Document Title STB-MR-78 "WHAT I LEARNED in FREEMASONRY"
STB-MR-78
Music on this page is: piano sonata no. 3. in bb Movement #1 allegro by Brother Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
"WHAT I LEARNED in FREEMASONRY"
(This Bulletin is adapted from an address given in 1966 by M.W. Brother
Thomas Sherrard Roy, Past Grand
Master of Massachusetts, at a Masonic
function in Virginia. We are indebted
to M.W. Brother Roy for graciously
permitting its use as a Short Talk
Bulletin.)
I have been a Mason for almost fifty-five
years and tonight, for a little while I want to
talk about some of the things I have learned
in Freemasonry during these years: the things
that I have learned about the world as I have
looked at the world through the eyes of a
Freemason.
It started on the night I was initiated. The
minute I moved toward the door that would
open for me into Freemasonry, I should have
learned one of life's greatest lessons, and certainly one of the greatest lessons being taught the world by Freemasonry today. Until that
particular time I had been a completely independent individual. I had been on my own,
practically supporting myself since I had been
thirteen years of age. I thought that I could
get along very well without very much help
from any one. I was on my own, and proud of
it. But I did not get very far before I found
out that I was not going any place in Freemasonry on my own. In that experience, the
first contact that I had with Freemasonry my
boasted independence was torn to shreds. In
this first contact I had with Freemasonry there
was revealed to me the universal principle of
dependence, or interdependence in life.
All across this country are men who are
referred to as self-made men. We refer to
them as self-made men because they .started
with nothing and have become unbelievably
successful Perhaps they have become immensely wealthy. We say that they did it all on
their own. How ridiculous can we be! When
I was in college I took a course in Political
Economy, and the book that we studied gave
as the three factors of wealth: land, labor and
capital. In the years since then I have discovered that they do not mean just what they
seemed to mean at that particular time. What
is land? It is not just the ground we walk on
or the property we own. Land consists of all
~he physical resources of the planet on which
we live. Land is the fertility of the soil, the
wealth of minerals in the ground, the fish in
the sea, the very air we breathe. No man has
ever achieved success without making great
use of these physical resources. Yet he created
none of them.
What is labor? I used to think of labor as
men, skilled and unskilled, working with their
hands to produce the things that we need. But
labor is all of society. Labor is this group of
people on this side who manufacture what the
self-made man has to sell. Labor is also this
other group of people on this other side who
buy what the self-made man has to sell. Without either of them, and certainly without both
of them self-made Henry Ford would have
been repairing bicycles all of his life. He did
not create the labor on which he was dependent. In the old days when they established the assembly-line system of putting cars
together, Mr. Ford boasted to a group of manufacturers that he was turning out a car every
two minutes. To which one man replied that
he was not supplying the demand, as there
was one born every minute.
What is capital? It may be the money that
you have in your pocket, and which I do not
have in my pocket. We think of capital mostly
as money. But it is much more than money.
It consists of all the human resources with
which we were born--the personality gifts that
enable us to get along with people. It is the
potential executive ability we brought into the
world with us which we may have developed,
but which we certainly did not create. Take
away from all of the things upon which he is
dependent for his wealth, and which he did not
create, and what have you left? One man has
said that all you have left is "a blithering idiot
standing upon air." Certainly we cannot say
that we have left a completely independent,
self-made man. We have left an individual
who has been dependant upon things he did
not create, and upon individuals for whose
existence he can claim no credit, for such
wealth he has been able to accumulate.
One of the great contributions made to us
as Masons, and through us to the world, has
come through the dramatization of the fact of
our inter-dependence. We do more than dramatize it in Masonry. We spell it out. I don't
know about your ritual, but we have some
ritual in Massachusetts that we give to individuals before we turn them loose as Master
Masons. We say to them: "It might have
pleased the great Creator of heaven and earth
to have made man independent. But as dependence is one of the strongest bonds of
society, mankind were made dependent on
each other for protection and security."
We are not ready to live a constructive life
in this world as men and as Masons until we
recognize how much we are dependent upon
others. There is a very interesting story that
is told in the book that we call The Volume
of The Sacred Law, about an individual, not
unknown in Freemasonry, named King David.
When he was King, he was beleaguered one
time in the cave of Adullam. From the entrance to the cave he could look across the
plain to the little town of Bethlehem where he
was born, and where he had grown up, but
now in the hands of the Philistines As he
looked he expressed aloud a longing that was
in him as he said: "O that some one would
give me to drink of the water of the well that
is by the gate in Bethlehem." Three mighty
men who stood near heard him. They broke
through the host of Philistines, got the water,
and fought their way back with it. They gave
the water to the king, and we can imagine the
eagerness with which David lifted the gourd
to his lips. Then his eyes fell on the men who
brought the water, their faces streaked with
blood and sweat, their clothes torn, and he
said: "I can't drink it, for it's the blood of the
men who went in jeopardy of their lives." And
he poured the water out upon the ground as a
libation, as a drink offering unto the Lord.
For once in his life anyway, David was a
completely civilized human being. For the
mark of the civilized person is the ability to
see the things that he uses, even the commonplace things of life, in terms of their human
cost. The things you use--this life of yours
that you take too much for granted and use
in such matter of fact fashion; that education
of yours that has broadened your vision, increased your abilities, enriched your life; that
religion of yours that gives you hope for time
and eternity, where did they come from? You
did not create them. They are the sweat, and
the blood, and the tears, and the sacrifice of
the men who went in jeopardy of their lives to
procure them for us. We must not use what
has come to us to satisfy some vagrant longing
such as David's, nor to satisfy selfish ambitions.
We must use all to help build a world in which
all men everywhere are going to have a chance
to find fulfillment of life. That is the first thing
I learned in Freemasonry.
The second thing I learned is that there must
be emphasis upon reality in life. I don't know
what it is, but we seem to have an inborn
aversion to facing life realistically. We see it
in so many ways. I don't know about Virginia,
but in Massachusetts we legalize gambling
through parimutuel betting. Then we appoint
a Commission to devise some way to reduce
gambling and take care of the results of
gambling.
We try to empty a tank by running the water
out at the bottom while we keep running it in
at the top. We create the conditions that make
for that which we wish to see destroyed. 1
listened to a man broadcasting a baseball game
one day, and one of the things he said was
that we should be very careful in driving.
"Please, please," he said, "when you are out
driving, be careful on the highway." Then he
blithely began to advise people to partake of
the commodity he was advertising, and which
would make it absolutely impossible for them
to drive carefully. How unrealistic can we bc?
Freemasonry teaches us realism when it
places in our hands what we call the working
tools of our profession, the working tools of the
different degrees. When they placed in my
hands the twenty-four inch gauge and common gavel, they implied that just as it is impossible to build a cathedral, or an ordinary
building, without these working tools, so is it
impossible to build a human character without
working tools. As these represent laws that
must be obeyed in the erection of a physical
building, so there are laws to be obeyed in the
development of life. It is very difficult for me
to believe that Russia and the United States
can develop the brain power that enables them
to build space ships, put men in them, launch
them, keep them in orbit, and then bring them
back within a fraction of a second of a given
time, but have not brains enough to develop a
political plan that will enable us to live together in peace and security. The only answer
is that while we have the brains, we have not
been able to develop the character power that
will enable us to do this.
I was playing golf one day during my vacation some years ago. My two big occupations were golf and fishing. If only I could
have reversed the scores, I would have enjoyed
both occupations more than I did. I hit what
I thought ought to be a good shot, but instead
of going straight, it hooked up onto some high
ground I found that between the ball and the
green there was a grove of trees. I knew that
all I had to do was loft the ball high enough
and far enough and it would land on the green.
If the ball had gone twice as far as it did, I
would have made it. As it was, it landed in
the grove of trees. While I was looking for
the ball I talked to myself as I always do under
such circumstances. I told myself that I should
not have tried that shot, but should have
wasted a shot by hitting the ball out into the
clear where I would have had a clean shot for
the hole. I answered myself by saying, "Of
course I should have tried it; Palmer would
have tried it." Then I said to myself: "Yes,
but his game is strong enough for that kind
of shot. Your game is not strong enough for
that kind of shot." And then the thought came
to me that this is what is the matter with the
world in which we live. We have the ideals, the
vision of what is needed in the world, but we
do not have the character power great enough
to accomplish the things that we desire to
accomplish. One of the reasons for it is that
we do give the consideration we should to all
that is represented in the working tools. They
represent the absolutes in life. They tell us
that there are absolutes to which we must
submit. The man who is building a cathedral
must come to terms with the square, level, and
plumb, or his building will get nowhere. So
we must come to terms with the laws of life,
the absolutes in life Our difficulty is that we
are not willing to recognize those laws, or that
absolutes are just as necessary in the building
of a life as in the building of a cathedral. We
hear about the absolute laws that have come
down through the ages, but the only authority
that we say they have is the authority with
which we invest them. I think of the three
baseball umpires who were discussing balls
and strikes. Tommy O'Connor said: "I call
them as I see them." Bill Stewart said, "You
do, eh? Well I call them as they are." Bill
Klem said: "Listen, you fellows, until I calls
them, they ain't nuthin'." So we say that
ancient laws have only the authority with which
we invest them. We say that they were true
for yesterday, but not necessarily for today;
valid for you, but not necessarily for me;
relevant to that particular situation, but not
necessarily for this. We don't realize that we
arrive at a position of selective anarchy in
which every man does that which is right in
his own eyes. We are trading very recklessly
with the realities of life if we do not acknowledge that no enduring structure can be built,
whether a cathedral or a life, that is not erected
in obedience to the laws of God. I have
learned nothing more important from Freemasonry than this fact of reality.
The third thing that 1 have learned in Freemasonry--being a preacher I always have to
have three--is the fact of obligation in life.
I suppose that the last thing we want to hear
about is obligation. We will accept anything
else but obligation. My doorbell rang one
Sunday afternoon. I went to the door and
there was a couple there, the man no longer
young, who asked me if I would marry them.
I invited them in, looked over the wedding
license and found that it was in order I had
them stand before me and proceeded with the
wedding ceremony. I said to the man: "Wilt
thou have this woman to thy wedded wife,"
and so on through the question. 1 looked up
and waited for him to say, "I will." But he
looked me straight in the eye and said, "In as
far as possible." I told him that it was not
good enough, that it had to bc, "I will" or "I
won't," "yes" or "no". After they had gone
and I started to fill in the license before returning it to the City Clerk, I discovered that
this was his fourth marriage, and concluded
that experience had taught him a reasonable
caution.
We want to qualify our obligations in life,
as he did. But what Freemasonry teaches us
is that there can be no qualifications--no
evasion, reservation, or equivocation at all.
We must accept our obligations and seek to
fulfill them. At the heart of obligation is
responsibility. And we do not much like to
accept responsibilities. From the very beginning of man's experience in this world he
has been trying to~et rid of responsibilities.
We go back to the story of Adam and Eve.
Adam was hiding and God asked him the
reason for it, and if he had eaten of the
forbidden fruit. You remember what he said:
"The woman thou gavest me, she tempted me
and I did eat." He started a very popular
practice on the part of mankind, for men have
been saying it ever since. Actually Adam was
not blaming the woman, he was blaming God.
"The woman thou gavest me! I didn't ask for
her; you gave her to me; and now look at the
difficulty she has made for us." And ever since
then men have been blaming God, or they have
been blaming fate, or they have been blaming
the stars. They have been blaming everything
else except themselves for the situation in
which they find themselves in life. Shakespeare
had it right in the words he gave to Edmund
in King Lear, who said: "This is the excellent
foppery of the world, that when we are sick in
fortune, often the surfeit of our own behavior--
we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the
moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by
necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves,
thieves and teachers by spherical predominance, drunkards and liars by an enforced
obedience to planetary influence." Shakespeare
had his own answer to this in his Julius Caesar,
where he has Cassio say, "The fault, dear
Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves
that we are underlings." We must accept
responsibility for keeping the obligations that
come to us in life.
We sometimes think of the matter of our
relationship to Freemasonry as an engagement
into which we have entered with one another
as to what our actions shall be. But there is
no engagement into which we enter that does
not mean responsibility in a wider sense. Some
one said to me one day, "What do you know
about freedom?" I said, "I don't know anything about it; I'm married." I heard a man
say one time that he had been married so
long that he felt as though he had been born
in captivity. I have been married fifty-five
years and I don't feel like that at all. But when
I say I don't know anything about freedom
because I'm married, it is not a reflection in
any way upon the woman who took my name
and shares my fortunes and misfortunes. It
is a plain statement of the fact that every
relationship into which we enter places limitations upon our liberty, and places obligations
upon us from which we cannot escape. We
talk about our rights, and people are talking
a lot about their rights these days--political
rights, religious rights, social rights,--and fail
to realize that every right carries with it a
corresponding duty.
What we have learned in Freemasonry is
that our obligations cannot be taken lightly,
for in our figurative language we make it very
plain that there is no broken obligation without
penalties of some sort. There is not a law on
the state books of any community, or state, or
nation that does not carry with it a penalty for
its violation.
We go back to 1914 when England and
Germany had treaty obligations to respect the
neutrality of Belgium When England insisted
upon living up to its obligations, she was
condemned by Germany for going to war over
"a scrap of paper." An obligation had become
nothing but a scrap of paper And the whole
world paid the penalty for Germany's broken
obligation. During the second World War the
world paid the penalty for Hitler's broken
obligations. I have had women come to me
as a minister and weep because of what was
happening to their homes; and always it went
back to a broken obligation. The individual
who breaks the obligation may not suffer, but
somebody is going to suffer, and the broken
hearts of those who talked to me were the
penalties of broken obligations.
So we find that Freemasonry has much to
teach us, and through us, therefore, a contribution to make to the world. It tells the world
definitely what I have been trying to say here
tonight--the great fact of our interdependence;
the fact of reality in its insistence upon obedience to the laws of the universe in the building
of life; the fact of responsibility for the discharge of the obligations we have accepted.
We must give these things to the world with
something of the same passion as that of
William Blake as revealed in his poem "From
Milton: "
"Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In (all this) green and pleasant land."
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