This Year's Rant

[Torence]

It has become something of a tradition here to expect me to have a
rant this time of year, what with the lodges tooling up for the annual
communication and all. Here are the closing paragraphs from a talk
that I have been giving in the lodges that I frequent and I would
appreciate your comments and if you think the notion worthy for use in
your jurisdictions. By the way, if any Illinois Masons are available
to meet, I will be at Argo-Summit on Tuesday for three third degrees.
"...So, with purposes as diverse as the various Grand Lodges and
Grand Lodge administrations that come and go with the generations,
with Local Lodges which wax and wane in and out of existence by place,
with the millions of men who have been Masons over the decades here in
this state alone bringing to our club their individual notions of
Freedom, Righteousness and divergent paths to obtain Peace for all
Mankind; what is it that our Illinois Grand Lodge Conventions should
do?
The answer is plain enough and one that has been neglected, now, for
fore score years. Grand Lodges should go to work to charter new lodges
particularly among those men and in those neighborhoods that previous
generations abandoned to the profane; and our annual gathering is our
most excellent occasion for the funding lodges to task the Grand
Officers to initiate new beginnings.
Our Local Lodge process of introducing American Men to our
fraternity, teaching them to work and then graduating them to the
Local East was never intended to be the highest pinnacle of our
labors. Neither can the appending bodies make themselves out to be a
high enough aspiration to induce the twenty-first century profane man
to seek admission here. Those dreams belong to old men who did not
invest time in us when they were young.
Grand Lodges at all times and in all places have had, since their
inception, only one acceptable mandate. When they neglect their
purpose, waste sets in. The disease begins on the periphery; but
eventually spreads virally and the Grand Lodge organization that does
not right itself and pay attention to it will eventually succumb just
like the many Local Lodges that wax and wane out of existence.
The neglect is the specific complaint that Dr. Anderson made against
Christopher Wren that justified the establishment of the Premier Grand
Lodge in 1717; and it is the same objection that caused the lodge in
Quincy to inquire about the wisdom of reestablishing this second Grand
Lodge in Illinois.
Grand Lodges in all ages have had only one acceptable mandate. It
has never been for them to build a grandiose permanent home of bricks
and mortar for a few to meet in, or to establish a large charity, or
to impose itself as to rule on the miniscule details of Local Lodge
management.
Grand Lodges exist to promulgate the Craft. The means, simply, that
they must charter new lodges. Eight generations ago our Fore Brothers
chose for themselves some right that they did not possess to do no
more start-ups. We see today an untapped mass of material available to
us in the very towns and locations that former generations fled from
when petty fear over ruled their heads. But rather than go back into
them, we are engaged in forcing these round pegs into our square
holes. A young man going up the chairs should not be made to go away
after his year in the East. Let him have a charter and then go out
into his own neighborhood and add a new point into our constellation
of stars. As far as Books are concerned the best to guide us is the
VSL. All other papers and documents, being things composed by men from
earlier periods and other locations, exist for us to work. We are not
subjects to be enslaved by manuscripts. While previous generations of
Grand Leadership employed their time dispensing favors and designating
their inheritors, or perhaps grasping at immortality via some written
form, our twenty-first century Illinois Grand Officers will go to work
promulgating the Craft. "

Fraternally,
Torence Evans Ake
Secretary - Auburn Park Lodge No. 789 - Crete, Illinois
PM - Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 - Lansing, Illinois

[Mudge]

On 2010-08-30 07:17:20 -0600, Torence said:

Snippetery

M'dear Bro Torence - your suff would be much more readable if you were
to put a space between your paragraphs - big blocks of print like that,
I tend to ignore !

Thankew

[Doug Freyburger]

what is it that our Illinois Grand Lodge Conventions should do?
Grand Lodges should go to work to charter new lodges
particularly among those men and in those neighborhoods that previous
generations abandoned to the profane; and our annual gathering is our
most excellent occasion for the funding lodges to task the Grand
Officers to initiate new beginnings.

Bro Torence,

Do you have a suggested plan for how that would work?

One thing I've seen over time is lodges that don't own their own
buildings need to be tenants in a building own by a non-profit or the
rent becomes an albatross that eventually kills the lodge through its
funding.

One solution is to build large centers that host enough fraternal or
other non-profit groups that the building can pay for itself through the
small rental income. There isn't the funding to do that even in parts
of the state where lodges are active.

One solution is to build plazas where the shops on the ground floor pay
the taxes and maintenance to be a positive cash flow for the lodge that
meets on the top floor. There isn't funding for this either.

One solution is to rent from pre-existing non-profits that already own
buildings off the tax roles. Having a lodge rent from a church, Legion,
VFW, Odd Fellows, etc is an inexpensive route.

There's an apparent solution that tends to not work - Purchase an
existing building that is already off the tax roles like a church.
There are plenty of closed churches around the state. The problem with
the approach is lodges tend to purchase a building they can afford but
in the process they no longer have a trust fund big enough to maintain
the building for the next century. Eventually the building goes from a
nice new place to meet to a money pit they can't afford.

If you're suggesting a fund raising drive to purchase new buildings I'm
not against it but I'm also not holding my breath. If you're suggesting
that new lodges rent from local churches of various sorts that seems as
good an idea as I can come up with.

I think to you the major issue is the members. I think to me the major
issue is the funding and meeting place. A lodge is its members not its
meeting place, but there is more to it than that for lodges that don't
want to meet on the top of a hill.

[Torence]

Post by Doug Freyburger
Do you have a suggested plan for how that would work?

Yes, but the plan will involve giving up some of our sacred cows
for the slaughter.

(Broken up for Mudge, may the Bandwidth God Forgive me!)

Post by Doug Freyburger
One thing I've seen over time is lodges that don't own their own
buildings need to be tenants in a building own by a non-profit or the
rent becomes an albatross that eventually kills the lodge through its
funding.

You reference how it may be uncomfortable for new lodges if they
were to have to meet on top of a hill or in a low valley; but to put
having a hall before the formation of the lodge is decidedly putting
the cart before the horse. Many of our ForeBrothers started their
lodges on horseback and they made better Masons than the ones who
would only gather in the near utopian, hotel like settings of our
rooms of today “furnished as ornaments to Masonry” but serving this
community of Mason as some sort of memorial museum only, opened up
once or twice a month, but otherwise devoid of life.

I was in a lodge last night (doing three third degrees) whose
building has been a project for their membership for some time. These
Brothers there are converting a funeral home for our use. None of the
officers know any of the Past Master’s whose portraits they hung on
the wall; and those Past Masters would be quite distressed if they
were not deceased and came face to face with the twenty-first
complexion of their lodge. Lodges do not need halls at all to meet and
do business, any space suitable to plan and perhaps even another space
for practice when preparing for a degree will do.

Then, our existing lodges should open their doors to occasional
“one use” tenants who need a space only to do degree work when they
have any. If no traditional lodges make themselves available, then
there is always the unused ballroom or conference room at a hotel to
get this particular job done.

Our format for conducting our services was not adequate even for
the time that these books were written. Our more learned Fore Brothers
warned us not to put the work to paper as doing so hurts it the same
way that Dr. Johnson and Daniel Webster injured the common language
when they composed diction rules into definitive works.

If season after season of Local Lodge Officer cannot frame to
pronounce the work aright, then the fault cannot be laid at the feet
of “the man of today” generation after generation. The work needs to
be revisited; and this time around I say let these new lodges have at
it.

Look at how Grand Lodges have handled it through the generations
and the student quickly discovers that the work need not be their
property. Someone in Illinois dug up the old Grand Master Cook rule
that changes to the ritual require a vote of the Grand Lodge and we
have revisions before us this year to cure the strange neurosis
imposed by committee for lodges doing multiple degrees. If any have
been waiting for political action to speak plainly to their
candidates, then they are sorry lodges indeed.

Historically, these privileged groups from within us only seem to
make a muddle of “the work” and at best can only produce a score that
is, well “standard.” This generation of Lodge Officers is taking back
ownership; and in this committee’s lament and hindsight of having lost
control of it, they need only to look in the mirror to discover the
cause.

Fraternally,
Torence Evans Ake
Secretary – Auburn Park Lodge No. 789 – Crete, Illinois
PM – Arcadia Lodge No. 1138 – Lansing, Illinois

[Dave Vick, PM]

In article

Post by Torence
(Broken up for Mudge, may the Bandwidth God Forgive me!)

The rest of us thank you.

[Mudge]

Post by Dave Vick, PM

Post by Torence
(Broken up for Mudge, may the Bandwidth God Forgive me!)

The rest of us thank you.

As do I - sooooo much easier to read !