chgregory

My Brothers,

This short video message was made almost 9 months ago. I had not dug deeply enough into the site to find it until today, my shortfall.

This truly expresses a question of path and intent that is at the very heart of our fraternity.

As we have all discussed, a "clandestine" lodge was a term meant to denote those lodges that met in secret of their Grand Lodge for the intent of usurping one lodge in favor of another, or one set of officers in favor of another. An irregular lodge has been open to many differnet points of view, but in general it refers to a group of mason who are chartered by some unrecognized grand lodge. Neither term seems to hold a great deal of usefulness today except in the adherence to the promises each of us made during our degrees.

I have a slightly different outlook on the use of these terms. I doubt rather seriously if we will ever really see many clandestine lodges, so I am just going to ignore that term for a while and deal with the "competing lodges."

I choose the term "competing" advisedly because that is what they are doing, each is competing for members. Some groups can claim real ties to masonic history, and I suspect some can't, but as long as the aim is the same, we should be able to interact, if only socially as long as we avoid the direct ritual interaction. That is all that our vows preclude. If we all sat together and watched sports, shared the labor at a Christmas Tree lot, had join barbarque or chicken fry, and generally became friends, we could certainly avoid that one simple issue.

Here in VA we recognized Prince Hall Masons as Regular in 2003 or 4, and the world has not stopped spinning. If we interact with masons who believe differnently we are simply widening our horizons. Restated, that would be seeking more light. I doubt if any of us is ready for a joint ritual, but we should be willing to at least recognize the efforts of men (and women) working to better themselves, better their world and better their fraternity.

If we suffer with words in our oaths that prevent us from being the best men we can be, maybe the words need to change.

I am suggesting nothing but an open mind and an open heart. "For every man has a claim on your good offices." Does not sound exclusive to me - it sounds inclusive. Friendship and Brother love ask no less of us as men and masons.

In my humble opinion.

S&F,

__________________
Cliff Gregory, 32