STB-95-06
Music by Brother J. L. F. Mendelssohn.
SURPRISED BY JOY!
By: Walter M. Macdougall
Bro Walter M Macdougall is a member of
Piscataquis Lodge # 44 and also serves the Grand
Lodge of Maine as Deputy Grand Master Bro
Macdougall is a faculty member at the College of
Education University of Maine where he teaches
philosophy
This STB is filled with inspiration and pride for all
Freemasons A wonderful story is told linking our
ancient operative Masons to the Masons of today It
will paint a picture of what our order is truly all
about!
Editor
Freemasonry is about life. It is about living our lives with a special
responsibility and with a certain joy.
Brother Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe wrote that:
The Mason's ways are
A type of Existence,
And his persistence
Is as the days are
Of men in this world
Freemasonry was for Goethe a grand, earnest, solemn business. It was
about making a "choice" which he says is both "brief and yet
endless," a choice which is made before "regarding eyes... in
eternity's stillness." Goethe's words strike us where we live. It is
difficult to be nonchalant about the living situation in which we find
ourselves. We are bumped and shoved into an awareness that we have
entered upon a perilous journey--both "we" individually and "we" as
neighbors. We find ourselves dwelling upon upheavals and between
crises. Brother Goethe was right. Life is a matter of making a choice
which is brief yet endless--brief in terms of our little lives,
endless in human significance. As all Freemasons must know, the choice
of which Goethe speaks is between the Light and the Darkness.
Freemasonry is about life and about the all important choice of how a
life shall be lived and spent. Freemasonry is serious business. It
involves a special moral responsibility to the well being of the whole
community, but there is more. As our ritual puts it, our Masonic
responsibilities are to be both our duty and our happiness. Above
and beyond the sobering concerns of our Masonic practice, we find
ourselves (to use C.S. Lewis's wonderful phrase) continually
"surprised by joy !" Such experiences most often come not in
exceptional, epiphanic events but rather amidst our daily and ordinary
lives. In fact, it is in these moments when the commonplace and the
usual are suddenly made extraordinary, when there is suddenly revealed
new significance or new beauty, or when a new empathy between human
beings smiles that we find ourselves surprised by joy.
Surprised by joy! Recently I had such an experience. Browsing in a
book store, I came across David Macaulay's delightful book of sketches
and commentary entitled: Cathedral, the Story of Its Construction. As
I turned the pages, there came one of those moments when concepts long
in the making suddenly coalesce and meanings converge into a new
wholeness. I was filled with a renewed awe at the enormity of the
Medieval masons' endeavor and thrilled with their accomplishment. How
did they dare such an impertinence against gravity? Who had the
courage to work on the lashed pole standing more than one hundred feet
above the ground? What faith gave heartbeat to this stupendous
engineering and endurance? Above all there came a new realization of
the marvelous extent to which the older operative practices still
enlighten our speculative endeavor.
Macaulay chronicles the construction of Chutreaux Cathedral, and his
sketches give a vividness to the whole building operation. Here, for
instance, built between the buttress piers and against the cathedral
wall are depicted the lodges where the masons labored, planned, and
looked after the needs of their brethren. In these lodges those
freshly come to the labor were entered as apprentices, those who had
learned their trade were made fellows of the craft, and the masters of
the work drew details upon the trestle boards.
There must have been problems aplenty in those operative lodges--even
grimness and despair. For eighty-six years these masons, generation on
generation, labored through exciting moments and discouraging times.
For five years there was no work at all until more money could be
raised. The original master of the work grew too old to oversee the
operations. The master who took his place died of a fall from the
vaulting scaffolding before the cathedral was dedicated. This is a
story of human vision, sacrifice, tragedy and persistence.
One fact is clear, for those who labored in these lodges built against
the cathedral walls there could have been no doubt as to their mission
nor the importance of their work. The building itself defined their
worth in their own eyes and in the opinion of the community. To them
there must have come moments of joy when what had been so carefully
crafted was hoisted into place and became part of the growing fabric--
when stone by stone the magnificent nave enclosed the space where a
multitude of people would look up and feel themselves in the very
presence of God. Surprised by joy! I was having one of those Masonic
moments when one feels a sense of the builder's vision and of purpose
shared. How closely the parallels run between ourselves and those
builders of the cathedrals! From their lodges built against the
cathedral walls, they came forth trained in the use of their working
tools, united in a network of belonging and shared purpose, and
directed by a vision made manifest in well laid plans. They would
build a high place of worship which let in the Light. In a harmony of
parts, in soaring lines which lifted the spirit heavenward, and with a
moral geometry they consummated their choice, their purpose and their
reason for being. Nor was this their vision alone. It found reality in
the need of the community--the felt need to create a glorious place
of connection between the dimness of this world and God's resplendent
kingdom.
As our operative brethren came forth from their lodges trained as
builders, so we emerge from our speculative lodges inspired and fitted
for our task. We come forth as heirs to a rich tapestry of allegory--
that ancient understanding in which we have received our preparation.
What an essential, inspired and ongoing training it isfilled with
the human adventure and a reverence for that which lies beyond our
understanding and within the glory of God. Under a constellation of
symbols, we have seen a vision and acquired an art. It was Thomas
Carlyle who put the essential nature of such an education in these
words: "It is through symbols that man unconsciously and consciously
lives, works and has his being." Through such a language of symbols we
have received our skills as builders, and it is through this vital
medium that we continue to learn. How often here in our lodges of
preparation we are surprised by joy when a new understanding, like a
burst of creative light, emerges from the ritual.
Surprised by Joy! I was talking to a group of new masons about our
working tools and endeavoring to explain how the square enlightens
moral truths. In an effort to illustrate its operative use, I was
applying the square, which I had in my hand, to the edges of the
podium. In that instant, it was I who was illuminated. I saw anew how
the square tests a right relationship between two different surfaces
and how the moral square of virtue speaks to a right relationship
between individuals. There in a moment's understanding was expressed
that "I and Thou" relationship which is so desperately needed in our
world. There was an expression of what we as Freemasons have a
responsibility to build--and build not only between individuals but
between every segment within our communities if there is to be a
cohesion and an environment of "just relationships". Here from this
ancient symbol of the Craft spoke the urgency of just
correspondences--the relationships of the square, the right angle,
between the level of equality and the plumb of rectitude. Thus does
our Masonic education continually enlarge our understanding, give us
our calling and in joy send us out to labor.
Today our Masonic lodges stand close by the human community in which
we are to build. Moreover, as in the case of our ancient brethren, the
urgency of our calling arises not only in our Masonic vision but in
the needs of our communities. In this response to needs both
challenging and sobering also lies our happiness.
In the installation charge to the master of a Masonic lodge there is
the following perennial and wise admonition which needs to be kept
fresh in our minds: Charge the brethren to practice outside of the
lodge those virtues they have learned in it; so that when a man is
said to be a member of it, the world may know that he is one to whom
the burdened heart may pour out its sorrows, to whom distress may
prefer its suit, whose arm is strengthened by justice and whose heart
is expanded by benevolence.
This is our calling; to be responders to the needs of our communities
in the midst of darkening times, to be choosers of the Light,
"restorers of peace to troubled minds," forgers of partnerships in
purpose, practitioners of a moral geometry whose axioms are tried and
unfailing principles, to be demanders of equality based upon the
dignity of all human beings, to be voices with instructive tongues,
seekers with attentive ears, searchers after wisdom, and believers in
the possibility of a better world.
With such responsibilities and visions, we Freemasons come forth from
our symbolic lodges. And in the morning of a new century, we shall
find our strength and our prosperity--our reason for being. We shall
find all these things in the consummation of our building. Goethe was
right. Freemasonry is a grand, earnest, solemn business, but as he
also knew, our happiness lies in our response to the serious duties
of Freemasonry. For that eternal Light does run through all that we do
and shall experience in the name of brotherly love, relief and truth,
and over and over again and most often when we least expect it, we
shall be surprised by joy!
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