    |
|masonry, by cultivating the habit and the desire, is one template     |
|and example bringing the day closer.                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Alternatively, perhaps lodges will\/                                  |
|choose to merely chase membership \/                                  |
|numbers.  Perhaps Grand Lodges    \/                                  |
|will encourage them in that with  \/                                  |
|hyperactive "Awareness" programs  \/                                  |
|shortned proficiency requirements \/                                  |
|atrophied lodges of instruction   \/                                  |
|one-day degree classes, etc.  If  \/                                  |
|so, those certificates and tokens \/                                  |
|will lose any value as signs of   \/                                  |
|Masonic character, we will be     \/                                  |
|increasingly unable to make       \/                                  |
|ourselves known to one another,   \/                                  |
|and the fabric of world-wide      \/                                  |
|Masonry will disintegrate.        \/                                  |
|                                  \/                                  |
| Wor. Gary L. Dryfoos, master     \/                                  |
| Mt. Scopus Lodge, Malden, Mass.  \/                                  |
|                                  \/                                  |
| note improved, shorter, URL:     \/                                  |
| //web.mit.edu/dryfoo/www/Masons/ \/                                  |
|                                  \/                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

Up to A Page About Freemasonry main page.

A Page About Freemasonry is http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/Masonry/