The Sinking of the U.S.S. Freemasonry

By: Bro. Aaron Gardner, 32°, MPS




“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Batman’s quote in the Dark Knight can also be attributed to the fine Craft of Freemasonry. Many Master Mason’s go into the East with fantastic ideas to help bring their lodge, more light, more members, more community events, more brotherhood. 

No matter the noble cause every Master enters into his lodge with great expectations, seeking to make his mark on the Fraternity. Yet, this can be exhausting and will take a toll on the brother sitting in the East. He may become too consumed in the politics of the lodge and his brilliant ideas may fall short due to his own “icebergs”. 

The Iceberg Model is a tool used in Organizational Development introduced by renowned psychologist, Sigmund Freud. It describes behaviors and ideologies and how they affect an individual when presented with social interaction, in particular leading. Freud argued 10% of our behavior is conscious and visible, while the remaining 90% were subconscious and unconscious motivators of our behaviors. This could include how one’s family affects them, their socioeconomic status, past events in their life, deep rooted values— among many different factors determining their behaviors and thought processes. In other words, one persons strengths and weaknesses are not always visible. They can be deeper and bigger than what everyone else sees. 

When a brother takes the seat as Worshipful Master, his plans may become dormant due to other factors that must need his attention. By the time the Worshipful Master’s time is up, he looks back at his time and wonders where the time went and why certain projects didn't get done. The reasoning could be because it didn't fit the needs and requirements of Grand Lodge, or every time he attempts his project, lodge politics stifles it. One individual disagreed with the idea or it wasn't how someone else would have handled it. 

There was an interesting article published on Linked In by Jeff Degraff about knowing your strengths and knowing when they become weaknesses. Essentially, when the hero becomes the villain.  The Worshipful Master may become too consumed with his own personal ideas for the lodge and not consider what is best for the lodge. This can carry over toward his time as a Past Master and essentially cause a stale, unproductive lodge. 

Fortunately, there are ways to combat retrogression that overlap each other:

1. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. If you are comfortable with everything that occurs within lodge, it is potentially a sick lodge. Every time you enter the lodge room, there should be some sort of work done on you and the members to become better men. Remaining comfortable just means there is no work being done toward progression. It hurts the true dynamics of ones deep rooted portions of the “iceberg” when one is working on their rough ashlar. If you don’t question something about yourself while leaving lodge, you didn't do any personal reflection. 

2. Take your personal quest outside of lodge. This means talk to others who may not agree with you or are completely different from your perspective on life. You can learn from their perspective and try to apply it to Freemasonry and your own personal views. These people will in turn make you uncomfortable, relating back to the first technique. From time to time we become too consumed in our own views and personal convictions, we forget there are others who we don’t have regular association with that have different views. Inside a lodge room, we tend to find individuals who relate to our own values. It may not be exact, but we can become trapped in the cave and not understand the world around us.

3. Attend other lodges. A district in Michigan awards lodges that get the most members of their lodge to attend another lodge’s meeting. This is a great concept to make others travel, creates friendly competition and creates the opportunity for one to understand the need of travel in our Fraternity. One of the greatest rewards we have as Master Masons is the ability to travel to other lodges and see their work. Not only can you receive different perspectives from different lodges, but, they can receive your perspectives as well. Learning about each other and the work done in their respective locations provides cohesiveness amongst the Fraternity and sparks ideas that ignite the flame of knowledge that we are all in search of. 

4. Invite visiting brethren. Bring brothers to the lodge to see your work and to offer their ideas as well. You may have been brought to a whole new light when visiting a lodge, but, sometimes you can’t share it quite as well as the original source. Invite those brethren to your lodge to help ignite the same light that you received when visiting them. To overlap with the first two techniques these brethren could be from a different organization. If you are AF&AM or F&AM, you could invite a Prince Hall Affiliate—provided your Grand Lodge recognizes PHA as a legitimate lineage of Freemasonry; do not break the laws set by the Grand Lodge for your quest of light. Inviting a Prince Hall brother to an AF&AM/F&AM meeting, with no doubt cause some awkwardness. There are brothers who have no interest in understanding Prince Hall Masonry. Which is fine, but it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged to test boundaries. Inviting brethren from around and outside the Fraternity can spark interest and can cause tension. The goal of that tension is to turn into something constructive; learn and grow from that tension. 

5. Team work. Involve multiple modes of thinking. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Surround yourself with individuals who have different ideas and talents. Work together to accomplish each others goals. The article by Jeff Degraff uses the concept of Superhero Leagues Each superhero in a league has multiple types of super heroes based on their knowledge and talents. Could you imagine the Avengers without wit of Tony Stark or the might of Thor? If you are a Worshipful Master, your Avengers have already been assembled.  You have your Senior Warden, Junior Warden, Secretary, the other officers and the other brothers in the lodge to assist you in your conquests. They may agree with you, they may not. Just remember, “At the will of the Master” can work against you when you leave the East. Teamwork is key in every aspect of life, so listen to the brethren and provide a ‘give and take’ atmosphere. 

6. The role of leadership is not about aligning everything. It is about using the opportunities and assets provided to accomplish a mission. When a brother disagrees with something, hear them out. Do not allow negative remarks without a formulated plan. Complaining about something can be constructive and deconstructive. By allowing an individual to voice his opinion without a fix, you are opening the lodge up for tension that doesn't belong. Positive tension and constructive criticism is how we can gauge the health of a lodge and ensure needs are being met along with consideration of wants. Understand, you can not please everyone. 


By following and understanding these overlapping concepts, we can be sure our lodge will stop backpedaling. With a healthy lodge in a district it can help progress our Fraternity further into the future and we will contribute something worthwhile to the Craft. The ship doesn't have to sink.


AG