Exploring the Entered Apprentice Charge: Time-Honored Traditions and Contemporary Leadership

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey Chris, yeah, fred , what's a Mason?
That's a really good question,fred.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
You've reached the internet's home for all things
masonry.
Join Chris and I as we plumbthe depths of our ancient craft,
from the common gavel to thetrowel.
Nothing is off the table, sograb your tools and let's get to
work.
This is On the Level.
Alright, alright, love, thatintro Love it.
Gotta remember it's live.

(00:35):
Can't talk till it's over.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm just so into it.
I was over here going bada,bada, bada, bada, like, uh oh.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
They can hear that.
They can hear that I'm sorry,new, it's just new, this is all
new.
And again, to reinforce what wealways say, we have no idea
what we're doing.
So this works out well.
I'm hearing a little echo on me.
I don't know if that's actuallycoming through, so let me
adjust.
Hopefully it went away.
Oh, I'm coming through you Onyour mic.
I see Me, I'm echoing.

(01:02):
Yeah, no, I am, I am echoingthrough your microphone.
There we go.
That's probably a little better.
That's a really good echo, fred.
Ah, echo, echo.
Now, there's just no rabbittrail on echo.
We're going, we're moving on,we're moving on.
Bada, bada, bada, bada.
Yeah, right, shout out to JimmyC who created that intro for us

(01:22):
.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's catchy man, it is catchy.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
I'm liking it.
I'm trying my best to reworkthe outro part so that it can
just play seamlessly and then wecan kind of go out in a almost
professional sounding way.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
I don't know A bit of a pipe dream on my part, I
suppose, long as we don't getfully professional, I'm fine
with it.
Yeah, right, yeah Must remainamateurs for life.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Must remain our dedication to remain amateurs.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
We'll be ignorant and foolish for all our days.
So what's going?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
on, brother.
I've had a busy week, man, Ifeel like you.
Yeah, it's been crazy, crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
I was in three lodges this week already and we have a
degree coming up tomorrowmorning in another lodge.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
We have a fourth lodge in less than a week.
The district competition team,state competition team will be
putting on an E8 degree atLiberty Lodge tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
If you can make it to Bradenton, well, it won't
matter.
It'll be over by the time youhear this.
We did great Good job, Fred.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Awesome man.
Wow, I only messed up likethree of my four parts.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I did it Perfect, I know it's not real.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Positive affirmation.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I did it great.
I nailed it.
I've never worked with a teamquite so dedicated, so I'm
really excited about it.
I agree, I agree.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I know this to be true because I was really
disappointed when we had tocancel our team practice on was
that Wednesday night yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Wednesday night we now have people coming to learn
as we practice, so there was alot of disappointed people that
we canceled that.
Oh bummer.
But, that's how it goes.
When you got like eight people,it's hard to coordinate
schedules on a very consistentbasis, but we're getting started
early.
We have a great head start onthis, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Then we have.
Well, we missed the table lodgeat Hillsboro Lodge,
unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
I know, yeah, that just could make it, could not
pull it off.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
So sorry.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Worshipful Cheryl out there.
Yeah, our bad.
Sorry, brother.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I really regret missing that, but that's what
being busy looks like.
Right, our district 23fundraiser coming up, which is
going to be a cornholetournament at Saheb Shrine Yep,
yep, that's in a couple of weeksnow.
And, yeah, our district picnicscoming up.
We actually get to goparticipate in a master Mason

(04:01):
degree at Hillsboro Lodge laterthis month.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Nice.
That I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Man, I can't wait to do virtual in that lodge, right,
right With those brothers.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I can't wait to witness it.
And it's just sitting on thesidelines.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Good luck with that.
You know you're not going to besitting on the sidelines.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I'm going to be sitting on the side.
I will not be roped intoanything.
Ha, I don't know anything, Idon't know anything.
None of us do that doesn't stopus.
We still do the work.
I would be mortified to mess upas badly as I'm capable of
doing in that beautiful lodgebuilding.
It would be like going toCarnegie Hall as a musician and

(04:39):
totally dropping your clarineton your foot, you know yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
And cursing out loud.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Get this clown out here yeah.
No, no, that's not going tohappen, but I will be there on
the sidelines cheering on mybrethren as they perform
perfectly Well.
I shouldn't call it aperformance, because it's not
really a performance.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
No, we have another esoteric discussion coming up at
my house this month.
That's right.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I was going to ask you where it was.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I didn't put it anywhere, yet I've been a little
busy.
So I got to figure out when thatis and post that online.
If you're anywhere in the areanear Sarasota, email Chris on
the level of freddancriscom orfreddancriscom and come out to
one of our esoteric discussiongroup nights.
We do it.

(05:30):
It's part of our District 23commitment All the Masters have
made this year to do more thingstogether.
This is one of the awesome ones.
Where we get together, there iscigar smoking and drink of
choice having, but the mainpoint is to talk about how we
can relate Freemasonry to ourlife in a positive way, and we

(05:51):
do talk about very specificesoteric things.
Depending on who shows up.
We always seem to have at leastan enteric apprentice.
Right so we usually go past thatlevel with the esoteric
specific things.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Because it's a closed group, right, we can talk
openly about, you know, theMasonry which cannot be spoken
of here like on the podcast.
So if our lowest degree iswhere we're stuck and of course
we're always glad when EA'scome- Love it.

(06:28):
So far all of the esotericdiscussions have been based in
have not gone past the EA degree.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Right, Not in any kind of detail.
And it was cool because at thelast one we met an EA from
Manatee Lodge who then we got togo.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Shout out to Brother Booth.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Wait, he's a fellow craft, Sorry.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
He is a fellow craft, my bad.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
He was a fellow craft when we met him.
He came to an esotericdiscussion group and became
friends.
And yeah, william Booth and hisbrother, actually Aral, did a
fellow craft give back just thispast.
That was one of the lodges, Ithink Monday night Right.

(07:20):
And we got to go sit in Lodgeand watch him do that and forget
to speak publicly.
That was a total.
I crashed, I crashed, I crashed.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I crashed not one of my better, I don't know why I
did.
I've done that presentationabout our cigar fundraiser
through three Ruffians, you know, a couple of times and it went
great, man, and I don't knowwhat happened.
I just stepped up to the plateand that ball went whizzing by
me and I swung so hard I missedit.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Well, that lodge that night had 11 past masters.
That's right, so it was a lotof bit.
There's a bit more heat in thatroom than you're probably used
to.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
And that was the first.
Was that the first meeting, thefirst?

Speaker 1 (08:05):
With their new Warsaw master, With the new with the
whole new everything.
Yeah, the new environment there.
I think that this is theirsecond meeting, but the first
one was total chaos, so this istheir first real meeting.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, and it was great and everybody said it was
just the weight was lifted andthere was just well it was.
There was masonry going onthere, which was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, I mean, people probably generally have no idea
what we're talking about, butthis lodge had some issues, as
we all have some issues in ourlodges, correct, there's was
just a little more difficultthan ours.
There were some issues withtheir Warsaw master, who was
removed, and a new master wasappointed by the grandmaster so

(08:52):
who happens to be a past master,and just so much going on there
, and that lodge is dealing witha lot right now.
But you just, it's such a greatfeeling to sit with a group of
guys who are all coming togetherfor a common purpose, which is
the betterment of their brothersin the lodge, which is our home
, our home away from home.
That's what they kept saying.
This is our home.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
We got to treat it like our home.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, that's right, we have to fix it up.
We got to clean it, we got totake care of it like it's our
home.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
And you know just my appreciation to our leadership
for doing the hard work.
It's so refreshing yeah theydid the hard thing, which is the
unpopular thing, the hard thingbut the very necessary thing,
and they did it, and we wereable to witness the fruit of
that at that meeting where therewas some brotherly love, such
positive some positive stuffgoing on.

(09:41):
So thank you to our grandmasterfor doing the hard work from us
, the gladiators and the pit foryour entertainment.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
When we see the leadership doing accountability,
it's really encouraging to usin the pits.
We feel, wow, okay, we're partof an organization that takes
some pride in itself.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Right because, like I've always said, you know, if
we don't take ourselvesseriously, why should anybody
else?
You know, why should anybodyfrom the outside look at us in a
serious way if we don't takeourselves seriously?
So yeah, that was a great dayfor Masonry in Florida.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
It is great because, while there were problems,
apparently I don't know thedetails, so I can't speak to
them.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
And we wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's not my place, but everyone knows
the master who was removed andeveryone likes him.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
I mean generally you know how it is in Masonry.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's hard to find anyone that everybody likes.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Right, right, but he's still a brother and we
still love him.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, highly have him , talk well about him.
I know he's very welcome there,as he would be in our lodge.
We all yeah that's right.
He's actually awesome, funrichelist to do work with too.
But for whatever reason, thishappened and so it's a struggle
on a group of officers for thatkind of change in situation and

(11:06):
the leadership switching thatlate in the game.
It's stressful, but toeverybody else on the outside
you look at a situation likethat and you say this is good,
at least we have some standards.
I don't know what the?
situation is.
But I imagine for the GrandMaster to take some action that
he took, he had to feel veryconfident in the decisions he

(11:27):
was making.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
And I'm sure everybody listening has been in
situations where you see peoplein a situation of leadership and
you're just wondering howthey're just getting away with
this.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Right, right.
How is nobody doing anythingabout this and nobody's doing
anything.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
I mean, and maybe they are, but to you in the pits
who don't know anything andjust see what you see, it looks
a lot like you could do anything.
No one will touch you, yeah,and that's a discouraging,
disheartening thing to deal with.
So when you see action beingtaken, it does really make you
perk up a little and walk alittle taller when you wear a

(12:04):
Masonic pin in public and feellike, yeah, amazing, we have
standards.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
We have standards and we're living by them, and our
hope this show on the level ofFred and Chris.
Our hope I know I speak for you, chris, when I say that our
hope is that all will berestored to brotherly love
relief and truth.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
It's in our hands.
That doesn't make it happen.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's right, we want all to go together.
And the past, the past master,the lodge itself, everybody to
come to terms and let's bestronger over this and move
forward.
And you know things like thisare going to happen in the
future.
And because we're men, we'reflawed.
You know we are.
We're chipping away on thosecorners, man, but you know we're

(12:49):
.
A perfect ashlar does not meanflawless.
A flawless ashlar is uselessfor a building because it's too
smooth and concrete doesn'tstick to it.
But a perfect ashlar and we'vesaid this on the show before
refers to being useful to themaster.
And that's what we want to do.
Chip away, chip away, man, chipit away every day.

(13:11):
Work on those things in yourlife that you could do better to
help your fellow man, a brother, a brother Mason and anybody in
this world.
Do unto others as you wouldhave them do unto you, and
circumscribe those, those vicesand super fluidities of this

(13:32):
life, and square.
Square your work, man.
You know that's my favoritesaying.
I want to say that to everybody, dude square your work, man.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Come on, I've been a square my whole life.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, now you're.
Now you're the fourth part of asquare brother, the fourth part
of a circle.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Well, you know I mean .
Just the last thing I'll sayabout that particular topic is
it is sends a good message toall leadership in Masonry in
Florida.
When you're in a position ofleadership, you are presumed to
have done a lot of work onyourself to get to that point
Right, and you're in a positionwhere you're an example for

(14:12):
others to follow.
You literally say that themaster of the lodge is giving
light to the craft and instructthem and work, and so, as a
worshipful master of the lodge,you're a servant of the lodge
and the craft.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
You are not a king Right.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
That is not a throne you sit upon, that is a chair
that you're warming for the nextguy, and that chair belongs to
the craft, not to you.
You're the person lucky enoughto occupy time in the space for
a time.
Your name will go in thosebooks that the secretary is
writing in for all the future ofyour lodge to see what you did,

(14:49):
and I know I I mean I myselfhad un-Masonic conduct when I
was sitting in the East one dayearly on, when my first meetings
might have been my secondmeeting, there was a vote to
make an honorary member of apast district deputy and there
was a black ball situation whichI'm probably not supposed to

(15:09):
talk about in detail.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, but at all that's not too detail.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
But you know, there was a situation that arose that
I lost my temper enough to kindof scold my own lodge.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
And just say what are you guys doing here?
Okay, okay, well, it wasn't somuch.
What I said is my attitude andyou know all that stuff matters.
I think when you're inleadership, especially in a
volunteer organization, peopleare here because they love it.
They're not here becausethey're getting paid.
They're not here becausethey're getting any kind of

(15:44):
credit and their their wife'snot going to look at them any
any better because they're doingthis stuff.
It really is out of passion andlove and you have to remember
that, that you're dealing withpeople that are really
passionate about something andthey love it and that means it's
theirs in their mind.
And you're the leader, it's notyours.

(16:07):
The Freemasonry isn't yours.
And your lodge, when you're themaster, to tell everybody to do
it your way, it's supposed to bea group of guys working
together, trying to find commonground.
Work together, right, harmony.
How many times do we hear itover and over again?
In ritual?
We hear it every time we open alodge and every time we close a
lodge.
Right, it's about harmony.

(16:28):
Harm, yeah, that's right, andyou have to stay and focus on
that.
If you're a master, if you'rethinking about becoming a master
, you're working in the line.
Spend your time in the line towork on yourself and learn the
systems of Freemasonry better soyou can be the best master
possible when you get into theEast.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, and I think that if, if you're a, a password
for a master, who, who can lookback on his year and say that
it was that the lodge benefitedfrom it, and and and others
could say that you had a goodyear, you did well, then then
you're, you're a special person.
Because it is challenging thereis.
You must balance, like like youwere just saying, chris, you,

(17:05):
you must be able to balance aneed to get things done, a need
to be disciplined, with theability to inspire men to follow
you down this road, even thoughthey're not required to.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
There's no you know it's a volunteer organization.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
They are not required to follow you.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
They can vote with their feet and they will.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
And they will.
But if you can inspire menthrough your own conduct and
through your rhetoric you knowyour words and your inspiration
then you're, you're, you're goodat it, man, you're a good
leader, and and your year willprove that you know, and anybody
who's been a past master canlook back on their year and and
and reflect on hey, what kind ofa leader was I.

(17:48):
You know, and make theappropriate changes if necessary
, and or that's the key If itmakes the appropriate.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
That's the key.
It really is ready to adapt andchange.
Even when you're in the East.
You have work to do still onyourself, right.
Absolutely that mistake I madecould have been.
It was so early on in my careeras the Warshville master of the
lodge.
It could have really set thetone for the whole year.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
So my first thought immediately as I was driving
home is how am I going to fixthis?
So, I apologize to everybodythat was there that night
personally and at the nextstated meeting I apologized
again and talked about how Irealized that that wasn't the
best way to behave and I hope noone follows my example.
And you know, I think that'sthe best thing you can do if you

(18:38):
, if you fall, you get back onthe wagon.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know, just keep dragging.
No, that's right.
But what you did was a truesign of real leadership, See,
because everybody in the lodgewho saw and heard that entire
thing realized that if theWarshville master is willing to
humble himself, admit he waswrong in front of everybody and
work to move forward and betterhimself and the lodge, then

(19:03):
what's my excuse?
Right, I'm sitting on the, I'msitting in the sidelines, you
know I'm attending lodge.
But what's, what's my excuse?
I'm holding some, some grudgeagainst a brother from a hundred
years ago and it's affecting.
it's affecting my lodge brothers, it's affecting other lodges.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, and what?
How are you affecting youpersonally to the whole and
totally, I'm sure, affecting youpersonally.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
You know, and, and, and, it's just unmasonic.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Humility.
I'm sorry, guys, but this is afraternity where some humility
and self-reflection is in factrequired.
You won't survive.
You'll end up with a reputationlike so many men have in
masonry that you really don'twant.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
There's nothing wrong with drive and ambition.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, oh, we gotta have it.
We're men, of course, yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
But you have to temper that with some kind of
humbleness.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
And correct yourself as much as possible.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Right, right, I love it, I love it.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
That's what it's all about, and we're always doing it
.
I'm sure even in the grand line, those brothers are making
mistakes too, probably, and Ihope they're doing the same
thing we're trying to do here,which is just correct yourself
and be an example of how tohandle yourself.
When you do maybe do somethingthat's not as masonic as you
wish you would have done it,don't leave it alone.

(20:28):
Go back and apologize.
Be an example for people.
I'm able to do it because I sawsomeone do it and I was so
impressed that I said I willalways try to behave like this
person, because I think it's anavatar of masonry to me when I
see someone do like what DougDobbs did.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Right worshipful, worshipful.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
Right worshipful, worshipful.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
And I'm going to stand up at a master mason
association meeting and say someuncomfortable private things
that is not easy to say abouthis lodge in front of other
lodges and try to use it forlearning so that everyone else
can learn lessons Like there yougo.
Now we're doing masonry.
We take a negative and we tryto turn it into a learning
experience and grow.

(21:11):
Yeah, that's right Because weall will fall, we will all make
mistakes and we will all let theemotions get the best of us.
Sooner or later it will happento you, whoever you are.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Right and you set the tone for mercy and grace.
And grace is one of the mostpowerful forces when, understood
correctly, there is.
You set the tone for mercy andgrace.
Therefore, mistakes can be madewithout fear of detrimental
reprisal, and then that is wherecreativity lives and breathes

(21:46):
and grows within an environmentof grace and of forgiveness and
love.
To put yourself out there as aperson who thinks he's an artist
, it's a piece to be seen.
But when you put yourself outthere creatively, with
creativity, you're putting apiece of your heart out into the

(22:07):
world.
And when you do that in anenvironment where there is love
and grace and mercy, creativityjust flourishes and grows.
And from creativity comes greatthings, and even in our lodge
you can see it, like our charitycommittee.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, they're trying a lot.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
And all kinds of different stuff and they're at
trial and error and just workingthrough stuff and everybody's
just like giving each other abreak in love to grow and to
create and to be creative.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
I think the movie night between the two lodges
started that way, it was just anidea, it was a big let down to
everybody.
That first one I wasanticipating four times more
people, probably six times moremoney being made and in reality
we had like 60 people show up,which I guess you could say is a

(23:02):
good number.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
But I was expecting like 200.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
And we sold some stuff and we basically just paid
for the costs of the thing, allthe expenses.
Nobody made any money and thewind was let out of people sales
.
But did we let that?
We're never doing this again.
It was a failure.
No, we saw how many kids wereplaying in the park with each
other that didn't know eachother before.
We saw couples coming out withbottles of wine and food and sit

(23:28):
and have a picnic outside andwatch a movie.
Wow.
And our brothers and sisterswere there with their families
parked in trucks, sitting in theback of the bed watching the
movie with pillows and you'relike, okay, this is something
that, even if we're not makingmoney, is doing good.

(23:48):
Doing good for our lodges, doinggood for our brothers to work
together, doing good for thecommunity.
This has to continue and wehave every month since.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yeah, I would love to see people take this idea,
which is not a new idea with us,but maybe take away from this
show today that thought.
You know, the humility and selfreflection leads to just a huge
, a huge bounty of good ideas,of just a culture of creativity

(24:19):
that creates these ideas andflourishes, and brotherly love
prevails and grows, and this iswhat makes Masonry very unique,
you know, and I think it's it'sit's what's going to bring us
into.
You know the future, you know aswe grow, because it, like it

(24:39):
says in our promo if Fred andChris have anything to say about
it, well then Masonry will beon the ascendancy.
It will.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
It will grow but it will become that's right, it
will come back.
I still think of Seinfeld everytime I hear it, I don't know
why.
Or friends, I don't know, I getboth in there.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Anyways, listen, if you've been inspired by
listening to us and then thenthen go be the change, go to
your lodge and affect somechange.
Some small thing, some greatthing, whatever it is, it's your
lodge, it's your Masonic career.
Get out there and buildsomething strong man.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
If you start making suggestions and trying things,
other people will feel moreinclined to do the same.
That's right, and failure is apart of success.
I don't people don't talk aboutthat enough, right?

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, it's.
It's because we don't have thatthat drive, that long suffering
.
I love that word long suffering.
We, we don't.
As soon as some we trysomething, it fails one time and
then we give up.
Don't give up, but don't giveup.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Learn.
That's a learning opportunity.
That's right.
Why did we fail?
What went wrong there?

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah, that's right.
And when?

Speaker 1 (25:47):
you come back and do something else and don't make
those mistakes again, you'll,you'll get to success.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And that only survives in that, in that
environment of love and gracewhere you're allowed to make a
mistake and we're allowed tocome back together and say, all
right, this work, that didn't.
Let's move on, let's becreative, let's make something
great happen.
So enough of that.
What do we?
What are we working on thisepisode?
We've gone through, we've gonethrough a lot.
We've gone through the masterMason, sorry.

(26:16):
We've gone through the mentorsmanual yes, all three degrees.
And then we've gone through thelectures, all three degrees.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
What we could.
What we could what we could do.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
The basics and someday we'll go back to
different.
We're going to cherry pick outsome of our favorite concepts in
the mentors manual and digdeeper into them and do shows
based on that stuff, deeper anddeeper.
So if you got any particularpieces of the mentors manual
that you really like maybe youknow you, you really like the

(26:49):
teachings about the square youknow, or the working tools of a
particular degree or whatever,just shout out to us, email us
and let us know and we'll diginto it as best we can.
Or maybe bring on guests whoknow it better than we do and
and we'll we'll put that outthere.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
But for today we are going to go through the Well,
once you go through the a degreeand free Masonry and you
receive your lecture, it's notover.
The last thing that will happenis you're going to receive a
charge and somebody's going tostand there and talk to you and

(27:29):
basically give you a charge,which are the last things you're
going to hear about that degreebefore you go home.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
So we thought we would do the entered apprentice
charge.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Yeah, I like it.
Now there's charges for allthree degrees.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
They are written out in the blue monitor book in the
state of Florida.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
That is correct, completely written out there are
no secrets here.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
There are no secrets.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
It actually could.
It can be read from during theA lot of lodges.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
They do read it because they don't have someone
who's.
They're not lucky enough tohave someone have memorized it.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, and I think it's.
It says that it may be read, Ithink maybe because it's so
important.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
It does say in the mentors manual that it should
always be done and it shouldalways be done by memory, if you
, if you're lucky enough to havea brother in the room, that
that has memorized, but it isokay as a lassers or to read it.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Understood.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
That actually says that in the mentors I'm assuming
that you do have it memorized.
I have at some point in my life.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yes, so I have it here in front of me.
We can so.
Do you want to do?
You want to recite it or do youwant me to read it?
That's the question.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
And don't feel.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
All right, all right, go and and I will correct you
if necessary as you as you gothe entered apprentice charge,
as recited by Worshuffle ChrisBurns you see that first sense,
my brother, as you are nowintroduced into the first
principles of Freemasonry.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
I congratulate you on being accepted into this
ancient and honorable fraternity.
Darn close, not even close.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Darn close.
I congratulate you on youradmission into this ancient and
honorable order.
Keep going Ancient as havingexisted from time.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Immorial, honorable, honorable as as tending in every
particular so to render all menwho will be conformable to its
precepts.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
You know this is the same but different.
And I'm desperately searchingthis page to find the word
Florida Grand Lodge.
I'm not finding it and I'm justhoping.
I'm hoping that this is aFlorida document in front of me.

(29:52):
Gosh, we really are notprofessionals.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
All right, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (29:56):
a Florida document.
Well, it's very close but thereare.
The words are a little bitdifferent, so I don't know if
you're, you're never this off.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
No, I think what I'm saying is correct.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, yeah, all right , all right, generally Entertain
as I grab the monitor.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Oh, entertain, yes, the monitor.
Oh, you have a monitor with you.
There you go.
So what you're saying is youhad brought, you had printed
this out and brought it, andyou're not entirely sure you got
this from Florida.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
I when I first became amazing in the Entered
Apprentice degree.
We were not my group that camethrough, we were.
We were pushed through.
We've talked about this on theshow.
We were pushed through pretty,pretty quickly.
So my I endeavored to go backand and research and learn
everything myself.
This is the first document Igot offline and the Entered

(30:49):
Apprentice Charge.
But I went back shortly afterand realized a bunch of the
documents that I did downloadwere from Texas and I'm just
wondering if this is the EnteredApprentice Charge from the fair
state, once great state ofTexas.
So let me do this.
I'm going to look up as Chrisentertains you doing a great job

(31:13):
there too, brother.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Thanks, man, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Page 61 of the monitor.
Oh boy, this is great.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
Love it.
So in the first paragraph we'resaying it's ancient as having
existed from time and memorial.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well, keep in mind that Texas free masonry is
ancient and accepted masonry.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Well, I'm for sure that that's in our Florida
ritual.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
No, I mean it's not free and accepted masonry.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
It's ancient.
It's ancient whatever thedifference is.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
It could be Colorado as well.
I just found out.
All right, so I'm going to putthis away and I'm going to read
it directly from our little bluebloke, the Florida Masonic
Monitor.
Let's start again, brother.
What do you say?

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I'll read it from the blue monitor Brothers as you
are now introduced into thefirst principles of free masonry
.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
I congratulate you on being accepted into this
ancient and honorable order.
Very different, All right.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Go the ancient as having existed from time and
memorial, honorable as tendingin every particular so to render
all men who will be conformableto its precepts.
No institution was ever raisedon a better principle or on a
more solid foundation, nor wereever more excellent rules and
useful maxims laid down asthey're inculcated into several

(32:31):
masonic lectures.
The greatest and best of men inall ages have been encouragers
and supporters of the art andhave never deemed it derogatory
to their dignity to levelthemselves with a fraternity,
extend their privileges andpatronize its assemblies.
There are three great duties,which is the Mason you are
charged to inculcate.

(32:52):
So I'm really surprised at howsimilar yeah, when I looked at
it I said yeah, that looks right.
Yeah, but the details are wrong.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, it's just the words and structure is different
, but the intent is exactly thesame.
Yeah, isn't that amazing.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah.
So right at the beginning we'resaying Freemasonry is ancient
as having existed from timeimmemorial, right?
So what does time immemorialmean?

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Ancient as having existed from time immemorial,
and honorable as tending inevery particular.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Time immemorial, according to the Oxford Language
Dictionary, means used to referto a point of time in the past
that was so long ago that peoplehave no knowledge or memory of
it.
So we're saying Freemasonry hasexisted from before recorded
history.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Right Now.
We talked last show, or theshow before, about how
Pythagoras was a Mason.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Well, his ideas are part of Masonry.
I don't know if he was a Mason.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
I don't think we said that.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
That would be from a long time ago.
Yeah, but I think, even thoughwe can clearly track Masonry to
about 350 years ago, where youhave actual empirical evidence,
1717, I believe from the GrandLodge, officially became a

(34:24):
public thing in England.
Right, right.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
But that's not time immemorial.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well, based on that definition it could be, because
it's tough.
It's hard to know 200 years agowhat was on the minds and
intentions of people.
I mean, it's tough to go 200years back.
So I think it is having existedfrom time immemorial.

(34:54):
In other words, it's ancient,having existed from time
immemorial.
The explanation of ancient isit's not 8,000 years old, but
it's ancient in that it goesback far enough to where it's
been memorialized and what it is.
So I know, for instance, thedegree that I went through here

(35:23):
in Florida is basically the samedegree that General George
Washington went through when hedid his.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Right, yeah, yeah, and the one he did, but that was
in the 1700s.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
And would well, when he was a young man.
I know that he did it 1776, hewas an old man.
So probably, yeah, probablyvery early from 17 in the early
1700s is when he would have donethat and I'm sure he was able
to look back on Masons if had helooked into the craft.

(35:56):
You know he was able to lookback to the brothers in Scotland
and other places.
You see them online all thetime these things that pop up
about Masons from long, long ago.
So, I think that's what it'smemorialized and that's what we
mean by ancient.
We don't mean I don't thinkanybody says that King Solomon

(36:18):
was a Mason Okay, maybe thereare some people who say that but
we use the King Solomon andSolomon's temple and the
teachings of King Solomon inMasonry.
We use it a lot.
I mean it's a huge part of ourteaching.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, a lot of moral lessons come from the allegories
Characters in the.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Old Testament.
Correct, Correct, but nobody issaying that.
You know that Hiram Abiff, theKing of Tyre, were Masons who
went through the same.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
EA degree that I went through Right Right Nobody's
saying that Took obligations andheard these charges.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
So I think what that's doing is it's explaining
what they mean by ancient Well,what's interesting?

Speaker 1 (36:59):
I just looked on Wikipedia.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Oh good.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
In time immemorial there's actually a date, for
according to English law They'veassigned a date and said after
that date it's a memorial andafter this date it's common law.
So time immemorial isfrequently used to describe the
time required for a custom tomature into common law.
Medieval historians describethis as the watershed between a

(37:23):
primarily oral culture and aworld where writing was common.
So in English law timeimmemorial ends and legal memory
begins at 1189.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Why 1189, does it say .

Speaker 1 (37:36):
It's the end of the reign of King Henry II Okay, who
was associated with theinvention of the English common
law.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
So common law, so oral law, oral tradition, common
written law.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Apparently in England that's the delineation 1189.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
And I don't know, I don't know, no well.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
That's specific in their reference here to time
immemorial.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
But I've always been curious about it.
Well, you know the classiceducation through Aristotle,
which is, you know, plato andSocrates and all of them.
There was no writing as amatter of fact.
That's why Socrates wasrejected and ultimately,
ultimately, he lost his lifeover the fact that he was

(38:24):
teaching children how to readRight and because everything was
oral tradition.
It was all handed down, justlike we do in Masonry.
We hand these things downthrough oral tradition.
You memorize your parts thatyou do from somebody else who's
done them before you.
This is oral tradition.

(38:46):
But when there was a shift, itwas a major shift in society, in
the world regarding education,when we went from those oral
traditions that were handed downby orators these were great men
who came to your town and spokethese words and you took them
home in your memory and taughtthem to your children and the

(39:08):
people in your community towhere now we had scribes writing
these things down and thenpassing them down through
writing, and, of course, thescribe was taken from Jewish.
History is where the scribescame from and that becoming so,
it makes sense that around 1100ish according to 1189, according

(39:31):
to 1189.
But it's all tied to law.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
So they're saying that's the year where we had our
first law that was produced bya leader and written down and
recorded as a law.
Prior to that, all laws werejust based on society and oral
tradition.
You know common law.
So, we have common law marriagewhich is like oh, you live
together long enough, you'remarried.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, that's a modern definition of it, but yeah,
yeah, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
It's different than the law where you've got to go
fill out a document becausesomebody said this is the
procedure that has to happen inorder for a marriage to take
place.
So that's interesting.
1189, I have an answer.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
No institution was ever raised on better principles
or more solid foundations, Norwere ever more excellent rules
and useful maxims laid down thanare inculcated in the several
Masonic lectures which we justwent through.
Very true, yeah very true.
And if, again, we just admonisheveryone out there to open up

(40:37):
your books and read the lecturesand study them and understand
them.
If you want to understandMasonry and what it's trying to
do for you and what you shouldbe doing for your lodge and your
community and your faith, thenthat's where you'll find most of
it.
You'll find it in thoselectures.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, you want to be the best Mason possible.
Learn the lectures.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Yeah, and it's like I always say know what you
believe and why you believe it.
Well, that's where you go tofind that out.
So, and the why is the reallyimportant part of that?
Why do I believe that?
Why am I, a Mason Not willingto learn the lectures?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Don't fall asleep when you go see them in degrees.
Listen, you'll learn something.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, that's what I'm doing.
Every time I hear a lecture thenext day, I read it so that it
just comes right back into mymind, and I'm finding that just
by being exposed to this andthen exposing myself to reading
it afterwards, it's justbecoming part of my memory.
Yeah, I'm not one.
I'm not real good at sittingdown and purposely memorizing

(41:40):
stuff.
I'm just not good at that.
I'm not either.
Yeah, that's, that's not me, butthe more I'm exposed to it
being done in front of me andthen reading it.
You know those two gates theear gate and the eye and mind
gate, which is reading right,you get, you get better and
better and I don't know why wewent down that particular rabbit

(42:01):
hole, these great, the greatthing about reading the lecture
is that you're not just readingthe lecture.
The greatest and best of men inall ages, have have been
encouragers and promoters of theart.
What art?

Speaker 1 (42:13):
We call Freemasonry our art.
It's a craft that we perfect asartisans.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Yeah, and I, yeah, I like that because I loved when I
first came to Masonry and theycalled it the craft that really
resonated with me.
You know that it's a, it's acraft In my mind I heard
witchcraft.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Oh really, when I when they would say craft and it
was kind of like a turn me off.
When they said craft I was likethat seems weird, but I've
learned it does.
Has nothing to do withwitchcraft.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
No, it's a skill, it's a learned skill, it's a
skill you continue to learn anduse.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Arts and craft Right.
It doesn't mean witchcraft, itmeans crafts.
That's right Things that you dowith skill.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
Have encouraged a proto of theart and have never deemed it
derogatory To their dignity tolevel themselves with the
fraternity, extend theirprivileges and patronize their
assemblies.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
So they're saying the greatest men in all ages have
been Freemasons and they didn'tfind it A bad thing to sit in
lodge with brothers and not beheld to the titles and
privileges they had in the worldoutside.
The lodge Right had no problemsitting with their brothers as
just a brother, and if they hadtime and money they gave it, and

(43:33):
if they could make it to themeetings they went.
Because that's what we do,that's how we show our love for
the fraternity.
We do things that maybe aren'tthe most fun and exciting things
to do, but we do it for thelodge, for a lodge, for the
craft.
That's how we can give back.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, I love that they never deemed it derogatory
to their dignity to levelthemselves with the fraternity
that's right.
Whoever you are, whoever youwere, washington's Great example
, one of the greatest men in allages, and he had no problem
sitting in lodge with brothers.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Whether he was the master or an officer or just a
past master on the sidelines.
I'm sure it was tough to sit inlodge with George Washington
and not feel like, wow, look atthis guy.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, I think he was.
Well I don't know the exactdates and I'm sure this is a
point of contention amongstMasons, but from what I
understand he was raised to, hewas introduced to Masonry as a
young man, yeah, and then wouldhave been a master Mason.

(44:39):
As he went into his career, hismilitary career would have
brought Masonry in with him.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
We should do a whole podcast on the creation of our
country and the players.
Oh, that would love that thatwere Masonic and where some of
the key things happened, whichhappened to be Masonic yeah
there's some really great booksout there too, and guys that
have done some of the research.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
maybe we'll get with them and try to put together a
series about this Masonicexperiment that was put together
by these men.

Speaker 1 (45:10):
We know their names, we do.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Some of us know of their history and their lives
and stuff, but do we know trulyabout why they?
Why were they Masons?
You know what was theimportance of Masonry in the
lives of Patrick Henry?
And these men who riskedeverything, they lost everything
.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Imagine if somebody would have sat down with them,
spent some time interviewingthem, asking questions.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Why did you join?

Speaker 1 (45:39):
How did you learn about this as a child?
Like, wow, that would beincredible to be able to hear or
read that interview.
Yeah, that's right, which iswhy you're going to hear us
interviewing leaders.
That's right, so that we canlearn about their history and
why they're here.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
And maybe we should once in a while.
You know the inspiring youngMason.
We should interview them incase they go on to be a great
world leader.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Right, that's true.
They can look back and bear anembarrassment at their early
interviews.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
And be an embarrassment of like why on
earth did I ever get hooked upwith those two?

Speaker 1 (46:08):
knuckleheads.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
Eesh.
There are three great dutieswhich, as a Mason, you are
charged to inculcate.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
To God, your neighbor and yourself To God, in never
mentioning his name, but withthat reverential awe which is
due from a creature to itscreator, to implore his aid in
all your laudable undertakingsand to esteem him as the chief
good, ah, that's so good.
There's a lot there.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah, well, let me confess something.
So you know, everyone knows myparticular religious background
and you know, taking the Lord'sname in vain is an interesting
concept.
You know, and this is what it'stalking about.
Using God's name needlessly ordisrespectfully is never a good

(46:59):
idea, and it's been a struggleof mine for my whole Christian
life and it's really been.
You know, and it's somethingthat you know, the Jews, they
had a custom where they wouldnot pronounce God's word fully,
god's name fully, which isYahweh, which means I am, or the

(47:20):
great I am.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
But they would pronounce it Yah.
To speak of God's name in thattime period was especially like
it was uncommon, right, like youdidn't say the name because it
had such a power to it.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Well, they would not speak his name because of his
greatness, in honor of him, theywould not speak his full name.
So instead of Yahweh, theywould say Yah.
This is the name that theywould use because they held it
in such high esteem, and we'reencouraged as well not to use
that name in any way.

(47:57):
That is dishonoring, you know,and as Americans in my mind for
me, this is my opinion I wasusing that name in all the wrong
ways, you know.
And then the funny thing is isthat when I saw this in Masonry
I don't get it, but it wascoming to Masonry and reading
this and seeing this charge andhaving that charge read to me, I

(48:20):
guess, and my obligation touphold the precepts and concepts
of Masonry, it has made thedifference for me.
And I have found my language tobe much different with regard to
the way I want to honor God'sname in my life.
You know, and I just thinkthat's a testimony to how the

(48:44):
concepts and precepts of Masonrywill make you a better fill in
the blank, husband, father, andfor me, churchmen, it's making
me a better Christian, becausethe concepts that I see in here
are easily applied to one's lifeor easily understood maybe not

(49:04):
easily applied, but certainlyeasily understood in their
concepts, so that one who wantsto apply these concepts to their
life can do so fairly easily.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
I was just reading about taking the Lord's name in
vain that you were talking about.
Yes, again on Wikipedia, andwhat it does say is that the
most common interpretation, fromthe biblical perspective, of
one of the Ten Commandments.
Right?
Is the second of the TenCommandments.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Yes, I believe so.
First or second, you're reallyputting yourself out there.
Second, it's the second.
Do not take the Lord's name invain.
He will not hold him guiltless.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Well, what the most common interpretation is that
it's invoking God's name in anoath was considered a guarantee
of statement or promise Correct.
So they're saying don't likeswear on God's name and lie,
because that's really bad.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Right Right Using right, getting angry and using
the phrase GD is certainly not.
It's not appropriate.
Okay, I'm not saying that, butwhat you're talking about is the
true definition of it.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Yeah, which is the?
It was a guarantee oftruthfulness if you spoke his
name, Right?

Speaker 2 (50:16):
So, and the Lord said in the Beatitudes that you have
heard it said oh boy, now Ican't even remember it.
Anyways, at that.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Well, in the book I think what you're talking about
is the book in the books ofDaniel and Revelation include
instances where angels actuallyswore, using God's name, to
invoke the truth, the truth ofapocalyptic revelations.
So they would say God saidsomething, and then they'd say

(50:45):
that.
And so that was like aqualifier of truth on what they
said.
God himself is presentedswearing by his own name.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah as surely as I live, Because there's no other
name higher for him to swear bybut his own.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
It's a guarantee, certain, the certainty of
certain events that wereforetold by the prophet, even in
, even from God and angels.
They use his name as as we dowhen we swear an oath that what
we're about to say is truthfuland you can take it to the bank.
But I think what you referencedwas more of what the Hebrew

(51:19):
passages refer to and God's namebeing profaned by hypocritical
behavior of people and falserepresentation of God's word or
character.
So in that sense they're sayingtaking the Lord's name in vain
means you're saying it atpresenting yourself to be a true
and correct follower, butyou're not acting like a true

(51:40):
and correct follower of the Godthat was named.
He used to try to convincepeople you're a good person.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Right, I found it, let me, let me, let me read it.
So it's on oaths and it saysagain you have heard it said of
old, and this is talking aboutthe second commandment, you
shall not swear falsely.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
And that's the interpretation of it.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
You won't, you shall not swear falsely, because that
is taking the Lord's name invain.
That's an interpretation of theoriginal, but I say to you do
not take an oath at all, eitherby heaven, for it is the throne
of God, or by the earth, for itis the footstool, it is his
footstool, or by Jerusalem, forit is the city of a great king.
Do not take an oath by yourhead, for you cannot make one

(52:20):
hair white or black.
Let let what you say simply beyes or no.
Anything more than that comesfrom evil.
So, in other words, don't makeoaths.
I'll swear, I'll do this.
I'll swear just yes or no, andmean it.
Be truth, be honest and truthfulyou know and and there's no
reason for an oath, because youknow, you know as well as I do,

(52:43):
when somebody's really swearingit up, oh man, I will do it, I
promise I'll get it done, I'lldo it.
You know, the chances arepretty good they're not gonna
because they're just over sayingit.
But when someone says, hey, Ineed you to do this, and they
say, yeah, yeah, I'll do it, andthey do it.
Right, that's, that's becauseit was.
There's no reason to say, havean oath, there's no reason to

(53:04):
make a big deal of it.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Yeah, I'm gonna right what.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Yeah, okay, but it was common and still is common
right to use the utterance of adeity's name as a guarantee of
Truthfulness right and whathappens over time which is what
happened at this time when thesewords were said is that the
oath was meaningless, Becauseover time, it becomes just a
meaningless phrase.
You know, I swear by the youknow the god of all this, that

(53:28):
and the other, that I will dothis and then you don't do it.
Nobody cares.
Because it's ancient and it's.
This is what people always sayand it doesn't mean a thing, and
I think that's what thisstatement is saying Don't, don't
get involved in that.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Do what you say he's an interesting bit from
Wikipedia about the temple ofSolomon's dedication.
In this topic, nice such elsemay have been used in civil
claims regarding supposed theft,for example on the commandment
is repeated in the context to behonest, dealings with people
between the people.
In Leviticus 1912, at one pointof the account of the

(54:05):
dedication of the temple ofSolomon, solomon praised the
highway, asking him to hear andact upon curses uttered in a
dispute that are then broughtbefore his altar to distinguish
between the person in the rightand the one in the wrong.
So even Solomon right wasemploying these tactics.
Yeah in his court, which isfascinating, but you do hear a

(54:28):
lot Taking Lord's name in vainand I think most people that I
grew up with and that I knowtake it to mean don't curse like
you said.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah, don't, gd like right, don't use it and, and
it's just in general, don't useGod's name for for anything Is
what the charge is saying.
That doesn't honor him right,and using his name as a cuss
word doesn't honor him.
Using his name as a guaranteethat you probably will not
complete is dishonoring.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
It think and people don't think about what they're
saying.
When you say, right, amsomething or damn someone,
that's pretty rough, yeah, whatyou're using.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
And that that came from the.
In the revolutionary time itwas Gd the king, because the
saying was God saved the king.
Oh, I see, see, and they'rethey're discussed with the, with
King George and they're,they're they were done with King
George and his abuses andinsurpations, or what were the?

(55:25):
Usurping usurpations.
It's in the Constitution.
They were sick and tired of him, so they're their response to
that statement.
You know, god saved the king,or God blessed the king was God
the game that key right, right.
So, and that's where that comesfrom, but it's still all of it.
Is not taking a moment to thinkwell, I'm not gonna use God's

(55:48):
name in that in that way?
He is the grand architect ofall things.
He sustains me and blesses meevery day with all the good
things that I have in my life.
Why would I do that?

Speaker 1 (56:00):
You know, that's the consideration that one should
have, in my opinion, sinnerstalking about God in the Bible
and trying to act right dang us.
I know right well, horriblepeople.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
We're.
We're masons, and may.
Masonry is a works-based Idea.
We, we work To do good.
We want to do good, you know,and, and depending on where you
come from, from your faith,there's all kinds of cool
conversations you can have aboutthat.
But we'll save those for nexttime to God, in never mentioning
his name, but with that Revival, all which is due from a

(56:33):
creature to his creator, toimplore his aid in all your
laudable Undertakings and toesteem him as the chief good to
your neighbor and acting uponthe square and Doing unto him as
he would he should do unto youand and to yourself, and
avoiding all irregularity andintemperance which may impair

(56:54):
your faculties and debase thedignity of your profession.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
As Ellis, attachment to these duties will lead to
public and private esteem.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
That's just so good Right and another one of the ten
commandments.
Doing unto those as he wouldthey well that's what it's in
Matthew.
It's in the what's known as theattitude.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
It is.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
That's not a commandment.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Well, it's the, it's part of the shema, I think.
Hero, israel, love the Lord,you got with all your heart,
strength, mind and yourself, andthe and love your neighbor as
yourself.
Yes so it's part of what's knownas the shema hero, israel.
The Lord, your God, is one.
You shall serve the Lord withall your heart, with all your

(57:36):
strength, with all your mind andwith all your will and Love
your neighbor as yourself.
Now the Lord took that in theNew Testament and and and took
it.
I don't know if you want to sayto the next level, but but
certainly Emphasized it that you, you, you are to love your
neighbor as yourself, which isjust such a perfect saying and,

(57:58):
in general, do unto others asyou would want them to do unto
you same same concept.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
That's right, it's screw somebody over if you don't
want to get screwed overyourself and?

Speaker 2 (58:07):
and what does it say about you?
Right, if you?
If you don't love your neighbor, well then you don't love
yourself, right?
So, on the negative side, loveyour neighbor as yourself.
Well, if you can't love yourneighbor, you got a problem with
yourself first and foremost.
You know, do unto others as youwould have them do unto you.
How do you want?
Are you always getting rippedoff by people?

(58:29):
Are you always being lied to?
Is there always some kind ofdrama in your life?
Well, I don't know, maybe youought to take a look in the
mirror.
Maybe some self-reflectionmight be a course of action for
you.
Brother or I'm saying this tomyself, I'm literally looking in
the mirror as I say this tomyself as well self-reflection
that's that should be the wordof the day.

(58:50):
That could be the word of this,of this show self-reflection.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Well, there you go.
There are three great duties,which is masons we are charged
to inculcate.
Honor our God, honor ourneighbor, honor our self right
yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
And in avoiding all irregularities and intemperance
which may impair your facultiesor debase the dignity of your
profession.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Here we are with the superfluities of life gambling,
drinking, smoking.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Yeah, extramarital activities.
These are all things that canimpair your faculties and debase
the dignity of your profession.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
And the profession being that, hey, I'm a Mason.
Yeah and really you're a Mason,but you're, I saw you online
doing this.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
I saw you at the casino last night.
Yeah, about 18 hours, yeah, soand and that that is.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
You know, we could go down that road and step on a
lot of toes, but we wouldsuffice it to say, brother, if
you're listening to this, ifyou're a Mason, and you're
listening to this, and you haveand, and things are coming up in
your mind that Maybe negativethings that are going on in your
life, there's a reason for thatand maybe you need to explore
that a little deeper and havesome self reflection regarding

(01:00:04):
these issues, because you know,masonry is, it's a men's club.
If we don't actually work tochange our lives, yeah, you know
, and that's, that's what it,that's what it does.
It changes our lives.
For me, this is all academic,because all of this is part of,
has been a part of my life forthe last 35 years is, is is

(01:00:25):
working to, to do that which isin my heart to do.
I want to be the most honestman I can be.
I want to treat my brotherswith respect.
I want to love my neighbor asmyself.
I desire to do.
I can't Always do it.
I have to struggle through andrely on God for his, his favor,
his grace and his empowerment.

(01:00:46):
But if you're sitting therethinking to yourself, if we're
saying that let's see Let meread that again Some of the
things that you're doing couldin fact Debase the dignity of
your profession.
Brother, if that's, ifsomething's coming up in your
head right now, well then Ithink maybe it's something that
God would have you review andmaybe make some changes in your

(01:01:09):
life.
Sorry, man, but that's justthat's.
That's a masonry man.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
You see how awesome these charges are right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Oh, I know right here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
We're laying out the core of it for you.
This is gonna be the last thingyou hear.
We want you to have a conciseview of free masonry when you
leave the building here as anEntered apprentice.
Great men have done this beforeyou.
Any man who's willing to actlike a mason can be a mason.
And hey, respect your God,respect your neighbor and, most
importantly, you need to respectyourself need to respect

(01:01:40):
yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Show right and that's a that's a great Saying man.
Respect yourself.
What's wrong with you, man?

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Respect yourself before you wreck yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
It's like.
It's like the kid that's alwaysgetting bullied, you know, and
there's there's no excuse forbullies.
All every bully should have hisday, and there's that people
should have always.
Bullies eventually get stood upto by somebody who's bigger
than them and then they go away.
But the man even more respectfulthat a smaller than them stands
up right that the man thatallows himself to be bullied

(01:02:10):
Year after year, over and overagain, the the admonishment is
man, respect yourself.
Shows me Where's yourselfrespect.
Okay, well, if I, if I stand upto him, he'll, he'll hurt me.
It's like, yeah, alright, butwho has yourself respect?
You know you might have to takeit, yeah but, where's yourself?
Respect man.
You know right is right, standup, stand up, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
It's true, you know what I?
We talked about this site.
I, yeah, my dad wasn't aroundand no men were around, and I
got most of my values from StarTrek.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Right, oh yeah right, I love this story sounds
ridiculous.
No, it's totally cool.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Like I will rewatch, rewatch, rewatch these men and
it really formed in my mind at ayoung age this is how people
real men, act.
So when I was in high school, Iwas going to St Cloud high
school and I'm from New York,I'm from Buffalo and I'm in St
Florida and I've moved around alot.

(01:03:06):
I don't know if we were witnessprotection or what I mean.
I moved at least once a year.
So I was always a new guy.
I had no friends and you learnto watch people and observe, and
Every day I'd ride home on thebus and there was this mentally
challenged kid who'd sit in thefront.
We called them retarded back inthe day.
Yeah, that's right which youdon't do today, but it has a

(01:03:27):
negative connotation but it is,I think, an actual Medical term
it is retardation, mental retard.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
And so this, this little kid used to sit next to
him and mess with him every day,poke it in, you know, steal his
stuff, and no one ever saidanything and I don't know why
that was To me.
I was like this can't stand.
So I smacked this kid in theback of the head one day.
I was sitting behind him and Isaid why don't you pick on
somebody your own size?

(01:03:55):
No, I said a little guy, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
He, I was bigger than him.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
I wasn't a big guy either.
I was skinny, very skinny, andhe said I'm gonna get you.
I'm gonna get you.
I said you know where I am.
I'm right here every day andwe're talking about like Seventh
grade.
Okay, Okay and the next daythis kid comes on with his two
big cousins.
Of course it right behind me andyou know it's not long before
they're all punching me frombehind.

(01:04:21):
You know the back of the seatand I don't know what to do.
I'm not a fighter, I'm not anaggressive person, so I I just
threw a punch because I thoughtI'm in a fight.
I better punch right rightright and I get one guy in the
Gut oh and the other two arecoming at me so hard I just
cover my head and kind of ballup like a turtle, and that was
my first fight.
I think I threw one punch, Ithink I hit a guy, maybe, and we

(01:04:45):
all get pulled off the bus andinto the principal's office and
I am expelled from the school.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Oh no conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Everyone saw that I was in.
Everyone was expelled.
The three of us were okay, okay, four of us.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
There were three of them that was back in the day
when everyone got expelled.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Oh, there was no discussion.
I was just expelled and I saidwait, I was defending myself.
And the guy said that's not howyou defend yourself, you,
you're supposed to try to subduethe combatant.
I said there's three of them.
How do you?
Said do three guys and theydon't want to hear that stuff.
I just got expelled, but I gotexpelled From that school

(01:05:23):
because I tried to do the rightthing, right.
Yeah my mother never saw that,obviously right and understand
that, but in my mind I alwayssaw that as a point of pride for
myself.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
It is a point of pride, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
I wish I would have fought harder, because I was a
big bitch and I went out like alittle.
You know, I got my ass beatthat actually one of the guys
broke his hand on my head.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Dude, you broke his hand with your head.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
He did it for me, heads tend to be hard.
It's not hard to breaksomething on it, yeah, right.
But yeah, I mean you need tostand up for what's right,
regardless of the consequences.
Sometimes and the consequencesaren't high and that at that age
like how bad could it be?
Yeah, you got, you got a carryguns and knives back then you
know right like that we justfought each other right now,

(01:06:10):
it's so true, like a real man.
Yeah, just punched each otherin the face.
Now it's like you got to worrythat somebody's gonna have a gun
or semi-automatic weapon or aknife or whatever the hell
they've got on them these days.
I Don't think any kid shouldprobably do that, Because it's
far more dangerous today than itwas when we were a kid right.

(01:06:31):
But you still got to try to finda way to stand up for what's
right.
You have to correct andprobably the right thing is to
tell on them to the superiors.
That's probably the right thingto do, not take it into your
own hands.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Correct, and that's just a side note.
Unless it's a bolt action orrevolver, it's a semi-automatic.
All guns, almost all guns, aresemi-automatic.
Those are legal right dependson who you are.
But yeah, let's continue.
We're doing really good here.
Now we're an hour and sevenminutes in.
What do?
You say, chris, you want to.
You want to park this, oh no,next week, or you want to keep

(01:07:04):
going.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
No, there's only a few more good points here, and
the next one is one of them.
So we talked about Freemasonry,we talked about yourself, and
now we're talking about what?
About the government?
How you supposed to behavetowards your government in the
state you are to be.
Go for it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Okay, in the state, you are to be a quiet and
peaceful citizen, true to yourgovernment and just to your
country.
You are not to Paliate you arenot to con, you are not to
content set.
Oh, do you know that word Ican't pronounce at this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Huh, you are not to Countenance disloyalty.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Count, thank you.
You're not to countenancedisloyalty or rebellion, but
patiently submit to legalauthority and confirm with
cheerfulness to the governmentof the country in which you live
.
In your outward demeanor, beparticularly careful to avoid
censure and reproach, so this isan interesting idea here.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
Premise Henry is very concerned with being a good
citizen of your country, or?

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
loyalty to the government, to the governmental
system as it was designed.
So, in other words, we have aconstitutional republic or had a
constitutional republic.
I am loyal to the concept ofthe constitution of the United
States under a constitutionalrepublic.
We don't currently have one.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
We don't.
It says to conform to thegovernment of the country in
which you live.
Whatever it is Like, it'stalking about necessarily only
America and our system ofgovernment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Well, that's true, I guess.
If you live in Scotland you'resubject to the crown and
parliament, sure, and you haveno right to free speech.
But here we have a right tofree speech and we also have an
obligation to hold to theprinciples of our founding
documents.
So for me, loyalty to thiscountry is my resistance to any

(01:09:10):
authority that assumes it cantake apart the constitution of
the United States, especiallythe concept of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness, andthat all laws are granted to us
by God.
All laws and all privilegesdon't come from us, from
government, they come to us fromGod.

(01:09:32):
So my rights to pursue life,liberty and happiness don't come
from the government.
They don't grant those rightsto me.
Those rights are given to mebecause I was born here and that
God is the one granting themthat concept.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
That's a very Masonic idea in our constitution.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Very Masonic idea and it is part of it, it is the
crux of the constitution of theUnited States.
So the argument, if you will,would be okay.
So we are, as masons, to beloyal and true to our government
, to be quiet and peacefulcitizens.
And true to the government.
Which government?

(01:10:12):
The one that we were granted byour.
Masonic brothers Of the countryin which you live.
Or the one that has been takenapart for the destruction of our
country and as a Mason, I'msupposed to sit back.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
That is our government right now.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
It is, it is absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
I don't think you're supposed to sit back.
I think that we are encouragedto participate in a positive
change.
Getting involved and doingeverything within your legal
rights to try to fix things isan obligation I think we have as
citizens and as masons.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
Well, when the government is the chief
lawbreaker of the land, thenwhat do you do?
What happens when plunderbecomes legal, government
plunder of the citizenry becomeslegal?

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
I'm just asking this kind of hypothetically, so we
can have the conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
I'm not trying to force my opinion on anything
here.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
It does open up some interesting doors, because
people are able to justifyalmost anything by interpreting
things right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
I've seen it in everything from church to
masonry.
In masonry we have this digestthat you could spend that thing
nine ways to Sunday.
Absolutely Depending on how youwanna look at it.
And here's another good example.
We're supposed to be true toour government, just to our
country.
Be quiet, peaceful citizens,right, but you're right.
How far do you go with that?
Because our founding fathersintended our government to be

(01:11:38):
running a certain way and wecontinually change it over time.
But that makes it a legalchange and technically it is the
law of the land that they canplunder us and do all this stuff
to us.
So how far do we go in beingquiet and cheerful?

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Well, I think that the way they set it up is that
the Supreme Court can interpreteverything based on the
constitution, so the highestcourt in the land has to go back
to the constitutional preceptsthat were originally laid down.
That's kind of the same thingin masonry.

(01:12:14):
If you look at masonry, we handdown, through memory and through
proficiencies, these conceptsthat we hand down.
And if, by chance, we get offalong the way, we have open
books every other weekend at alodge where the actual books are
there, and those books don'tchange.

(01:12:34):
They're old, they've beenaround forever and ever and they
don't change.
So if we, as a lodge, get offtrack, we go back to our
documents which clearly show ushow to get back on track.
The same thing as theconstitution in the United
States is the same thing.
It's a compact, an agreementbetween states that this is the

(01:12:55):
way things will be.
This is the concepts and ideas,and individual liberty is the
crux of the entire idea.
So you can make up all theselaws, you can come with all
these amendments, but as soon asthe average citizen no longer
has the right to live his life,apart from some government
plunder, then we have to go back, just like in masonry, to open

(01:13:19):
books and find out where we wentwrong and make those
corrections.
Is that not right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Yeah, I mean we kind of do a light version of that.
We have a pledge of allegiancethat we force kids to pass
through time and memorize andthey learn and recite which says
we're one nation under God,indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all, but then we goout and do the opposite of that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Well, there's a phrase in there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
We seek to limit people's liberties.
We seek to limit justice forothers in favor of liberties for
us and justice for us.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Right because Not for all Right.
Well we don't focus on all.
No, because we've gone from aconstitutional representative
republic to a democracy and, ofcourse, as Plato said in his
writings on republics, thatevery democracy has built within
it its own demise.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
And that is that-.
Well, yeah, people, well,eventually they're all made up
of people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
A smaller and smaller group of people will gather
more and more money and power tothemselves until they become a
tyrannical leadership.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Well, that's the answer.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Sound familiar anybody?

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Be involved, get educated, participate, because
if you do those things, theycan't take it from you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Yeah, I hold to the doctrine of the lesser
magistrate anymore.
So the lesser magistrate wouldbe your local government, that
thing that you can actuallycontrol.
And what I mean by localgovernment is you and I sitting
here together, and maybeSchaefer and Cooney.
We have a little group ofpeople that we're starting the

(01:14:53):
cigar and whiskey unit at theshrine.
Okay, that's a small littlegovernment, and that little
government, that littlemagistrate, governs itself and
creates its own bylaws and rules, and one of the things that
it's dedicated to is taking careof each other, making sure that
we always take care of eachother.

(01:15:14):
So, to me, the lesser magistrate, no matter how small, or maybe
all the way up to the countyseat, is really where I wanna
focus, because that's somethingI can change.
I cannot change the directionof this insane globalized
government system.
It is out of control and it iscrashing and burning before our
very eyes.
I've removed myself from anyreal work in that area only

(01:15:37):
because my time, in my opinion,is better spent loving and
caring for the brother sittingright across from me.
I'm prepared to help any of mybrothers whom I know and know me
in any way I possibly can, andthat's really where it begins
for me as far as being a goodcitizen.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Sure, I would agree with that.
And if you're gonna participatein politics and you're a Mason,
maybe come back and read thecharges and listen to the
lectures a little bit before youmake decisions about things
you're gonna support.
If you're gonna comment, onFacebook.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
Please read them first before you go out there.
We had a conversation in OpenLodge a couple months ago about
that and a brother stood uptrying to defend his right to
say bad things on Facebook.
And it's like, brother, youjust don't have a right to.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
Well, he's saying it's a free speech thing and you
do have the right to saywhatever you want, but you don't
have the right to be a Mason.
That's something that's grantedyou from Grand Lodge.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
And I like the saying that you have a right to speak,
but you don't have a right tobe heard.
So just because you're speaking, it doesn't mean I'm required
to listen to it.
The thing is.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
I like to hear different points of view.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Me too.
I love it.
I actually really like to hearother stuff.
It's what makes life great.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
When I see a news article, I go look at sources
that I intentionally know a lotof people are looking at that I
don't look at to see whatthey're saying about it, so I
can understand.
When I have a conversation Iwanna be intelligent and hear
what they're gonna think aboutit.
But here's the thing we cannot,as Masons, go out and say
derogatory, negative thingsabout people we don't know.

(01:17:23):
That's the issue I think you'reraising is to express your
ideas Masonically.
It's good to have an idea aboutpolitics, it's good to have
ideas about your country, it'sgood to have ideas about your
enemy, but as Masons, we have toexpress them in intelligent,
eloquent, with a lot of goodrhetoric and grammar.

(01:17:45):
Yeah, yeah, you're right and beinfluential in the way we say
it and not be not lowerourselves and debase ourselves
to just calling people names ormaking them less than human or
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
No, I totally agree.
That's where the issue comes infor me, and I think it's we
already read it right Inavoiding all irregularities and
intemperance which may impairyour faculties or this is the
point debase the dignity of yourprofession as a Mason.
If you're on your Facebookranting about how lefties are

(01:18:20):
this and lefties are that, orrighties are this and righties
are that, and you're making allof these assertions about other
people, then you're notunderstanding what it means to
be a Mason in society.
You're not getting it and youneed to get it because that has
to stop and it's real prevalentfrom the right side I am finding

(01:18:44):
I find brothers-.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
Well, I've unfriended left side brothers that just
are not, are not kind.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
Oh, I know it's on both sides.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Yeah, I agree.
It's definitely way morepredominant, for some reason, on
the right than the left but itis definitely happening on the
left too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
And well, I hear the big mantra now is God bless
Florida.
And whenever you hear that wordGod bless Florida what they
mean is that somehow Florida isthis great front for right
politics.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
One nation under God indivisible.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
Right, right, and Florida is a red state.
It's always been a very redstate.
I understand that.
But there's a lot of diversityhere, man, and we could talk
about Florida politics all daylong, but at the end of the day
I'm just gonna go back to what Isaid earlier.
For me, Florida politics,that's state.

(01:19:41):
There's not a lot I can doabout state politics, but
Sarasota County, I can dosomething there.
My local politics I can dosomething about that.
I can go to the HOA meeting asmuch as I hate those things in
my neighborhood, which is a formof government, and I can offer

(01:20:04):
myself as a friend to help.
I live in a community, a 55plus community, where nobody's
55, everybody's 75.
And I could offer myself tohelp people who need help.
During the hurricane last yearI was walking out in the
hurricane in my rain gear makingsure that everybody was okay.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
All the shut-ins were good.
Were you checking voter IDcards before you give any
assistance?

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
Yeah, I checked to make sure that.
No see, and that's a greatpoint, right?
You're using humor to explain avery real thing.
I did not check anyone, Ididn't care, it doesn't matter
to me, it's someone in need.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
You know they can help them.

Speaker 2 (01:20:40):
Right.
They had a person who was leftleaning on the HOA, who was
complaining about all theAmerican flags that were flying
out there, and you know that'san interesting argument to make.
Right and he was very upset.
What's the?

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
logic behind that argument.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
He was very upset he's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
It's America.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
Right right.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
Like how can you have too many American flags?
But here's the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
You know he has a right to okay.
Fine, you don't appreciate it.
You've made your voice known.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
What was he saying?
It's ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
No, he's saying that it's.
This kind of patriotic behavioris toxic.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
Toxic.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Yeah, because he's from the left side and he's not
a.
He said he's not a flag.
Anyway, Interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
I don't think that's a left side thing.
That's a nut job thing For him.
It is For him it was.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
He presented it as such and in doing so made
himself a bit of a pariah.
But now those from the right,because everybody's been taught
hate the right hate the left,the left versus right lie that
you know.
The uniparty above us hascaused us to be left and right
so we can fight with each otherwhile they rip us off.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
Let's just keep that part in mind.
Take power back.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
And that's exactly what happened in this HOA
situation.
People started hating him.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
Literally bitterly.
He did that to himself.
He did it to himself.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
He did it to himself.
But where's the guy that says,hey, man, I don't really care
about either of that.
You're my neighbor and I don'tfly a flag just because my wife
does?

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
My wife flies the flag frequently On the federal
holidays my wife puts that flagout and you see a lot of people
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
Yeah, she does that regularly and I admire her for
it, but where's the guy thatgoes to this man who's now been?
You know he started off spewinghis incorrect from the left
view and now the incorrect viewfrom the right comes back at him
and now we have this battlegoing on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
Not a left view.
I have to say, Left right, Idon't care, I've been living on
the left a little while and thatis not a left view I've ever
heard.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
Well, he portrays himself as a very leftist.
It's a poor example.
That guy is Well, but from theright and left, poor examples
exist.
They're out there.
They're out there, man, they'reout there, but that's part of
the line.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
It's like oh, you don't like flags, don't look at
them.
I'm sorry, I don't know what totell you.
I have a right to do what theywant with their house.
It's a little weird.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
But you know those speech hoarsers, they're very
Nazi-ish, it's like you can'tonly this kind of plant, only
that colored thing.
It's like she's okay, and thatwas.
I think that was his gist.
He wanted to become the HOA guythat tells everybody they can't
fly flags except on nationalholidays, whatever.
It is crazy.
Some days you go down myneighborhood and every house has
a flag on the mailbox.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
I pick you up and I'm like, wow, there are a lot of
flags out here.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Well, there's a lot of ex-military and cops and
stuff that live in myneighborhood.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
So that's the reason why it's true.
It's very true, but I never wasoffended by it.
I couldn't even imaginesomebody being offended by it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Right, but let me finish the point.
The point is that where's theguy, not the left versus right,
right versus left guy, butwhere's the guy that goes to
either side of this equation andsays, hey, put a flag up, don't
put a flag up, but if anybodyneeds anything, can we just help
each other.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
You know if you're a shut-in.
You know Mrs Jones down over in4B has been shut in.
Has anybody gone over to seeher to make sure she's okay?
She's by herself, you know, andher kids are up North.
Have you done that While you'refighting over the flag and your
left versus right ruse?
Okay, mrs Jones, over here yourneighbor is like who knows.
Nobody's been over there.

(01:24:12):
So let's go over there and dothat.
Let's put this aside, okay, andlet's do what is right.
That would be a Masonic thingto do.
That would be a very Christianthing to do, obviously, because
I am a Christian, but it's alsovery clear that that is a
Masonic idea and concept and weshould be those peacemakers and
that's a rabbit hole that I'mkind of glad I went down.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
So there's a new documentary out about blue zones
.
You're familiar with blue zones, Wait.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
I watched that last night.
Is that the food, the longevity, being 100 years old?

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
Yeah, the centenarians.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
Centenarians, that thing, that was very interesting
.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
There are places around the world where people,
more often than not, live over100 years old.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
And not just live in a wheelchair on oxygen.
Oh no, riding horses,corralling shoes.
Did you see the?

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
lady from Okinawa, 102 years old, working in the
garden, playing, throwing thoserings and stuff, and working in
the garden and laughing out loud.
Oh, and she put a bottle on herhead and was dancing, and it
was a Tai Chi dance that she wasdoing.
It was beautiful.
I would love to meet that woman.

Speaker 1 (01:25:20):
She is over 100 years old, 102.
And there are a few.
They start out thinking whatkind of food is it?
It's gotta be the diet it hasto be right Right right?
No, because in China they'reeating a lot of rice.
It's a lot of carbs.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Rice and the purple sweet potato.
Yeah, Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Right.
So yeah, there are some commonthings with the food, but not a
lot.
The food doesn't really makethe biggest difference in how
long you're gonna eat.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
I think his conclusion about food was is
that they don't eat a lot of it.
It's about portions yeah, yeah,their portion size is very
small.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Yes, and they have a saying in the Eastern philosophy
only eat till you're 80% fullright Right right.
So they say that right beforethey eat with a family.
It's almost like a littleprayer.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Like only 80% of the food.
Three really cool Asiansounding words.
And the last one is full but Idon't know what the first two
are.
But, yes, it's very coolconcept.

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
Well, the common thread that they found in all
blue zones is the sense ofcommunity that they have, that
they stay engaged with peopletheir age people older than them
and little kids younger thanthem on a daily basis.
They engage as a community andthat sense of community has a
real impact on your quality oflife and the length of your life

(01:26:35):
.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
It just does something to our mental and
physical bodies to be connectedwith other humans.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
We were created to be .
In community, we absolutelywere.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
And this idea of picking enemies out of people
you don't know gets in the wayof that.
It destroys it you won't beable to live that kind of a life
if you immediately identifyhalf the people around you as an
evil.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Yeah, no, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
So, for your own benefit, maybe try to reduce the
hate that you have for somebodyyou don't know and give it a
shot.
Try to spark up a conversation.
Hey, ask some questions ofsomebody you know, or one of
those, like your friend, who'scrazy with his ideas.
I'd be really curious to sitdown and figure out where this

(01:27:21):
is coming from, and I bet it'ssome kind of personal issue he's
dealing with.
But like something happened tohim in his childhood and he's
trying to like come out in theworld and, like you know, fix
all the rights that he perceives.

Speaker 2 (01:27:33):
I think the left versus right ruse has been bred
into us, Our earliest memoriesIf you're from a left family,
then you hate the right.
If you're from a right family,then you hate the.
And it's bred into us.
But all the while all the while, for my entire lifetime, the
uniparty above us has beengetting richer and richer and

(01:27:53):
richer.

Speaker 1 (01:27:53):
Yeah, and because we let them.
It's in our power to stop this.
If we get together and stopthis, we could.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
We gotta wake up and we gotta stop arguing with each
other over national, globalpolitics which doesn't do
anything for us but make us poorand separate us and harm us.
And Masonry has an avenue.
Masonry has something to sayabout that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
Yeah, if we're talking about it, that's right.
Right now, this episode istelling you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Absolutely right.
That's absolutely right.
We could be the guy who goesover to Mrs Jones to find out if
she's okay, as opposed toarguing over whether we should
or shouldn't have too many flags, because the left versus right
lie is going.
You know, is alive and well inour midst.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
So it's just an odd thing.
It really is.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
I think we started this rabbit hole, talking about
Mason's who are posting all ofthese things.
The right versus left garbage ontheir social feeds and then
coming to Lodge and acting likethey're you know, like it's
normal or like it doesn't exist.
But we know because we see it.
We see it.
You post it out there and itcomes through our feed and stuff

(01:28:59):
and I gotta tell you if you'reout there and you put that stuff
on your Facebook page and itcomes across mine, I immediately
take you off because I don'tcare what side you're on, I
don't participate in it.
I've said this a hundred timesman, people think I'm, you know
I'm this political animal leftside, right side, whatever.
I am not.

(01:29:19):
I don't put up with it.
I don't allow it in my life andI will immediately take you off
of my feed as soon as I see it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
You do educate yourself.
I know that you do have strongopinions.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
I do, I do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:32):
And that's how it's supposed to be Right.
If you're an educated man, youwill have strong opinions on
what you learn.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
And the reason you have them is to benefit others.
How do you benefit others?
By calling them names andidiots and making hateful speech
and words.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
No, that's where we're failing.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
That's where we're failing.
And if you're educated and youhave something to share and
something to say that are wordsof life, the best way to do that
is to be humble and to love allmen, to treat all men before
they give you a reason.
To treat all men with respectand with kindness and gentleness
, desiring to know what's intheir heart, so that they might

(01:30:11):
be willing to hear what is inyour heart.
And that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
That's really it.
And you're right.
I do have strong opinions, butI have no need to display my
strong opinions over and aboveanybody else, because I know
what I believe and I know why Ibelieve them.
And that's it.
I'm good with it, I'm fine.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
Well, here's a great example of that.
There is another documentaryout of a black man who has made
a career out of friendingKlansman.
Is that right?
Have you seen this one?
No, what's it called?
I have to check.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
I'll look it up.

Speaker 1 (01:30:45):
I've seen it twice now because it was that good.
He was shunned from his owncommunity for even reaching out
to Klansman, and the Klanobviously didn't think highly of
him trying to talk to them.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
This is a perfect analogy, right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
This is perfect, but he didn't give up.
He's like if I just show themthat I'm a normal guy, maybe I
can change one freaking guy'smind.
This guy has a collection ofKlan robes, honor regalia of
people that have given him thisstuff and friendship and have
renounced the Klan.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
He's the guy.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
Because they're like oh, they lied to me.
Like this is a good guy, Idon't wanna hate this guy.
Like they learned to befriendhim and they learned that they
were wrong in their thinking andhe's actually changing hearts
and minds.
Imagine that he's not out therepreaching on a pulpit being
like you're bad for saying I'mbad.
He's like why do you think I'mbad man?
I love my wife, Like you loveyour wife, Like sitting down

(01:31:39):
breaking bread having aconversation.
That's how you change things.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
That's exactly right.
You change heart and minds thatway.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
He's the guy he's putting himself at great risk to
do that Big time, big time,because his own community
doesn't understand what he'sdoing Exactly.
He has no home.
He has no home.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
He stepped out and he left his country, and they
abandoned him.
And he moved into a countrythat hates him Right.
Exactly All because of love.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
He's not trying to be a Klansman.
He just wants to say hey,you're a person just like me and
I'm sorry that you're noteducated about me and my people,
so let me help you with that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:11):
I gotta watch.
I'll find it and I'll watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
It's a great example of what you're talking about.
That's how we change things.
We talk to each other.

Speaker 2 (01:32:18):
Talk to each other and, with gentleness and respect
and again I keep saying it toyou and I'll always say it to
you Know what you believe andwhy you believe it.
And the reason why is becauseonce you know why you believe
something, the particulars andthe reason behind it, you don't
need to go out and push youragenda on anybody.
I don't need you to know mybeliefs.

(01:32:40):
If it's gonna cause a riftbetween you and I, I don't need
it.
I know why I believe them.
I'm comfortable with them.
I will educate myself if I'mwrong on something and I'll come
to the truth.
I seek truth.
That's just what I do.
So if you're out there from theleft side, the right side, the
center side, the upside, thedownside, and you don't really
know why you believe the thingsyou believe, I would encourage

(01:33:02):
you to educate yourself on thatfact.
It's worthy of your timebecause it will make you a
better man.
It'll make you that guy.
You'll be that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:10):
Daryl Davis.

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
Daryl, you'll be Daryl Davis.
Be a Daryl Davis man.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Daryl Davis.
He's an African Americanmusician.
He's going out of his way tobefriend Clansman.
It's great.
For more than 20 years he'sbeen doing that, so he's done a
lot, and you'll be.
Your mind will be blown whenyou see what real courage looks
like, which is the pacifist way,the way of talking and loving,

(01:33:36):
leading with love.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
I would say it's the way of truth.
Right, that's the way of truth.
Because truth?
Look at that picture.

Speaker 1 (01:33:45):
If you Google his name, you'll find articles all
over the internet about it.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
I'm gonna save it.
Yeah, we're definitely gonnaget into him.
Daryl Davis, a little bit.
Daryl Davis is living.
Daryl Davis is doing the workBoy.
I tell you there's some of thathere in Masonry here in.
Florida some of that.
We need a Daryl Davis inMasonry to step up and start
educating people, because Godcreated man in his own image and

(01:34:12):
in his own image did he createhe and them.
And if you have a problem witha human being because of their
birth color or their birthheritage, you got a problem with
God, their creator, man.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Well, you can extrapolate that out to anything
.
You have an issue with someoneabout that you don't know
personally, it's kind of thesame deal, no matter what the
issue is, unless you know themas a person, you don't have a
right to hate on them.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
That's so true.

Speaker 1 (01:34:42):
Once you know them as a person, you probably have
every right to hate on them.
Well, that's another show,that's a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
Yeah, that's a different show.
So, brother, this has been agreat conversation.
Once again, I have been Half ofthe charge was covered.
Half of the charge was covered.
I guess we're gonna have to donext week.
We'll have to jump to the otherhalf of the charge and go
through it and we'll just keepgoing forward.
I just wanna go over maybe sometakeaways here for the show.

(01:35:12):
Guys, If you're out therelistening, I think it's worthy
of repeating Self reflection.
We started with talking abouthumility and self reflection.
If that speaks to you today,there's a reason for that.
And take some time.
Whoever you are, from anybody,any walk of life, Take a minute

(01:35:37):
and look in the mirror, eitherliterally or figuratively, and
ask yourself some importantquestions about are you happy
with the way your life is?
Are you happy with the way youdeal with your brothers and your
family?
Are you unhappy with things inyour life?
Then effect change.
Masonry offers you tools.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Is your haircut complimenting the shape of your
face?
Yes, is your haircutcomplimenting the shape of your
face?
Things you need to reflect on.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
Yes, don't reflect on that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
No, don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
Worry about that.
Later it says the guy with nohair.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
I was in Phoenix Lodge, as you were, on Tuesday
night.

Speaker 2 (01:36:11):
Tuesday night.

Speaker 1 (01:36:13):
They gave us this gift of traveling gavel.
Really kind of them they didn'thave to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
Oh, so kind.
Thank you, brothers.
Maybe they did have to.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
We got it, but I was asked to help with a fellcraft
proficiency.
So, I went out into thesecretary's office to work with
those guys while you wereopening Lodge and guess what's
hanging on the wall?

Speaker 2 (01:36:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
A little mirror that says chamber of reflection over
it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:37):
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
Apparently the secretary has a little chamber
of reflection over there atPhoenix Lodge.
I love it and I didn't sayanything, but in my mind I was
like ooh, chamber of reflection.

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
We love it.
We need the chamber ofreflection, man, we just need it
.
I don't know why it's not, Idon't know why it's gone, but
this show is dedicated topossibly someday making it,
bringing it back, bringing itback because Memento More my
brothers Memento More.
Remember, someday you must die.

(01:37:10):
Therefore, live your lifeaccordingly.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
Live your life accordingly.
If you're out there as a Masonand you have any experience
writing law for Masonry, let usknow, because I'm interested in
finding out how we can get somelaws passed to bring the chamber
of reflection back into ourritual work.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
No, that would be awesome, that would be great.
Yeah, and let this show.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
maybe that could be one more I don't know how to do
that One of our little hobbyhorses.

Speaker 2 (01:37:34):
I'm interested in it, though that would be fun.
That would be fun to get thatdone and to bring that back,
because in my opinion and mostother states still do it this is
kind of a Florida thing, so itwould be great to bring that
back to reflect upon yourmortality brother, even other
countries, where Schifel Garciawas in Puerto Rico, and they
showed us they have a beautifulchamber of reflection over there

(01:37:54):
.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
It's everywhere.
But here, come on, why aren'twe robbed?
We want our reflection chamber.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
Well, brother, I am once again.
I'm just, I'm absolutelyblessed for oh, there's music by
all that we do here.
I'm just so listening andeverybody who gives us
encouraging words.
I see more and more peopleeverywhere I go.
People are giving me high fivesand shouting out to me and I

(01:38:23):
just I'm just blown away by it.
We do this to serve new valuesand it is our joy.
It's not always easy to get itto sit super early on a Friday
morning, but we love it, weabsolutely love it.
I love sitting across from myworshipful master, my brother
Chris Burns, and absolutelybrilliant, chris.

(01:38:44):
What do you got man?
Send them off with some.
We love you.
That'll do it.
We'll see you next time,kommt-4.

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