Only open minds can learn.
This story includes some personal stuff that I am not ready to post, so I'll start with the new found knowledge that my grandfather on my dad's side was a Mason. When I dug into his 'story' a little, I found that he was also considered a pillar of the community. Everyone I talked to said that he would give you the shirt off his back.
To exemplify this, part of the reason that he and my dad were estranged seems to stem from the story of a couple of my cousins in their younger days getting shot accidentally and ending up in the hospital for ages. To pay for this, my grandfather seems to have literally 'sold the ranch'. Seems to have upset my dad that his inheritance was gone or something like that. No telling now, it looks like everyone that knew the story is gone.
At any rate, at that time I did not know my dad was a Mason. But that my grandfather was so highly thought of and that being a Mason seemed important to this, I decided to look into what a Mason was supposed to be.
Now, again, internet.... (place huge sigh here). There is so much speculation and misinformation on Masonry, I almost gave up. In fact, I would venture if you do a search on anything, you will find you are looking for a rose bush in a swamp full of alligators. Someone really does need to drain the swamp and shoot the alligators.
One of my clients was a 'tower of a man'. I actually wanted to emulate him in some ways. He was kind, communicated with his employees as an equal and a friend, his family and friends loved him in ways I truly admired. One day, I spotted a Masonic symbol on his ring.
So I asked.
Introduced to and talking to a few more Masons, I began to get what I think was a fairly accurate those massively incomplete story of Masonry. Now, I'm not going to go into the speculative and operative natures and differences here. Nor am I going to try to convince you of anything about Masonry. I will leave that to how open-minded you are.
I met a few more Masons. They were all business men in the community, fathers, power plant workers, FAA employees, bankers, doctors, and more. None were alcoholics (did find a few recovering at a later time). All, and this may seem a trivial, even obscure thing, but ALL that I drove with later were the most courteous drivers I've met.
Now, I'm not trying to convince you that they are all saints or angels or anything like that. The longer I've been in Masonry, the more I've seen that they are just men. Good men. But just men. Good men, because any one of them would give you the shirt off their backs. Just men because so many of them seem subject to so many of the day to day maladies of 'regular' men.
Anyway, I liked the group of men I met. Even the feisty argumentative ones. I later found that the feisty argumentative ones were the biggest pillars or rocks... however you want to say it.
I decided in 1995 that I would take my initiation into Masonry.
I was initiated.
This included not an oath sworn to any god or satanic entity, but an obligation, on a bible, to myself.
It was, without divulging 'secrets', an obligation to myself to be a better man.
The last few words of the ritual still ring in my ears.
Sadly, life jumped up and bit me in the arse. HARD!
Another 12 years passed, a divorce, kids going off to college, and me settling into a new life.
All that time, I kept hearing those words over and over again. Every time 'someone' tried to get my goat or make me angry or anything like that, I may have taken the bait. But I spat it right out.
Masonry was popping up all over in my life and I was only an initiate. An Entered Apprentice Mason. Yet it had already had such a hugely positive effect on my life. I began to believe in myself again.
Contact was again made with the local lodge. A few new guys, a few that remembered me, and I decided to experience the initiation again so I could remember it. Later, the second degree, the Fellowcraft degree, and a new obligation to myself. Again on a bible. And again this one, without divulging secrets, obligated myself to be a better man in new ways.
The second degree reminded me of what I was supposed to be doing (and in part had been doing through the years) to improve myself. And no, there were no goats involved anywhere.
I met the requirements to move on and was attendant to my third degree. New obligations. Again on a bible, and again TO myself. This time, again without divulging secrets, the obligations involved so much more than myself. I was now a Master Mason.
And this is just the beginning of the journey.
