Why did you become a Freemason?

Message-ID: <000601c5ff9c$b55bcac0$6101a8c0@launchmodem.com>
From: "Howard Upton" <uptonh@bellsouth.net>
To: <masonry-ask@mit.edu>
Subject: Why I Joined Freemasonry
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 22:21:36 -0600

Just tonight I received my fellowcraft degree. As happy as I am to have successfully completed my lesson, and as eager as I was to assure that my teacher be equally happy with my recitation, I read your question and thought I would answer since I am not too long removed from having petitioned and joined my local lodge.

Answering the question may be somewhat difficult, but I believe there was a noble calling for me to join a masonic lodge. None in my family that I'm aware of are, or have been, masons; I've never knowingly encountered many masons in my lifetime. But those few that I have met gave me pause to realize they were different in some inspiring way. They seemed content in who they were, what they had achieved, and better yet, what they chose to give to their communities.

I am a firm believer that there are those who feel the need to give something back to their communities, or to mankind itself. Masonry teaches these very things; these things that I hold in such high regards. A desire to be surrounded by others that feel the same as I do allowed me to petition and thankfully be received into the lodge.

That's why I joined -- that's why I will remain a just and upright mason.

Howard Upton
Hartwell Lodge 101
Oxford, Alabama