My First Candidate As A Recommender

While I've been a Mason for three years now, I have not had the pleasure of being a top-line signer for a new candidate for the degrees, until now.

I make no secret of my affiliation with the Fraternity. I wear a Masonic ring and have a Masonic emblem on my car. When I have an activity for the Lodge or Grand Lodge I tell folks what I'm doing that night or weekend should they ask.

Recently a gentleman at work asked what the Masons were and what they did. I replied that we are a Fraternity, which is dedicated to improving ourselves and by extension, the world.

I told him that we do offer moral instruction that is unlike any other type of learning he has encountered in the past. Instead of sitting passively and absorbing information, the lessons are geared to teach you using your senses in an active fashion.

I was also very candid in outlining some of the challenges that my Lodge is facing at the moment. I was also very clear about the time and monetary comittment that joining the Fraternity would require.

In turn, this gentleman asked me for a petition. I feel positively about supplying him with one as I believe him to be a good man, and that he will come into the Craft with a relatively clear understanding of what he is getting into.

One very interesting facet about all of this is his reasons for joining. He was not under the mistaken assumption that by becoming a Freemason, the heavens would open and he would somehow be imbued with all the mystical knowledge of the universe. His reason for joining was fellowship.

This seems to contradict what many have said about younger men coming to the Craft seeking some spiritual or mystical experience.

Or does it?

As I've written about in the past, the lessons of Freemasonry can be learned on many differetn wavelengths. (I am begining to think that "levels" conveys the unspoke thought that learning them on some intellectual or deep spiritual level is somehow "better" than being around good men and learning from example. In my opinion, it isn't.)

I was also quite clear in telling this man that each of us takes away different interpretations of what we experience while going through the Degrees of Masonry, and that he would need to do the work of incorporating these lessons into his character. After all, we use the allegory of working in stone to illustrate the shaping of our character, and working in stone is no easy task.

I will be bringing his petition to the next Communication. It will be very interesting to watch his progress and get his impressions of the Craft if everything progresses along its course as it usually does.