| Re: A Radical Idea
Back when alcohol was seen as sinful, "medicine shows" traveled the country selling cure-alls to the righteous. Home made hooch bottled up as miraculous elixirs. And the "god-fearin" people took it home, sat on the porch, took a swig and felt better.
But it was a scam and today, if you want a little buzz, you go and buy a bottle of Jack.
What I'm trying to say is the Grand Lodge system today is not the Grand Lodge system of 100 years ago, 200 years ago or 300 years ago. We are the Grand Lodge, as Brother Graeter has so effectively pointed out. But if it is destroyed, then what is left may not be anything of enduring value.
In the 60's the Reverend Martin Luther King and President Lyndon Johnson would get on the phone and negotiate, compromise and in the end, each got what they needed, even if it wasn't what they thought it was what they wanted in the beginning. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, especially for those that want it "all" and they want it "now".
Every man that is involved in the Halcyon issue and every other similar issue across America, north and south, initially petitioned a Lodge under the jurisdiction of a Grand Lodge, knocked on the door of the Lodge the night he was made a Mason and swore to maintain and support the Masonry that is embodied in that system. I agree, he did not swear to never attempt to guide it and improve it. As a worker in the quarries and in the temple he, in fact, has an obligation to do so.
But Masonry did not ask him to join it, he asked it if he might be accepted into it. That is a subtle yet significant FACT.
That's where I'm coming from and that is what I'm trying to sell. If that is the same "advertising campaign" you are involved with then we have more in common that you or I probably realize. But, unfortunately, the net doesn't allow for inflection and tone in postings on forums such as this. You may have made a sarcastic, mocking remark or you may have offered a compliment. Only time will tell.
Georgey |