Page 31 - MFM MARCH 2015

part of his job so we’ll bring him over and let him take
care of those two parts. And that takes care of sub-
objective A. We figured out the clue. If you want to
take care of sub-objective B, well A has some overlap.
He used to do that part so he can play the ruffian this
time. And this guy can do it over here. C can come
over, obviously C has plenty of time. Junior is over
here and that takes care of sub-objective B. C is done
so now you have to get Junior’s job done. That’s easy,
a little C here and a little C there. And that is what
we call a can-of-worms management. I will suggest
to you that this can-of worms is running 90% of the
lodges you look at today. Instead of concentrating
on doing things right, we have to make sure we are
doing the right things. If you do membership and you
have problems with ritual, your ritual will get better.
Do you know why? Because you will be doing a lot
of it. We have to concentrate on the right things.
This can-of-worms is more effort expended and
it locks our organization into something that can’t
change. In how many lodges do you see where the
officers change, but nothing else does. We still have
the same meetings. We are still doing the same thing,
just like we did last year and the year before that.”
We are in the death spiral. I don’t believe that is where doesn’t, he is out-of-there and rightfully so. Do you tell
lodges belong and I don’t believe that you do either.
As a matter of fact, I am willing to tell you here that
we are on the threshold of a new golden age of
Freemasonry. I can prove it to you. I can go across this
state and I can find centers of excellence. Talk to Eau
Claire Lodge about membership. Talk to Freemasons
Lodge, talk to some of the lodges in Milwaukee, talk
to Valley Lodge in Sparta. Valley Lodge in Sparta got
14 new members last year. This is an 80-person lodge.
This year they are probably going to get about 25 new
members by the time they are done. That’s not bad. If
we had a 30% increase in Masonry all across the state,
you wouldn’t have been up here talking about per
capita, not having enough money or the membership
dropping. It is attainable in every single lodge.”
Every lodge has its strengths and weaknesses. Let
me tell you about a lodge that I went to in North
Carolina. I visited St. John’s Lodge in New Bern, NC
and the night I visited they were raising a Fellowcraft.
I suddenly realized what I was seeing was one of the
most amazing things that I have witnessed in a lodge.
This is an interesting lodge. They have a 100+ year old
lodge room that they are right now investing $100,000
to renovate. They have an artist from Europe that is re-
doing all of the paintings. The room is smaller than this I would suggest three things to you for your lodges.
floor space. But that wasn’t what impressed me. What
impressed me was the can-of-worms management is
not running that lodge. That lodge has what they call
managed degree work. They do what our code says.
They don’t bring in some ringer or the guy who has
done it for the last 30 years. His job is to train that guy.
The first time that he gets up to do the middle chamber
lecture, they send out a postcard and say, ‘Come on. We
have got to root Bob on.’ All kinds of people come in
the spirit of brotherhood to root Bob on. I have heard
lodges say that we couldn’t do that in Wisconsin.
Our brother wouldn’t do that. My response is, you
forget what you have already done. I think that some
of us who have been around Masonry for 25 -50
years, we sometimes lose touch with what happened
the first time we came into lodge. Let me remind
you. Somebody else knocked on that door for you,
led you in here. You were caused to come to the
center of the lodge and caused to kneel, and think
about it, wearing somebody else’s pajamas, a pair of
slippers, a rope around your neck and blind-folded.
You were in a room filled with men that you didn’t
know, you didn’t know where they were or who they
were. And you were asked ‘in whom do you put your
trust?’ Every man in this room answered the same
thing, ‘I place my trust in God.’ You proclaimed your
maker, in front of a group you couldn’t even see.”
We ask a man to come into a lodge in that condition,
totally defenseless, and proclaim his faith. If he
me we can ask a man to do that and we can’t ask him
to memorize four paragraphs? Do you tell me that we
can bring a man into this most wonderful fraternity
that has ever existed and not give him the privilege
of learning the degree work? How many of you really
know what’s in the first degree, first lecture, or the
‘slide show’ as they call it? If you really know what’s in
it, I’ll guarantee you that you are somebody who has
had to do it. If you really know what’s in that lecture,
if you really understand what’s in that lecture, you have
given it, because that’s how you learn it. We ask an EA
to learn, don’t’ we? We say learn, come and be an EA,
learn. Come be a Fellowcraft, learn, come be a Master
Mason, learn. Improve yourself in Masonry. Why
wouldn’t we have managed degree work instead of
this mess? That’s what impressed me about that lodge.
Now that lodge, just like other lodges, has it’s down-
side. My father was a member of that lodge for awhile.
He spent his whole time fighting that lodge about
not recognizing Prince Hall Masons. It’s wrong, it’s
dead wrong. This business of managed degree work,
they got it right because they understand it’s a tool to
develop the lodge and that the disciplined management
and responsibility cause people to pull together.”
Three letters, A I M. I think that focusing your lodges
are just that simple. You want to aim high. ‘A’ attitude,
are your prayers said with reverence? Is your degree
work serious? Do you take the approach that it is a
privilege to participate in degree work, it is a privilege
Page 31