UPTON LODGE #749
F & A M
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UPTON LODGE #749 F & A M |
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WHAT IS MASONRY?
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What
is Masonry: Masonry
(or Freemasonry) is the oldest fraternity in the world. No one knows
just how old it is because the actual origins have been lost in time.
Probably, it arose from the guilds of stonemasons who built the
castles and cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Possibly, they were
influenced by the Knights Templar, a group of Christian warrior monks
formed in 1118 to help protect pilgrims making trips to the In
1717, Masonry created a formal organization in
What
is a Mason: That
is not a surprising question. Even though Masons (Freemasons) are
members of the largest and oldest fraternity in the world, and even
though almost everyone has a father or grandfather or uncle who was a
Mason, many people are not quite certain just who Masons are. The
answer is simple. A Mason (or Freemason) is a member of a fraternity
known as Masonry (or Freemasonry). A fraternity is a group of men
(just as a sorority is a group of women) who join together because:
There are things they want to do in the world; There are things they
want to do "inside their own minds;" They enjoy being
together with men they like and respect. A
Mason is a man who has decided that he likes to feel good about
himself and others. He cares about the future as well as the past, and
does what he can, both alone and with others, to make the future good
for everyone. Many
men over many generations have answered the question, "What is a
Mason?" One of the most eloquent was written by the Reverend
Joseph Fort Newton, an internationally honored minister of the first
half of the 20th Century and Grand Chaplain, Grand Lodge of Iowa,
1911-1913. What
is a Lodge: The
word "lodge" means both a group of Masons meeting in some
place and the room or building in which they meet. Masonic buildings
are also sometimes called "temples" because much of the
symbolism Masonry uses to teach its lessons comes from the building of
King Solomon’ s Temple in the Holy Land. The term "lodge"
itself comes from the structures which the stonemasons built against
the sides of the cathedrals during construction. In winter, when
building had to stop, they lived in these lodges and worked at carving
stone. While
there is some variation in detail from state to state and country to
country. If
you’ve ever watched C-SPAN’ s coverage of the House of Commons in
Every
lodge has an altar holding a "Volume of the Sacred Law." In
the What
goes on in a Lodge: The
Lodge is the center of activities for masons. Masonry teaches that
each person has a responsibility to make things better in the world.
Most individuals will not be the ones to find a cure for cancer, or
eliminate poverty, or help create world peace, but every man and woman
and child can do something to help others and to make things a little
better. Masonry is deeply involved with helping people -- it spends
more than $1.4 million dollars every day in the Some
services are less noticeable, like helping a widow pay her electric
bill or buying coats and shoes for disadvantaged children. And there
is just about anything you can think of in-between, but with projects
large or small, the Masons of a lodge try to help make the world a
better place. The lodge gives them a way to combine with others to do
even more good. Masonry
does things "inside" the individual Mason. "Grow or
die" is a great law of all nature. Most people feel a need for
continued growth as individuals. They feel they are not as honest or
as charitable or as compassionate or as loving or as trusting or as
well-informed as they ought to be. Masonry reminds its members over
and over again of the importance of these qualities and education. It
lets men associate with other men of honor and integrity who believe
that things like honesty, compassion, love, trust, and knowledge are
important. In some ways, Masonry is a support group for men who are
trying to make the right decisions. It is easier to practice these
virtues when you know that those around you think they are important,
too, and will not laugh at you. That is a major reason that Masons
enjoy being together. Masons
enjoy each others company. It is good to spend time with people you
can trust completely, and most Masons find that in their lodge. While
much of lodge activity is spent in works of charity or in lessons in
self-development, much is also spent in fellowship. Lodges have
picnics, camping trips, and many events for the whole family. Simply
put, a lodge is a place to spend time with friends. For
members only, two basic kinds of meetings take place in a lodge. The
most common is a simple business meeting. To open and close the
meeting, there is a ceremony whose purpose is to remind us of the
virtues by which we are supposed to live. Then there is a reading of
the minutes; voting on petitions (applications of men who want to join
the fraternity); planning for charitable functions, family events, and
other lodge activities; and sharing information about members (called
"Brothers," as in most fraternities) who are ill or have
some sort of need. The other kind of meeting is one in which people
join the fraternity -- one at which the "degrees" are
performed. But
every lodge serves more than its own members. Frequently, there are
meetings open to the public. Examples are Ladies Nights, "Brother
Bring a Friend Nights," public installations of officers,
cornerstone laying ceremonies, and other special meetings supporting
community events and dealing with topics of local interest. What
is a degree: A
degree is a stage or level of membership. It is also the ceremony by
which a man attains that level of membership. There are three, called
Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason. As you can see, the
names are taken from the craft guilds. In the Middle Ages, when a
person wanted to join a craft, such as the gold smiths or the
carpenters or the stonemasons, he was first apprenticed. As an
apprentice, he learned the tools and skills of the trade. When he had
proved his skills, he became a "Fellow of the Craft" (today
we would say "Journeyman"), and when he had exceptional
ability, he was known as a Master of the Craft. The
degrees are plays in which the candidate participates. Each degree
uses symbols to teach, just as plays did in the Middle Ages and as
many theatrical productions do today. (We will talk about symbols a
little later.) The
Masonic degrees teach the great lessons of life -- the importance of
honor and integrity, of being a person on whom others can rely, of
being both trusting and trustworthy, of realizing that you have a
spiritual nature as well as a physical or animal nature, of the
importance of self-control, of knowing how to love and be loved, of
knowing how to keep confidential what others tell you so that they can
"open up" without fear. Why
is Masonry so "secretive": It
really is not "secretive," although it sometimes has that
reputation. Masons certainly do not make a secret of the fact that
they are members of the fraternity. We wear rings, lapel pins, and tie
clasps with Masonic emblems like the Square and Compasses, the best
known of Masonic signs which, logically, recall the fraternity’ s
early symbolic roots in stonemasonry. Masonic buildings are clearly
marked, and are usually listed in the phone book. Lodge activities are
not secret -- picnics and other events are even listed in the
newspapers, especially in smaller towns. Many lodges have answering
machines which give the upcoming lodge activities. But there are some
Masonic secrets, and they fall into two categories. The
first are the ways in which a man can identify himself as a Mason --
grips and passwords. We keep those private for obvious reasons. It is
not at all unknown for unscrupulous people to try to pass themselves
off as Masons in order to get assistance under false pretenses. The
second group is harder to describe, but they are the ones Masons
usually mean if we talk about "Masonic secrets." They are
secrets because they literally can not be talked about, can not be put
into words. They are the changes that happen to a man when he really
accepts responsibility for his own life and, at the same time, truly
decides that his real happiness is in helping others. It
is a wonderful feeling, but it is something you simply can not explain
to another person. That is why we sometimes say that Masonic secrets
cannot (rather than "may not") be told. Try telling someone
exactly what you feel when you see a beautiful sunset, or when you
hear music, like the national anthem, which suddenly stirs old
memories, and you will understand what we mean. "Secret
societies" became very popular in America in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. There were literally hundreds of them, and most people
belonged to two or three. Many of them were modeled on Masonry, and
made a great point of having many "secrets." Freemasonry got
ranked with them. But if Masonry is a secret society, it is the
worst-kept secret in the world. Is
Masonry a religion: We
do use ritual in meetings, and because there is always an altar or
table with the Volume of the Sacred Law open if a lodge is meeting,
some people have confused Masonry with a religion, but it is not. That
does not mean that religion plays no part in Masonry -- it plays a
very important part. A person who wants to become a Mason must have a
belief in God. No atheist can ever become a Mason. Meetings open with
prayer, and a Mason is taught, as one of the first lessons of Masonry,
that one should pray for divine counsel and guidance before starting
an important undertaking. But that does not make Masonry a
"religion." Sometimes
people confuse Masonry with a religion because we call some Masonic
buildings "temples." But we use the word in the same sense
that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called the Supreme Court a
"Temple of Justice" and because a Masonic lodge is a symbol
of the Temple of Solomon. Neither Masonry nor the Supreme Court is a
religion just because its members meet in a "temple." In
some ways, the relationship between Masonry and religion is like the
relationship between the Parent-Teacher Association (the P.T.A.) and
education. Members of the P.T.A. believe in the importance of
education. They support it. They assert that no man or woman can be a
complete and whole individual or live up to his or her full potential
without education. They encourage students to stay in school and
parents to be involved with the education of their children. They may
give scholarships. They encourage their members to get involved with
and to support their individual schools. But
there are some things P.T.A.s do not do. They do not teach. They do
not tell people which school to attend. They do not try to tell people
what they should study or what their major should be. In
much the same way, Masons believe in the importance of religion.
Masonry encourages every Mason to be active in the religion and church
of his own choice. Masonry teaches that without religion a man is
alone and lost, and that without religion, he can never reach his full
potential. But
Freemasonry does not tell a person which religion he should practice
or how he should practice it. That is between the individual and God.
That is the function of his house of worship, not his fraternity, and
Masonry is a fraternity, not a religion. What
is a Masonic Bible: Bibles
are popular gifts among Masons, frequently given to a man when he
joins the lodge or at other special events. A Masonic Bible is the
same book anyone thinks of as a Bible (it is usually the King James
translation) with a special page in the front on which to write the
name of the person who is receiving it and the occasion on which it is
given. Sometimes there is a special index or information section which
shows the person where in the Bible to find the passages which are
quoted in the Masonic ritual. If
Masonry is not a religion, why does it use ritual: Many
of us may think of religion when we think of ritual, but ritual is
used in every aspect of life. It is so much a part of us that we just
do not notice it. Ritual simply means that some things are done more
or less the same way each time. Almost
all school assemblies, for example, start with the principal or some
other official calling for the attention of the group. Then the group
is led in the Pledge of Allegiance. A school choir or the entire group
may sing the school song. That is a ritual. Almost
all business meetings of every sort call the group to order, have a
reading of the minutes of the last meeting, deal with old business,
then with new business. That is a ritual. Most groups use Robert’ s
Rules of Order to conduct a meeting. That is probably the best-known
book of ritual in the world. There
are social rituals which tell us how to meet people (we shake hands),
how to join a conversation (we wait for a pause, and then speak), how
to buy tickets to a concert (we wait in line and do not push in ahead
of those who were there first). There are literally hundreds of
examples, and they are all rituals. Masonry
uses a ritual because it is an effective way to teach important ideas
-- the values we have talked about earlier, and it reminds us where we
are, just as the ritual of a business meeting reminds people where
they are and what they are supposed to be doing. Masonry’
s ritual is very rich because it is so old. It has developed over
centuries to contain some beautiful language and ideas expressed in
symbols. But there's nothing unusual in using ritual. All of us do it
every day. Why
does Masonry use symbols: Everyone
uses symbols every day, just as we do ritual. We use them because they
communicate quickly. When you see a stop sign , you know what it
means, even if you can not read the word "stop." The circle
and line mean "do not" or "not allowed." In fact,
using symbols is probably the oldest way of communication and the
oldest way of teaching. Masonry
uses symbols for the same reason. Some form of the "Square and
Compasses" is the most widely used and known symbol of Masonry.
In one way, this symbol is a kind of trademark for the fraternity, as
the "golden arches" are for McDonald’ s. When you see the
Square and Compasses on a building, you know that Masons meet there. And
like all symbols, they have a meaning. The
Square symbolizes things of the earth, and it also symbolizes honor,
integrity, truthfulness, and the other ways we should relate to this
world and the people in it. The Compasses symbolize things of the
spirit, and the importance of a well-developed spiritual life, and
also the importance of self-control -- of keeping ourselves within
bounds. The G stands for Geometry, the science which the ancients
believed most revealed the glory of God and His works in the heavens,
and it also stands for God, Who must be at the center of all our
thoughts and of all our efforts. The
meanings of most of the other Masonic symbols are obvious. For
example, the gavel teaches the importance of self-control and
self-discipline. The hour-glass teaches us that time is always
passing, and we should not put off important decisions. The
reasons that the Lodges have been termed “Blue Lodges” is because
blue is emblematic of friendship, a peculiar characteristic of ancient
craft masonry. The color for borders of aprons, collars and other
regalia of the symbolic lodge is blue. So,
is Masonry education: Yes.
In a very real sense, education is at the center of Masonry. We have
stressed its importance for a very long time. Back in the Middle Ages,
schools were held in the lodges of stonemasons. You have to know a lot
to build a cathedral -- geometry, and structural engineering, and
mathematics, just for a start. And that education was not very widely
available. All the formal schools and colleges trained people for
careers in the church, or in law or medicine. And you had to be a
member of the social upper classes to go to those schools. Stonemasons
did not come from the aristocracy. And so the lodges had to teach the
necessary skills and information. Freemasonry’ s dedication to
education started there. It
has continued. Masons started some of the first public schools in both
Europe and America. We supported legislation to make education
universal. In the 1800s Masons as a group lobbied for the
establishment of state-supported education and federal land-grant
colleges. Today we give millions of dollars in scholarships each year.
We encourage our members to give volunteer time to their local
schools, buy classroom supplies for teachers, help with literacy
programs, and do everything they can to help assure that each person,
adult or child, has the best educational opportunities possible. And
Masonry supports continuing education and intellectual growth for its
members, insisting that learning more about many things is important
for anyone who wants to keep mentally alert and young. Masonry
teaches some important principles. There is nothing very surprising in
the list. Masonry teaches that: Since
God is the Creator, all men and women are the children of God. Because
of that, all men and women are brothers and sisters, entitled to
dignity, respect for their opinions, and consideration of their
feelings. Each
person must take responsibility for his/her own life and actions.
Neither wealth nor poverty, education nor ignorance, health nor
sickness excuses any person from doing the best he or she can do or
being the best person possible under the circumstances. No
one has the right to tell another person what he or she must think or
believe. Each man and woman has an absolute right to intellectual,
spiritual, economic, and political freedom. This is a right given by
God, not by man. All tyranny, in every form, is illegitimate. Each
person must learn and practice self-control. Each person must make
sure his spiritual nature triumphs over his animal nature. Another way
to say the same thing is that even when we are tempted to anger, we
must not be violent. Even when we are tempted to selfishness, we must
be charitable. Even when we want to "write someone off," we
must remember that he or she is a human and entitled to our respect.
Even when we want to give up, we must go on. Even when we are hated,
we must return love, or, at a minimum, we must not hate back. It is
not easy! Faith
must be in the center of our lives. We find that faith in our houses
of worship, not in Freemasonry, but Masonry constantly teaches that a
persons faith, whatever it may be, is central to a good life. Each
person has a responsibly to be a good citizen, obeying the law. That
does not mean we can not try to change things, but change must take
place in legal ways. It
is important to work to make this world better for all who live in it.
Masonry teaches the importance of doing good, not because it assures a
persons entrance into heaven -- that is a question for a religion, not
a fraternity -- but because we have a duty to all other men and women
to make their lives as fulfilling as they can be. Honor
and integrity are essential to life. Life without honor and integrity
is without meaning. What
are the requirements for membership: The
person who wants to join Masonry must be
a man (it is a fraternity), sound in body and mind, who believes in
God, is at least the minimum age required by Masonry in his state, and
has a good reputation. (Incidentally, the "sound in body"
requirement -- which comes from the stonemasons of the Middle Ages --
does not mean that a physically challenged man cannot be a Mason; many
are). Those
are the only "formal" requirements. But there are others,
not so formal. He should believe in helping others. He should believe
there is more to life than pleasure and money. He should be willing to
respect the opinions of others, and he should want to grow and develop
as a human being. How
does a man become a Mason: Some
men are surprised that no one has ever asked them to become a Mason.
They may even feel that the Masons in their town do not think they are
"good enough" to join. But it does not work that way. For
hundreds of years, Masons have been forbidden to ask others to join
the fraternity. We can talk to friends about Masonry. We can tell them
about what Masonry does. We can tell them why we enjoy it. But we can
not ask, much less pressure, anyone to join. There
is a good reason for that. It is not that we are trying to be
exclusive, but becoming a Mason is a very serious thing. Joining
Masonry is making a permanent life commitment to live in certain ways.
We have listed most of them above -- to live with honor and integrity,
to be willing to share with and care about others, to trust each
other, and to place ultimate trust in God. No one should be
"talked into" making such a decision. So,
when a man decides he wants to be a Mason, he asks a Mason for a
petition or application. He fills it out and gives it to the Mason,
and that Mason takes it to the local lodge. The Master of the lodge
will appoint a committee to visit with the man and his family, find
out a little about him and why he wants to be a Mason, tell him and
his family about Masonry, and answer their questions. The committee
reports to the lodge, and the lodge votes on the petition. If the vote
is affirmative -- and it usually is -- the lodge will contact the man
to set the date for the Entered Apprentice Degree. When the person has
completed all three degrees, he is a Master Mason and a full member of
the fraternity.
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