Grand
York Rite
of Freemasonry
of the State of Missouri
“Radical Freemasonry”
VIC Kevin E. Weaver
Words have always held a special fascination for me, as they have for many others. It is especially acute if you study another language; you can see where words originate and what they originally meant, and how over the years, they have been corrupted into a current meaning, which is far from the original. “Radical” is just such a word. Its meaning, which comes from the Latin radius, translates as “root,” just as we call the square root of a number a radical. How and when it acquired its political association, I haven’t a clue, save to say that at some time, a plan was proposed that tried to reach those roots, but was widely and roundly rejected because it was extremely difficult to understand and execute.
There are those critics of anything that we do in the world today, who are quick to slap any kind of label on people, our Fraternity, our society (or elements thereof) that will allow them to get a handle on us; that is to say, the we can be controlled by them, by knowing what to call us. So, if we are called “radical” then we are terribly left of center, according to the current political definition of the word.
But politics is not what Freemasonry is about; we are about fellowship and service, and living faithfully in a world which does what it can to keep us from doing so. Yes, we are radical, but we talk about getting back to our roots of Fraternity, and capturing the essence of what we are supposed to be, and what that means for our lives. If we didn’t care, then we wouldn’t be in meetings week after week, looking for that vital connection between Freemasonry and life. That is how radical we are; we go back to our roots time after time, to see and feel the link we have with others in the fellowship.
In February 2004, Thomas Jackson, in his acceptance paper for the Society of Blue Friars, talked widely about the future of the Fraternity as a whole, without any regard to the York or Scottish Rites, because their respective futures are of course tied to the future of the Blue Lodge. Jackson reminded us to keep things in perspective in terms of our foundation, and that is, that what we are about as Freemasons, is fellowship – brotherly love, relief and truth. While in recent years, we have made a big deal of our charitable giving in all its various forms and to all its various funds and foundations, charity is not what the Fraternity is about. That’s not why it was founded. It was founded in order to foster fellowship among good men, with the hope, if not the intent, to make these good men better – better in their lives as members of society, as husbands and fathers, as friends and neighbors. The idea was to allow the tenets of Freemasonry to permeate their lives, and thus, have a positive impact on those lives and in turn, on the lives of others.
And there are those within our circle who readily agree with him; I’m one of them. We have tried to sell ourselves to the public as a charitable institution, first and foremost. We point to the one-and-a-half million dollars that Freemasons give to charity nationwide, each day. No other organization can even come close. And well that it’s being done. With the cut-backs in Medicare and Medicaid, both state and national, it is reassuring that at least one portion of society is willing to provide support for those who need the care that we provide, whether it be for eye surgeries, prosthetic devices, funding for research in a wide variety of fields, or even supplying wheelchairs and crutches through local lodges. I do not and cannot discount the importance of charitable giving.
But (and this is an important but”), charity is only second to a belief in deity. That’s the foundation; that’s the root of Freemasonry; that’s the radical part – a belief in deity. That belief is what causes us to join together in fellowship; it’s what causes us to reach out, beyond ourselves, to help others. And we have forgotten that. A sad reminder for any organization, whether it is a publically-traded company on Wall Street or the church, or even the Fraternity, is that when we forget the foundation, the guiding principle, the reason for our being, then that organization is doomed to fail, unless steps are taken to return to those roots, perhaps to re-discover who we are and why we are and what we are doing.
It used to be, in the York Rite, that the Council was the most dignified of the bodies. Officers in tuxedos at every Assembly; ritual given from memory at every Assembly. Today, in some Councils, purple sport coats abound (a fine uniform, but scarcely as dignified as a tux!); our ritual proficiency is reduced to one Assembly a year, and that’s because we want to qualify for the Merit Award, which precious few Councils achieve. We wait until we have a number of Candidates and instead of doing our own work, take them to another Council or look for a festival when half the parts are read! Why this lackadaisical attitude? Why don’t we care more than what we do? Have we become too burned out with all the running from meeting to meeting, because the numbers are so bereft with active members that we have no choice? Or is it something else?
The concern is not something that we can dismiss because our numbers are in decline. That will absolve us of any guilt, but it will not solve the problem for ourselves. We can be as we once were; it just takes a little pride in what we do. We have the talent and the drive to be the best that we can be.
During this year especially, we are going to be about that in our Fraternity. There is a concerted effort underway (of which this and other papers are only a part) to help us to recognize what the York Rite Freemasonry is about and what purpose we serve. And it is easy to put forth, in simple language, so that we might tell others. York Rite Masons are those who seek to extend the teachings and lessons of service, dedication and devotion as shown in the Blue Lodge; we continue to tell the Masonic story, if you will, by investing the new Candidates with the long-lost Master’s word, by telling them how it was preserved so that they could receive it, and in the Commandery, of seeing historically how the word became translated for the generation of knights, and how it is still translated today. Granted, maybe that wasn’t as simple an answer as you wanted – it’s a long journey from the Lodge to the Commandery and everything is interesting and character-shaping along the way.
We want to inform the Candidates as much as we can about our traditions, in the hopes that they will find as much meaning and purpose for their lives as we find it for ours. We do so by conferring the degrees as best we can; we do it by increasing our fellowship and bringing together Masons “who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance.” We do so by taking pride in ourselves. We do so by expanding the request for charitable giving, but we do it all in response to the joy of our being united with each other in our common purpose.
And that purpose calls us together, calls us to self-improvement, calls us to rejoice in our fellowship with the intent that we will be better husbands and fathers and men.
And that’s at the root of Freemasonry. That’s radical Freemasonry – to realize that at the very heart of the Fraternity is what we desire most. We desire fellowship; we desire to be of service; we desire order and routine; we desire to spread the message of companionship to others, that they might labor with us in all our service, within our circle and in our world.
Radical Freemasonry? Absolutely. We need it; we can’t thrive without it.
Grand York Rite of Missouri
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