Illuminating the Bonds of Masonic Brotherhood with W:. David Finkelstein

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All we have to decide is what to do with the time of
the Skeletons.
You've reached the Internet'shome for all things masonry.
Join On the Level Podcast as weplumb the depths of our ancient
craft and try to unlock themysteries, dispel the fallacies
and utilize the teachings ofFreemasonry to unlock the

(00:25):
greatness within each of us.
I have you now All right, yeah,yeah, no, no, no, save your
clapping for later, folks.

(00:45):
Ah, welcome to On the LevelPodcast.
I'm your host, chris Burns, andtoday we have a very special
guest to meet on the show withus.
It's been a long time coming.
This is Worshipful DavidFinkelstein, who is Worshipful
Master of Liberty Lodge number412.
The only daylight lodge in the23rd and Sonic District of

(01:08):
Florida.
Welcome to the show, brotherFinkelstein.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Thank you, chris, glad to be here.
I really loved your show.
I think it's something veryspecial, something that we could
have used a long time ago, butof course, we didn't have you a
long time ago.
We probably would have, butthank you.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Here's the thing I was thinking about this this
morning, because I asked you tocome on like a week ago or
something and we kind of beenplanning it.
I was thinking, you know,people might not know who David
Finkelstein is this podcastobviously wouldn't exist without
you.
I wouldn't be a Mason today ifit wasn't for you.
You literally saved me fromleaving the fraternity at a low

(01:54):
point for me, when I was veryearly on, and did a lot of
advisement for me, and youintroduced me to a really core
group of people that changed mylife worshipful ramon hernandez,
ron.
Uh, you kind of made thoseintroductions for me, um, and
you guys really did formulate mythoughts about the fraternity

(02:14):
and, like, reinforced my beliefthat it's a good thing and that
I should not let it go soquickly uh, out of my own
ignorance really, which was thecase at the time.
So, that being said, you know,yes, you're a past master of the
lodge and, yes, you've been acommitteeman for many years.
And you know, yes, you've donetons of Scottish Rite degrees,

(02:35):
some of the hardest parts andsome of the toughest degrees.
Yes, you've done lectures inprobably nine lodges or more.
I saw you do two lecturesback-to-back two different
lectures in two different lodgeson two different days
consecutively.
So I'm aware that you havepretty hefty Masonic credentials

(02:56):
behind you.
A lot of people probably don'tknow that about you because this
younger generation, they justdon't ask questions.
They don't know about thegeneration that came before them
Not to make you feel old,because generations in
Freemasonry are not likegenerations in life.
A generation in Freemasonry islike an officer line which is

(03:17):
like five years basically, andthen after five years you've got
a whole new generation ofpeople that don't even know what
happened before them generallyspeak.
So first of all, thank you foreverything that you've done for
me and that you've done for thefraternity.
I watched you do a lot ofcharitable things in silence and
never took credit for it.

(03:38):
And, like me, you aren't afraidto ruffle some feathers when
you feel very passionately aboutthings and people probably know
you more for that than thethings you silently did that
were positively good for people.
And that is, you know, kind oflike I'm talking my ass off.

(03:59):
I'm going to let you talk in asecond, but I think that's
indicative of people that don'thave a massive ego, that they
are fine with being known forthe fights that they fought
instead of the good works thatthey did.
Would you agree or disagreethat you're a semi demigod?

Speaker 2 (04:19):
I was about to say that I will stipulate to the
historical timeline, but therest of it's ridiculous.
But thank you for saying thatanyway.
I appreciate that LyndonJohnson had something funny to
say about that.
He said that's a greatintroduction.
The best introduction I everheard Actually, the second best

(04:43):
introduction I ever heard, thewas when the master ceremonies
got stuck in traffic and I hadto introduce myself you think
you could have done a better job?

Speaker 1 (04:53):
I remember some of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
But that's kind of say now um you, I, that took me
a long time.
I've been in masonry 15 yearsand it took me a long time to
figure things out and you knewit intuitively and have had a
tremendous influence with the.
It's not her arms, patting eachother on the back, but the

(05:20):
membership drive that you have.
I don't know how many peoplehave heard of that, but you
advertise.
I don't know how you do it.
I'm not in marketing, butbringing people in drugs.
I mean we were having 10 and 10and 12-sized classrooms I mean
classes, and it was reallyimportant.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, it's like I wasn't a part of as many groups
as you were before I joined thefraternity, so my ignorance
probably helped me in some ways.
I know you guys, like youtalked about the Rotary Club and
you talked about other groups.
You were a part of that.
I didn't even know about orwasn't around, so maybe I just

(06:01):
thought of ignorance got youknow I wasn't burdened with like
previous experience inorganizations.
Really yeah.
So I didn't know what wasallowed or wasn't allowed.
I didn't know what people likedand didn't like.
I just did what was natural tome, which got me in a lot of
trouble, obviously, but it alsohelped a lot of people.

(06:21):
It's kind of the dichotomy ofhumanism.
You know, great things comeattached to human people and
human people do dumb things andsay dumb things all the time.
And that's kind of one of thethings we want to talk about
today, which is brotherly love,keeping our passions within due

(06:43):
bounds.
These kind of basic tenets ofFreemasonry that are really
brought to us in the verybeginning of our journey in
Freemasonry.
Right, we talk about them inthe lectures and our inner
apprentice degrees and then inthe education we get afterwards
and mentoring.
So for months we're thinkingabout this stuff when we first

(07:03):
join and then we're on to thenext thing.
I don't know how many peoplereally realize how important
these things are to keep comingback to, so that you don't lose
sight of what's really important.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, that's a big thing of mine too.
I think that we should goslowly through each degree,
because there's a lot there andyou're supposed to feel that you
know that degree.
When you're an under apprenticeyou're supposed to be humble,
deferential to, to me, to, topeople that are older, and it's

(07:41):
good to be in there for a whileand feel that, and then move on
to the fellow craft and you know, feel that step up and then the
step up to master Mason, whereyou can just be, or it's me,
some people go through it toofast In my, in my opinion one of
the things sorry go ahead Wellin the state of florida in our

(08:06):
jurisdiction oh, wow

Speaker 1 (08:10):
that was an accidental cheer.
I apologize for that, okay, um,we are only giving these people
six months to go through eachof the three degrees, like six
months in between degrees, andif they take any longer we force
them to come back into thelodge and get re-voted on as
members, which is a little bitscary.
So I think there's always thatfear of like I don't want to go

(08:32):
too close to six months becauseI don't want to have that whole
ordeal of getting brought up forlike now the whole lodge knows
I'm taking too long or that youknow something's not right with
me, and so I think that kind oflike deadline really drives
people to go too fast.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Sometimes you're right you know, I didn't even
know that.
Um, they say, when you teach aclass or participate in
something, you always learnsomething.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I didn't know that, so I I take back everything I
said no, but that's the truth,because I've had classes that
took over six months and theyget you got to go back in front
of the lodge and ask the craftto allow you to continue to do
your work, and it's kind of likeit's not a big deal, it
shouldn't be a big deal, but youknow how it is.
We're talking about people, sopeople make it a big deal.

(09:19):
They start like wonderingwhat's going on.
There is the catechism guy notdoing his job.
Are the students thick-headedlunks?
What's going on with thesepeople Everybody has a fear of
I've got to get it done.
That's as much for thecatechism instructor as the
students.
I think they feel like it's areflection on them as to how

(09:40):
quickly they can get their classthrough.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
I had a thought.
Do you mind me throwing inrandom thoughts, because that's
the way I run my life.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Want a random thought ?
Yeah, okay, so the catechism.
I decided that.
You know, I speculated thatback in the Middle Ages if you
had a one-word password,somebody might guess it,
overhear it and that meant deathduring the Inquisition.

(10:14):
So I was thinking, maybe thatwhole catechism is one long
password because that would behard to overhear and replicate.
So I have no citation for that,that's an interesting thought
and me just speculating.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
But if it was important, they wouldn't have
written it down or everybodywould have learned it.
So you can't also say it's nottrue what you're suggesting
there might be true what you'resuggesting.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
there might be true, but you know, right before I
came in back in 1492, there wasno red book.
They had been doing it mouth toear, the whole catechisms.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
I hear a lot of guys say that they prefer that.
They prefer that.
I guess I can understand it.
In the modern modern world it'sa little difficult to get
because we were doing such bigclasses like you said.
We we did have a 10 personclass more than once and, uh,
try to get 11 guys to show up atthe same spot every week on

(11:20):
time and pay attention is likefreaking monumental in this day
and age.
So, it can be so difficult to doit mouth to ear like that,
which is, I guess, why they cameup with this, this book which
in Florida looks like this andit basically codes everything.
So you have like a sort ofreference point.
You can kind of go home andstudy on your own.

(11:40):
Yeah, if you know, if you candecipher the code, at least.
And you know and study on yourown If you can decipher the code
at least.
I use that a lot because, likeyou, I have a gold card.
That means you have to memorizeessentially everything that's
in this book and show somebodythat you know it.
I bothered you like I know youwere getting annoyed with me

(12:04):
because I was constantly tryingto get words and have you listen
to me and tell me if I'm rightand other people that I was
calling up at the time.
I tried not to annoy one persontoo much, so I'd have three
people, I'd call for differentthings, so no one got really mad
at me.
But that's what it is.
When it's mouth to ear, youliterally are depending on other
people to get education.
It is when it's mouth to ear,you literally are depending on
other people to get education.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
You know that is the the, that that can roll us back
back around to brotherhood,because I didn't for a minute
feel imposed upon by you oranybody else that was learning
it.
Number one is because that'show I learned it I had to call

(12:47):
people.
Number two is brotherhood meansit's a relationship.
That means that we I think it'sa symbol for the relationship
we have.
You know, brothers have a closerelationship, some of them,
some of them not so much muchyeah, the.
You know, the assumption isthat brothers have a, yeah,

(13:07):
close relationship.
So brotherhood is a symbol forour relationship.
We're not really brothers, butwe call each other brothers
brother is a symbol.
So, um, one of one way to lookat all this is that you look for
opportunities to displaybrotherhood, and when you call
um, it's an opportunity, um, inum yeah and yeah you're

(13:33):
absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
that is a very good point, like and it's something
like you're new, right whenyou're trying to learn this
stuff and you're applying theoutward rules, or what we call
the profane society's rules,onto the fraternal ones.
So I'm like, oh, I must beannoying this guy, but I didn't
even think masonically that youwould be, as the person getting

(13:55):
the phone call, feel like, oh,now I have an opportunity to
show my lodge and everybody elsehow much I care about the
fraternity by giving my time tothis person who needs it.
It's like an opportunity toshow your love and you're always
waiting for that opportunitybecause you can really only
truly show love through youractions.

(14:15):
Right Words are cheap.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, or sometimes you can whistle, you know, not
strike that, strike that uhpretty girl, but strike that um.
Now there's some, somereligions, that um where when
somebody asks you for help, youthank them, and after you do
something for somebody, youthank them because they gave you

(14:38):
the opportunity to commit agood uh, commit um, to engage in
a, in a um, in a good deed.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
So kind of like.
In that sense you're showingGod how much you love your God
by doing something good foranother human that you didn't
have to do.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, that may be in some religions.
The ones I'm thinking about,though, are just that.
One of them is the world is avessel, and God came in there
and smashed the vessel, and thepieces are everywhere.
You're supposed to put themback and that when you do a good
deed, you put back one of theparts of the vessel.
So you and that's a a good deedby letting you do them a good

(15:30):
deed, do you?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
mind if I actually read what Freemasonry says to
the Entered Apprentice aboutbrotherly love specifically, as
you know, in the EnteredApprentice lecture there's a
section where we talk aboutbrotherly love and we explain it
to the new initiate.
And don't worry, masons, it'snot coded, it's written out.

(15:52):
Don't call and write lettersand try to get Grandmaster to
remove me, there's better thingsto do that about.
This is written out and we'reallowed to talk about it.
By the exercise of brotherlylove we are taught to regard the
whole human race as one family.
So now it's going beyond justmy friend.
In Freemasonry they're sayingbrotherly love as a Mason means

(16:16):
you love every living person asa family member, right?

Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, the high, the low, the rich, rich and the poor
who, being created by onealmighty parent and inhabitants
of the same planet, ought to aid, support and protect each other
.
I always laugh when I say thatpart in the in the lecture,
because it makes it almostridiculous how we don't treat

(16:44):
each other properly.
You know Like we're inhabitants.
We have the same almightyparents.
Whether you're born in Istanbulor Florida, we share the same
parentage and we're living hereon the same planet.
We have to share the same airresources, water.
We should support and protecteach other.

(17:04):
We shouldn't divide and protecteach other.
We shouldn't divide and fighteach other.
On this principle, masonryunites men of every country,
sect and opinion and conciliatestrue friendship among those who
might otherwise have remainedat a perpetual distance.
That's what we tell enteredapprentices about brotherly love
and what Masonry means whenthey talk about brotherly love.

(17:25):
And what masonry means whenthey talk about brotherly love.
And it's so true.
Right Like, you and I only metbecause of the fraternity.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, and we've had a very close friendship.
That's been, uh, seven years orsomething.
Now it's been seven years,really.
Wow You've.
You've been in my home forThanksgiving.
One year we had Thanksgivingdinner together, our families.
We've been with you throughsome challenges you've had in
the hospitals and stuff.

(17:55):
I've come to you for adviceover the years and you've given
me counsel that I sometimeslisten to and, to your chagrin,
sometimes don't listen to, but Ialways appreciate it and that's
a relationship in my lifethat's really important to me.
And we've also had ourdifferences.
This is really important, Ithink, to share.
We've had big blow up fightsover the years but one of us

(18:18):
calls the other the next day andsays I'm sorry yeah, yeah and
then it's like you know itdoesn't matter what happens.
I'm always going to love you.
You're my brother, right?
You can never say anything badenough to me that the next day
I'm not going to be like it'sokay, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
You told me that once you said um, you know I'll
always be a friend, no matterwhat happens.
That mad at you, I may have toturn you in and put you in jail
you didn't say that part but I'malways going to love you.
That meant a lot to me.
I would do it.
I would come visit you in jail.
Yeah right, makes a bigdifference.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Bring me some cigarettes and other currencies.
That would make your lifeeasier.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's right Now.
You said something that I wasgoing to remark on.
I can't remember I'm gettingold how old, are you?
Now 68.
Can you believe that 68?
Oh, I do look 68.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Okay, keep the hat on and in your home life, you're a
lawyer.
Is that your profession?
I'll admit to that, and youwere a CPA in a former life.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, yeah, I didn't really practice CPA, but two
years so I could get my enteredapprentice.
They have an apprenticeshipwith CPAs.
So I did that for two years andthen I became a lawyer, because
that's what I'd always wantedto be was a lawyer you always
wanted to be a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, you just like arguing, or was it about helping
people?
What was the drive there?

Speaker 2 (19:54):
It's kind of a weird drive for a little kid.
But I said, you know?
I asked my cousin, you knowwhere, where I like science.
I said, where do astronomerswork?
And they say, well, they workat universities and things like
that.
And I said, well, who are they?
I said, so, do they all do that?

(20:14):
And they said, yeah, they haveto.
And I thought, well, I don'twant to work for the government
because they may cut back myfunding.
And I was like 12 or 10.
I said I'm going to stay awayfrom that.
Most sciences work for some bigorganization, a lot of them the
government or funded bygovernment.
I said, forget that.
I thought I'd be an independentperson and be a lawyer.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
The irony of that is, your daughter works for the
government.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
That's right, she's still got one of you, but she's
a lot more mellow.
They were going to cut offfunding.
She was going to not get paidand she just said, oh well, I'll
walk dogs or something.
And so she's a lot more mellowthan me.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
It's true, if the government cuts you off, you
just go work for a privatecompany and lobby the government
.
There's always money around thegovernment, one way or the
other.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, and I learned a lot.
One thing is I mean, we'regetting far afield.
You know I'm not going to gointo that, all right, so let's
talk a little bit more aboutbrotherhood.
So you I'm going to give youone example.
I have many where what's yournameris?

(21:29):
Bailed me out.
Um yeah, I was uh workingreally hard and wasn't sleeping
much and I put together a um, auh talk on mental health and so
I went to the talk, wasn'tfeeling all that great, feeling
tired, and I introduced thespeaker, sat down and promptly

(21:53):
fell out.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Just passed out.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
And you know everybody apparently was you
know, oh gosh, what happened.
And fortunately we have a medicnamed Robert Leonard, who's
currently the worshipful masterof liberty.
Lodge, great guy um yes and hechecked me out and he said he's
falling asleep.
He's just asleep.
So, um, uh, chris and scott ran, came and got me and took me

(22:20):
home and made sure I was.
Um, I don't know what you did,I was out of it.
Was my wife there?
Did you tell her on that?
She wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
So what did you do?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
You just shoved me in the door, or what did you do?

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, actually, we put you on the couch.
Scott wasn't there, it was justme and so you were able to walk
, but not really well.
And I put you on the couch.
You were adamant that you hadjust, uh, forgotten that you had
taken medication, and you tookyour medication twice and you

(22:55):
said you just needed to sleep itoff.
So I left you there on yourcouch, and I got a call from you
12 hours later telling me youjust woke up.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
I don't remember that Apparently you slept on the
couch for 12 hours after Idropped you off.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
That's great.
That's great.
Apparently, I needed it.
That's another good thing aboutmasonry it can help you with
the sleep.
If you're in the lodge and theystart reading the minutes, you
can catch up on your sleep.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, the minutes will put youright, please.
Yeah, but no, you're requiredto, and there's a lot of good
reasons.
You know, we want to make sureeverything's written down right.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Actually, this is probably the only time I'll ever
see it, but there was a similarsituation to the one you just
described, but I wasn't at theplace you were.
I was summoned to the one youjust described, but I wasn't at
the place you were.
I was summoned to you becauseyou needed help and, uh, when I
arrived, you were sittingoutside on the bench and and uh,
you were in distress.

(23:55):
And it's the only time probablyI'm ever going to see the
actual grand healing sign ofdistress used um because you
gave it and you were in distressand you needed.
You weren't able to articulatethat, but you were conscious
enough to know that there was away you could get help, and
Mason's listening will know whatI'm talking about.
He did express it and he didreceive it and it worked the way

(24:17):
it's supposed to work.
Wow, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
That's pretty neat.
You know there's lots of thingswe find as Masonry goes on, but
that's got to be the mostimpressive to me.
I had forgotten about that andthank you for reminding me about
that.
I appreciate it.
I really do.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
This guy is a great man, and that's how we are.
I always say that Masonry is,is giving us training wheels for
life, and so we're able to havethese close, caring
relationships with people thatare masons, because they're our
brother.
But pre-masonry tells us we'resupposed to treat the whole
world this way.

(24:57):
Even people we don't know, evenpeople we don't like, even
people that are different thanus or richer than us or poorer
than us.
We're supposed to treat themwith the same compassion, and so
, um, I've always found it agreat challenge to try to take
these lessons that we reaffirmall the time in lodges and take
them out into the world and tryto practice it with people that

(25:19):
aren't close to us, that wedon't know, try to show that
same love for them.
That can be a challenge intoday's world which is not
really used to that kind ofbehavior amongst people.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
You know, what you said is actually one of the
purposes of masonry.
And some people tell you it isthe purpose of masonry to have
you become a better person andthen send you out into the uh,
into the profane world.
Um, that's a funny.
That's a funny um um word to me.
It makes makes me think ofpeople walking around cussing or

(25:53):
something.
I thought it was a derogatoryword.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, the first time I heard it I thought that's a
really derogatory way to talkabout people yeah, yeah but
anyway we're supposed tobasically I'm sorry, go ahead.
A lot of words that like are inthe fraternity are old words
that had different meanings whenthey were used and now have
been kind of, like you know,slangified and mean something a

(26:17):
little different, like to us.
You said profane, it's true.
When I heard it I thought, ohthis, why do they call us like
that?
Like not everybody's profane.
You know I'll go around f this,f that, but when I googled it,
profane meant something else inold english like commonplace or
something yeah, something justlike not not of, or not having

(26:40):
the knowledge of, or just beingoutside of enlightenment kind of
.
It didn't mean like a derogatorything, like we take it to mean
Same with worshipful.
When Americans hear worshipfulthey're like, oh, this isn't
good, I don't want to worshipanybody.
But that's not what it means.
Heck, in England they stillcall judges worshipful, right, I
think?
Yeah, they sure do so it hasjust totally different meaning,

(27:03):
and you're one of the peoplethat tries to squash that pretty
quick.
I know when you meet with newentered apprentices, that's like
one of the first things you'retackling is.
I know what you're all thinkingWorshipful doesn't mean we're
going to get down and worshipthis guy, okay.
And then you start to explainwhat it means so that they have
a better understanding of theconcept of these teachings and

(27:26):
don't run wild with yourimagination.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
One of the things I tell them is you know, I was a
worshipful and people certainlydidn't worship me.
They were like the opposite.
Well, not the opposite, butthey didn't bow and do my
bidding, you could have orderedthem too, yeah, right, I could

(27:50):
have ordered them.
I could have ordered a pony andI wouldn't have gotten either
one of them.
That's one of my favoritesayings.
When somebody says I want to dothis, I go yeah, I want a pony.
Kind of the equivalent of whenDr Phil says how's that working
for you?
How's that?

Speaker 1 (28:07):
working for you.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Well, but that you know that part of the statement
of brotherly love, which is thatwe need people that, through
the fraternity, we definitelynever would have associated with
without the fraternity, that'strue, and it is one of the great
things of joining ourfraternities that you will
mingle with people that youwouldn't normally mingle with

(28:29):
and and develop really closerelationships with them, which
is good for you as a person.
It's good for you a littlecircle yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Um, we need that and we don't have it in this world.
We used to.
I'm going to the.
You've heard all these um,these are subjective lectures
and uh, and mentoring, um,mentoring talks, um, one is that
, um, I was listening.
I never actually read the book.
Yeah, I did go back and read thebook, but there was a guy

(28:59):
talking about a book he hadwritten and he said that people
need to be in tribes.
Book he had written and he saidthat people need to be in
tribes.
That's, um, the way we evolvedor the way god made us.
And in today's, ever since thecar was invented, the beginning
of the last century, peopledon't live in tribes anymore.
Um, neil young has a sayingabout, I mean in a line, he a

(29:19):
line in a song talking about,you know, native americans,
americans, and he says that youknow that he used to roam the
plain and now he lives in hislittle box at the top of the
stairs by himself and that's nothelpful.
And no matter where you are,you'll make a.
You know a group of people willturn it into a tribe, a block.

(29:40):
You know, in big cities likeNew York City, there's a block
and you don't do certain thingson somebody else's block and
you're gone at a certain timeand the modernization of that.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
If you think about it , it's made it more dangerous
because it used to be, like yousaid a block, like a geography
thing right where you live waskind of going to be your tribe.
You didn't have much say in it,that's just the way it was.
But, now, with the advent of theinternet, people are making
their tribes with people theymay never meet all over the

(30:14):
world, and they're wearing theirhats and their little patches
and they go out and they maybeeven protest locally and the
people around them are like whoare you, what are you, what are
you doing?
but they feel like they're partof something and they feel like
they found a tribe thatunderstands them and accepts
them, and the internet's made itso different than it ever ever

(30:34):
was meant for us as, like aspecies and evolution.
You know where it's.
It is a physical geographything, where you're probably
going to grow up around peopleand live with them and have to
deal with them, and yourneighboring block or tribe might
not feel the same way and youmight fight with them and war
with them.
Here on the internet it's likethey can find a tribe of people

(30:57):
that are in Germany from Florida.
You hear about people beingradicalized into terrorism in
the United States through theinternet.
It's crazy how dangerous it canbe, because I think the
internet doesn't do a good jobof identifying truth from false

(31:22):
it kind of makes all informationsubjective, Like people can
just choose what the truth is.
Now I think that's a really,really dangerous thing for us as
a people to get away from,because we do need tribes.
I mean, we are wired to be withother people, to feel satisfied
and part of something, andpeople are always going to seek

(31:46):
that out.
But the internet always kind ofdistills things to the lowest
common denominator.
So when you go on the internetlooking for your tribes, even if
it starts cosplaying assomething innocent, it's going
to eventually get to a darkplace where you may not even
know it but you're potentiallybeing radicalized into some

(32:07):
crazy religion or cult.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
I'm not really in any tribes on the internet.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
You're 68, you said right 66?
What's that?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
66 tribes.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
When the internet came about, you were already a
grown man.
Yeah so you had lived a lifeand formed relationships, and
you knew what that meant.
So why would?
Someone like that.
Go seeking that out on theinternet it doesn't make sense.
Very good point, but these kidswho grew up with nothing but

(32:44):
the internet.
They don't know about thechildhood you had.
You know where you got.
You had to go play with people,had to work with people.
Sometimes, they were scary andthat you didn't like and you had
to learn how to deal with that.
They don't.
They don't have that life today.
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
That's a good point.
You can just disconnect.
Also, everybody pumps up whatthey're doing, so you're not
interacting with the actualperson.
You're interacting with afictional version of that person
.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
It's like you curate only the highlights of someone's
life and put it out there andpeople see that as the reality
of a life.
When it's a curated,specialized highlight reel of a
life, it's not really thatperson's life.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
That information isn't getting to the children.
They're believing stuff thatthey see online is real.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Is that the way the world is just going to be from
now on?

Speaker 1 (33:41):
I think so.
I don't see how you take thefire out once you give it to
people right when Prometheusbrought it to us he was like in
big trouble because he can'ttake it back you know, I knew
Prometheus.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I'm very old.
I knew Prometheus.
He was a nice guy.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
I didn't know you were Greek was he Greek or?
Roman.
Is that a Roman character?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
They had the same people, but they just gave them
new names, like Zeus and Jupiterwere the same person.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Is Christianity and Catholicism used kind of the
same generally.
Catholics are just Christian.
Right when you talk aboutChristians in Ireland.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
They're the first Christians in the most I guess
you would say most Orthodox, orone of the most Orthodox.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Well, they came from the Roman Catholic church, which
is where Christianityoriginated.
I guess probably right.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
No, that's where it spread a lot then.
But Christianity had beenaround for a while and the
Romans persecuted Christians fora long time and then one of the
I can't remember one, everybodyelse probably knows it one of
the emperors decided, you know,he looked at Christianity and
says yes, that's the truth.
And he said to all the Romansand then, you know, the Romans

(35:03):
were wandering around, you know,to countries and taking them
over, and so they brought theirreligion with them.
I think that's how it happened.
I think they were stillwandering around at that point.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, and everything we saw was theirs right.
Hey, hey, there's someone, andthat's ours too.
Hey, hey, hey, yeah, look atthat, that's nice, that's ours
too.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, look at that, that's nice, that's ours too.
Yeah, that brings up the wordsuperfluity.
Because they didn't need it, itwas unnecessary and it was
tacky that they would want it,but they went and got it anyway,
kind of like hoarders that youhear about, where they've got 16
cats.
You know, 15 or 14 of them aresuperfluous, and so I was going

(35:47):
to talk about that word too, andthat was a good segue into it.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Let me tell you my experience with the word
superfluity.
There are so many great unknownpeople in our fraternity.
Before I even joined thefraternity, before I was an
intern apprentice, I was goingto Phoenix Lodge.
Number 346 is where I was goingto be initiated in Sarasota.
There was a gentleman therenamed Albert Dahl.

(36:11):
Very similar to you, he washolding these Masonic groups
where you would just gettogether and talk about Masonic
stuff.
I got invited to one before Iwas even an apprentice.
I didn't know what was going onor what to expect.
He handed out playing cards toeverybody around the round table

(36:31):
and said I want everyone, oneat a time, to flip over your
card and I've written some wordsthere and I want you to tell me
the first things that come toyour mind when you see it.
And you know my word was wisdom.
So I didn't have a whole lot ofMasonic experience to say what
this means.
The first thing that came to mymind with wisdom was it's the

(36:54):
accumulation of mistakes.
That's what I think of aswisdom.
People think a wise man nevermade a mistake.
No, he made the most mistakes.
The wise guy guy, he's done allthe mistakes.
But, um, another guy next to megot superfluity.
Now, I never heard the wordsuperfluity, I thought it was a
made-up word.
And um, they started to talkabout to them what came up when

(37:20):
that word was said and they werevery masonic things they were
saying.
But as a non-mason I didn'treally get it.
And then, obviously as an innerapprentice, I heard it again
and I realized how masonic theword is.
Um, and now in hindsight I lookback at it and, like we were
talking before the recording, um, you found a reference to the

(37:40):
word in the king james bible.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah.
So, that was the firstreference to it.
Linguists have great respectfor the King James Bible.
More than that, it's like aBible to them.
That and Shakespeare, that'swhere a lot of our words came
from in the King James Bible.

(38:04):
And I don't know if I read thisright, but I think it said this
was on vocabularycom you knowme, I like to give citations and
they said I think they saidthat it was the first use of it
in James 1.
Oh really.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
That's the first use of it.
We can find.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah, and it said and there's a lot of words like
that, a lot of words inShakespeare too, and I think
they might have been around thesame time.
Anyway, this is the quote James121.
Wherefore lay apart allfilthiness and superfluity of
naught and receive the meeknessand something word which is able
to save your souls I sometimescan't out a word and receive the
meekness and something wordwhich is able to save your souls

(38:49):
.
I sometimes can't read mywriting, but filthiness and
superfluity and several.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionarycalls it immoderate and
especially luxurious, kind oflike a Tesla.
He drives a Tesla.
Oh, hey, hey, superfluity.
Like a shopaholic is asuperfluid person.

(39:13):
Vocabularycom said it's sounnecessary that it can be done
away with.
Charles Stoddard, whoapparently walked around
glaciers in 1899, said let's see, for a climb over glaciers the
very thickest shoes areabsolutely necessary.
All else seems superfluous tome, so it's got a very negative

(39:40):
connotation.
A lot of people didn't knowwhat it was until Jerry Gocher
told us and also he told us howto pronounce it, and he was
right.
According to these dictionaries.
We just kind of glanced over it.
And we do that not just withstrange words, we do that with
our own words, for instance,brotherhood.
We all talk about it.
We think no.

(40:01):
What is your definition?
Or did I already ask you that?
No, you haven't Okay.
What?
Or did I already ask you that?
No, you haven't Okay.
What is your definition ofbrotherhood?

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Not definition, but what do you think of it as Well,
the word brotherhood to me it'sidentifying like a group of
people that are brothers,meaning that you take care of
each other.
So a fraternity is abrotherhood in that it's a group
of men that treat each otherlike brothers and that they take
care of each other like family.
That's what brotherhood meansto me.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
That's good, that's good.
Good definition Well,brotherhood.
If you dig down a little bit,drill down a little bit into the
thought, you'll find areaswhere you can, where you have an
opportunity to demonstratebrotherhood.
And my big one for the last Idon't know five years or so has
been you know, we showbrotherhood to each other.

(40:57):
We need to show brotherhood.
We have the opportunity to showbrotherhood to the new brothers
and to the petitioners and toan EA and to the petitioners and
to an EA, because that's aplace where it really makes a
difference.
You know, it's wonderful thatyou know.
If I see you at a lodge I'llsmile, trade a few words, and to

(41:20):
me that's brotherhood, likewhen you say how are you, how do
you do?
Louis Armstrong said neighborspassing saying how do you do?
They're really saying I loveyou.
So that's a brotherhood that wehave.
But there's there's a muchgreater opportunity.
I don't want to.
There's another opportunity.
That's great.
The people, many of them thesedays, who come to our lodge and

(41:42):
you've seen this more than meyou say, why did you?

Speaker 1 (41:55):
come here and they say because I don't't have any
friends, I don't want to havesome friends.
And of course, we tell themyeah, yeah and honestly, that's
one of the reasons I joined.
Um, yeah, the idea of afraternal group, which means
it's only dudes I didn't haveany male friends my really my
whole life.
So I was seeking out likefriends, like you just said.
On a certain level, that is oneof the reasons I joined.
How do you like them?

Speaker 2 (42:15):
now that you've experienced them.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
I've been through a rollercoaster on that.
Like in the beginning, I justbelieved everything 100%, that.
I was told.
And then what happens is it'skind of like your first divorce
is how I.
In the beginning I justbelieved everything 100% that I
was told.
And then what happens is it'skind of like your first divorce
is how I feel about it.
When I was married for thefirst time, I thought divorce
was just a thing on TV andmovies.

(42:39):
I didn't think it was real orcould happen to me.
And when my marriage fell apart,my whole world crashed.
Everything I believed I had toquestion now, because I had
believed so much that this was aforever thing.
And so, joining the Lodge, allthe tenants of the fraternity, I

(42:59):
had the same experience.
Like an idiot, I just believedeverything and I thought
everybody would think and actthe way that we're told to, and
in reality it's not the case.
A lot of people don't take itseriously and they just continue
to act profane, even thoughthey're Masons.
And I had a very radical periodof time where I thought it was

(43:25):
all made up.
And now I've come to a placewhere I realize, oh, people are
just people.
The people that took the time tothink through a system and put
it into place cared about it sopassionately that they wanted to
transmit it through time.
It's really up to us to keep italive and going and not let it

(43:46):
die, because these are importantideals, things we're never
going to live up to you and I,or nobody's ever going to live
up to these ideals, but it's theact of trying that makes us
good.
So I've come to the realizationthat men are just men and it
doesn't matter if you're inpolitics or if you're in
Freemasonry or it's in your ownhome, you'll you'll love and

(44:09):
hate the same person, yeah, andit's just the humanity, the
nature of being human.
And so what makes us good isthat we keep trying to do better
.
That's, that's beautiful, thatreally is, and this fraternity
gives us those things to try tobe good at and it gives you a
way to do it, and even someexercises and tools and things

(44:30):
to visualize and think about,like it really does give us a
way to improve ourselves.
If we're willing to try to doit, it sure improved me.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
I was before Masonry.
I was so obnoxious I didn'teven like having myself around.
But the one thing that youdidn't like yourself no, I
didn't even like having myselfaround.
But the one thing that Did youwrite yourself no, I thought it
was okay.
But anyway, we're reallygetting into the weeds here.
But one thing I wanted to sayis that there's a movie called
the Verdict, and movies have I'ma lawyer and they have

(45:03):
wonderful closing arguments.
You know they've got a team ofwriters writing them, and the
one in the, the verdict, wasespecially good, and he started
off by talking about the SupremeCourt building.
It says justice and equalityfor all.
Is that a description of us?

(45:25):
Is that an accurate descriptionof us?
Is that a guarantee?
And he said no, and I alwaysget goosebumps when I get to
this part.
He said it's a prayer.
Yeah, it's a prayer that willhave equal justice for all, and

(45:47):
that's what you know theseMasonic principles are something
we strive for, and Masonryrecognizes that.
It says everywhere.
It's not perfection that we'relooking for Right.
And someone once told me ifsomething, if we were all
following a rule, you wouldn'tneed the rule in the first place
.
Rules are there so that wefollow them when we weren't

(46:08):
going to.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah that's true.
By the way the verdict is a1982 American legal drama film,
and it starred Paul Newman.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah, that's just talking to the jury, and it's
great.
He says we impanel juriesuriesand the legislature can't affect
this, the Supreme Court can't.
Well, they can't.
The president can't affect it,the judge can't.
And he said there's only oneperson that can give justice to
my, to my client.
And then he goes it's you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that'sjust it.

(46:44):
It just really.
That's a good movie.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
I recommend it Well because you're in the legal
profession and I feel like thelegal system, our American
government system, are allfraternal extensions of this
fraternity.
Right Like this country wasfounded on the principles of the
masons who built it, and Ithink the legal system is kind

(47:10):
of part of that.
And masonry has its own legalsystem and rules and masonic
digest.
And so how do you, as a lawyer,see, do you see the
similarities between the masoniclike masonic law digest and our
Masonic trial system and theAmerican government system?
Or is that something I'mimagining in my head?

Speaker 2 (47:31):
No, it's you're right , and it's a huge.
It's a huge question.
Um and spare me a little timeto say it Um, there have always
been courts, but they weren'talways, as um does that desire

(47:52):
us?

Speaker 1 (47:52):
uh, courts, but they weren't always as desirous of
being fair and keeping peoplefree.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
You know the kangaroo or the courts out in the woods.
They call them the.
I forgot what they call them.
It's a great name, but anyway.
So this brings up somethingthat is a topic I was going to
maybe do if we had time.
There's things we don't knowabout masonry just masons all

(48:21):
the time, because you can't.
A lot of it's not in there inthe books or the lectures and
the books are really all we haveright Like.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
There's no oral tradition outside the books
these days.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
Well, I think this is an oral tradition.
You know we haven't cited thebooks, but just a little while,
and this, since this islaudatory and a little flowery,
what I'm going to say I thinkit's part of the oral tradition.
One of the things that we don'trecognize enough, or even say

(48:59):
enough, or even know, is thatand I'm not saying this because
it's our organization and yay,our organization but Freemasonry
is one of the noblestinstitutions in the world and
history.
Because of what I'm going totell you, it's almost a fact.

(49:20):
I mean, the word noblest has tobe an opinion, but if you know
what, the facts that I'm goingto tell you are facts Prior to
the 1700s, the late 1700s,freedom was unknown.
We take it for granted.

(49:40):
We don't take it for granted.
We talk about it all the timethe land of the free and the
home of the brave, about it allthe time the land of the free
and the home of the brave.
Um, uh I can't remember theguy's name, um, who says I'm
proud to be american, or atleast I know I'm free, yeah, uh,
there's dozens of songs like,like that, maybe more.
Um, we do appreciate ourfreedom, but I don't know how

(50:03):
much.
I don't know if anybody knowsexcept tomas Zentner, the
smartest person I know.
Sorry, chris.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
I don't claim to be smart, it doesn't hurt my
feelings and I know.
Tomas is a genius, so we needto get him on the podcast to
talk about the Enlightenment andsome of the things he's
passionate about, because peoplewould love to hear it.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
You do, because he will, rather than me.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
he'll actually say accurate things and he sounds
exactly like you would think avampire should sound like.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
He's hungry.
Yeah, yes, chris, I will do it.
Ha ha ha.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
We'll have him on.
You'll see, I'm going to putCount Dracula and him next to
each other voice to voice.
We'll have him on.
You'll see, I'm going to putCount Dracula and him next to
each other voice to voice.
You'll be like I can't dealwith it.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, I see him every two weeks.
We have a philosophy andprinciples class.
Yes, he's really into that andvery knowledgeable.
But here's what happened.
You know, you see TV shows.
What's that?

(51:14):
One that was so popular withthe blonde-headed girl that
everybody was always gettingnaked and excited about?

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Game of.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Thrones.
Oh, game of Thrones.
Okay, yeah, if you notice,there's no voting booth there
and there's no election side.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
It was kings.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
In our fairy tales that we read kids, there's a
prince and beautiful and hemakes this woman princess.
You don't hear about that stuffbecause it didn't exist.
He makes this woman princess.
You don't see, you don't hearabout.
You know, saying you don't hearabout this stuff because it
didn't exist, yeah, the idea ofpeople, just regular people,
deciding things for themselves,just wasn't there.

(51:58):
There were kings and lords.
And it was even worse than thatbecause the people that lived
on the on the land werebasically slaves.
They weren't chained and thething that you normally think
about as slaves, but they wereserfs.
If you look up serfs, andthat's with an E, if you look up

(52:19):
with a U, you'll get the BeachBoys songs.
There's nothing wrong with that, but this is serfs and masonry
comes from the tradition of.
In England there were a coupleof revolutions.
One of them worked and one ofthem didn't the English Civil
War and the Glorious Revolutionand a lot of people came out of

(52:42):
that philosophizing and talkingabout freedom that, um,
philosophizing and talking aboutfreedom, um, john lock, but the
peasants revolution is that?

Speaker 1 (52:55):
what is that one of them that you're talking about?
What's that?
I?
I remember there was one calledthe peasants revolution or
something like that yeah, therewere little ones too.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Yeah, my favorite one is the first one, because of
the guy that later was namedrobert the bruce.
I just think that's a greatname.
I was thinking about callingmine changing my name to david
the nathan, but um, nice, nice,I haven't um, so anyway like
chris the burns so what doesthat mean?

Speaker 1 (53:23):
go around burning people, like with the, with my
words or with my things, I don'tknow.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
I don't know.
Maybe you were a fire watcher.
Your families were Well.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Robert the Bruce has ties to the fraternity oh he
does.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I didn't know that that's cool If you go through
the Scottish Rite.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
The later degrees were all about the Knight of St
Andrews and supposedly the orderof the Knights of St Andrews
was formed under Robert theBruce in Scotland.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
And we learned about Masons.
Learned about people voting andworking together and the power
in the people, because they werebuilding cathedrals and you
couldn't just ignore a personand put them out there like a
machine.
They had to be, they had toexercise their own judgment.

(54:18):
I'm told that on aircraftcarriers, the lowest man in the
ship can stop the ship.
He can call the admiral and sayof the ship and say stop the
ship.
He can call the admiral of theship and say stop the ship, and
he will.
He has a lot of trouble if hejust made it up, but that's how
that works.
If he sees an iceberg or agoldberg or anything like that,

(54:43):
that's a joke.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Right before this podcast, I was in the middle of
watching a netflix documentary,like a nine-part series on the
cold war and the nuclear yeah,the nuclear weapon and and its
impact on society.
And, um, I'm only on episodelike six and there's already
been three cases where entireannihilation of all life on

(55:07):
earth hinged on one person.
Yeah, exercising human judgmentand not following the system
that was set up, because thesystem is set up for war, the
system is set up to beaggressive, the system is to
either respond or initiateaggression, and the only thing

(55:28):
that saved all life on earththree times so far in this
documentary and you theyinterview the people is people
saying let me think about thisfirst, hold on a second.
And those people were right.
Um, in one case of 50 centelectronic piece caused, uh, it
caused people monitoring theequipment to think there were

(55:49):
2000 nuclear warheads headed tothe United States.
God, 50 cent equipmentmalfunction and the people
should have done their job andtold the president, who would
have obviously immediatelyretaliated.
And they knew that.
And so they didn't, and theywaited and they looked closer
and, uh, turns out.
And so they didn't, and theywaited, and they looked closer
and turns out they were right,but it's a person, one person,

(56:14):
and so you need a system whereevery single person can have an
effect on the end result, likeyou just said.
But when you have thesemilitary type or authoritarian
type situations, where there's asystem that funnels everything

(56:34):
to one person whose goal isaggression, it's never going to
go well for anybody, and Mayfuryis a system like that.
Yes, we do have a grandmaster,but he doesn't walk around like
a dictator.
He answers to the brothers right.
He essentially only has powerduring the grand lodge session,

(56:57):
which lasts for three days.
Even then, he's just bringingup legislation that's voted on
by the brothers in a verydemocratic process up
legislation that's voted on bythe brothers in a very
democratic process.
So freemasonry, you said itcame out of the enlightenment
which makes a lot of sense to me.
Yeah, like people wanted to getaway from this authoritarian
system which clearly doesn'twork for society, go closer to a

(57:21):
place where every man's voiceshould be heard in way, in order
to have a better outcome forthe common good of everybody and
it was.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
It was so unheard of as to be bizarre.
Um, you know the kings werejust the way.
You know they said they gottheir power from god.
Um, and yeah, you know, to voteon stuff, you know, to ask all
the, all the service andeverybody was just a ridiculous
thing.
It would be like saying to puta dog in charge of the

(57:50):
presidency of the United States.
It was just weird.
But Masons wrote about it foryears and years.
And I don't know if John Lockewas a Mason.
A lot of people claim him to be.
I think he just hung out with alot of Masons.
I don't think he was actually aMason, just hung out with a lot
of masons.
I don't think he was actually amason.

(58:11):
Um, but, um, uh, people likevoltaire.
And what I told my masonclasses if you ever want to
sound smart, say voltaire, itjust sounds intellectual doesn't
sound intellectual, it does.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Yeah, I want to know more about voltaire.
I don't know anything about it.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Well, you don't need to know about him, you just need
to quote him, you just need tosay his name.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
But I actually want to be smart.
I don't want to just soundsmart, that's so sad.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
How does that happen?
He was a mason and he was oh,he was Voltaire, yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Very, very.
What's that?
Voltaire was a writer.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
He was a philosopher and a writer A philosopher, ok,
and a big thinker, and he had,you know, radical, radical ideas
as well.
He was one of the people inthis, one of the steps along the
way that brought us to the, tothe 1700s late 1700s where we

(59:09):
actually started doing thingsabout it and we all are very
proud of our founding fathers,and of the.
American Revolution but that'sanother thing.
We don't realize how monumentalthat was.
They threw off the king.
Nobody had done that.
That was, they threw off theking.
Nobody had done that.
Oliver Cromwell threw off theking King Charles II, I think.

(59:31):
But then he became a king andsome lists of the kings of
England actually put his name inthere as one of the kings.
So that really didn't have muchto do with the common man.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
But there's a book.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
No, I thought you were done there, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Well, I was going to say that there's a book.
I forgot the name.
Oh, the Cousins Wars Instead ofbrothers.
You know the movements inEngland.
The ones here were not quitebrothers, were cousins.
Yeah, so you said that the, theEnglish Civil War, the American
Revolution and the Civil Warwere all one war.

(01:00:14):
They were all about the samething and that was the common
man against the aristocracy inthe Civil War.
I'm from the South and a lot ofus talk about you know.
We needed this, we wanted that,but it was really only the
aristocracy that pushed for thewar.

(01:00:35):
First of all, they were theonly ones that could vote then.
I think so the people that youknow in the North who had come
over from Ireland and placeslike that where people were
oppressed, they saw it as acommon man versus the
aristocracy.
They looked at the South as anaristocracy.
They'd get right off the boatand go fight and they came in

(01:00:59):
great numbers.
I'm not sure we would have wonthe war, the North would have
won the war without all theIrish that came over.
They were very, they had beenvery oppressed.
They were, you know, very, verymotivated to throw off an
England.
It was like an England to them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Yeah, and there was a lot of support for the American
Revolution in England To thisday.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
You know, the Irish people are very on the side of
the little man, the littlecountry, the underdog.
Um, when I I went to irelandwith my wife a couple years ago
and they had so many places thatthey were housing ukrainian
refugees, so many like and I'mthinking this is such a small

(01:01:42):
country and I'm seeing so manymore ukrainian refugees here
than in my home country, whichcould actually house a whole, a
hell of a lot more.
Um, and when I asked the peoplelike why?
Because my wife is ukrainian,so obviously this caught our eye
and my wife was like what is upwith this?
And they said we, we get there,we, we feel their fate like

(01:02:03):
it's much, it's much closer intheir history to them than it is
to us, that oppression thatthey dealt with, that they're
still holding on to today, andso they have an empathy for
others that are in a similarsituation yeah, the way things

(01:02:24):
that were put together didn'tend until when Clinton was
president.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
He went over there and got them to sign it up.
I mean, it was about to happenanyway, but he got them to sign
it up.
Another thing I want to sayabout the Irish they get around.
There's one of the greatfounding fathers, also a Mason,
of South America, all thecountries of South America.
Well, there were two of them.
One was named Simone Bolivar.

(01:02:55):
He was a Mason, oh I didn'tknow that.
Yeah, the guy that freed Mexicoand Cuba were Masons, Especially
in the Western hemisphere.
A lot of the people that thatbrought about freedom he's from.
Venezuela, yeah, but Venezuelawas also Simon Bolivar, because

(01:03:16):
he at first South America wasn'tbroken into countries.
It was later broken intocountries after they had already
gained their freedom, so he'sthe founding father of three
quarters of the states there,and maybe more so.
Like one country has as itscurrency the Bolivar and there's

(01:03:39):
other things, other people likethat.
But the other guy was, I alwaysthink, first time I heard it.
I still laugh at it becauseit's such a testament to how the
Irish went all over the worldand did great things.
The other guy's name wasBernardo O'Higgins.
That was one of the foundingfathers of South America Simone

(01:04:02):
Bolivar and Bernardo O'Higgins.
And he was a Mason, really,yeah, and actually when I was
talking about Voltaire, he wasinitiated by Jefferson, who was
a Mason.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Well, that makes sense he's a French writer and
I'm sure Jefferson was.
He was all about the French fora while there.
Yeah, yeah, he was anambassador, right to France.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Yeah, he was sent over there.
George Washington sent him overthere to try to get the French
on our side, and he did, yeah,and I think that won the war for
us, because they had a bigfleet and we had no fleet.
Yeah, and they had a big fleet,lafayette.
Lafayette was also.
I have that wrong?
I have that wrong.

(01:05:00):
No, I don't.
Lafayette was also a Mason.
So Jefferson went over toFrance.
A Mason talked to another Masonthere.
Lafayette, who was the admiralof all the fleet, got him to
bring over or the next.
You know, they were blockadingus.
There wasn't anything we coulddo, but the French, they, they
fought him real well anddefeated him here and there.
And then another FranklinFranklin went to Germany I think
it was Franklin, ben Franklinand he met up with a mason there

(01:05:24):
named Von Stuben, met up with aMason there named Von Stuben.
Von Stuben came to America tohelp out too, his help was that
he organized the army.
Yes, and he helped outWashington's army right, yeah,
Washington's army Made themorganize, you know, taught them
tactics.
But now let me back up one more.

(01:05:46):
Do we still have time?

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Okay, there's no limits on us.
We have unlimited time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Maybe we can make it a part one and a part two, and
three and four.
Hold on, we have unlimited time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
That's much better than I can be.
I like that when you do that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
That cracks me up.
That's one better than I can be.
I like that when you do that.
That cracks me up.
That's one of those littlethings about you that endear you
to everybody.
I'm human.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
My knife will laugh so let me ask you because we
over the years, you and I, we goway off the reservation when we
talk yeah, we do.
Normal people would listen tous and think we're insane,
because we both follow an ideawith logical conclusion wherever
that leads.
Okay, it can sound ridiculous,but I have been thinking and you

(01:06:40):
kind of alluded to this in thebeginning that humans are tribal
.
It's in our genetics to be atribal people.
I would go further and say thatit's in our genetics to be
followers, that we probablysurvived because a strong person
led other people.

(01:07:00):
And there's something in usalso to follow people.
And in order to do that itcan't be normal you have to lift
them up and make them somethinggreater than you in order for
you to die for what they'regoing to tell you to do.
And this is something that we'veseen throughout our history,

(01:07:21):
forever, as long as we've hadrecorded history, we always
coalesce behind a strong man,right, always.
Long as we've had recordedhistory, we always coalesce
behind a strong man, right,always.
And then here comes theenlightenment, where you've got
educated people saying wait asecond.
There's something within eachof us important and critical to
our survival and we probablywon't continue to thrive if we

(01:07:46):
let our genetics and our animalbrain follow a strong man for
the rest of time and you look athuman history like we had
hunter-gatherers right for howmany hundreds of thousands of
years.
And then we had agriculturecame onto the scene and we
advanced much more quicklybecause we had time to think we

(01:08:09):
weren't always just hand tomouth anymore.
we were like, oh, we have likeshelter and food and like we can
now sit and think.
And so we started thistechnological um path that, you
know, in the matter of hundredsof years got us to just basic
agrarian life, to technology andbuilding things.

(01:08:33):
And in the last 50 yearstechnology skyrocketed so fast
that we've gone from you know,radio being like the pinnacle
which I think we were both alivefor the time when radio was the
pinnacle of technology and theway that we communicated To now

(01:08:53):
we have satellites in orbit thatbeam signals everywhere on the
planet all the time at will, andthat's only happened in the
last 50, 60 years, right?

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Our evolution is speeding up and it's because the
further we get away from thepoles of nature, which is follow
a strong man, um, be afraid ofthings in the dark.
Like make up stories for thingswe can't understand, to like
let's, let's really get ourheads together, let's get our

(01:09:27):
shit together, let's cooperate,let's, like work together.
Truly, as people, we seeourselves skyrocketing in
success as a species.
So, in my mind, we have to getaway from the thinking of follow
a strong man and we have to getmore into a democratic world
not just country but world ifwe're going to survive as a

(01:09:48):
species, because the technologyis advancing too fast.
If we can't get a handle on it,the strong man is going to use
the technology in a way thatwill end all life for all of us.
Is that crazy thinking?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
That's very, very interesting and it dovetails
with so many things that I'veread and they're in this
overcrowded mind of mine.
Um, it dovetails with all ofthat, um, the um, the strong man
.
You know, we politicians arebetter for that.

(01:10:24):
You know, putin is a strong man.
He appeals to people's fear,which which is a very basic part
of us.
We've got the basic part, whichis animalistic and just, you
know, you see a bear, you run,you don't think about it.
Oh, what's that bear doingthere?
And then you've got the cortex,which thinks.
And I read something.

(01:10:45):
This is off the beaten track ofthe beaten tracks.
I'm just gonna go ahead withthis.
It's like this the um justlight that on fire.
You don't need that a lot of the, the people that were surfs.
You know how you talk toyourself in your mind yeah, and
you say I'm the queen of shiva.
No, you talk to yourself inyour mind and you're never good

(01:11:06):
for me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
it's always like some negative crap I'm feeding
myself about.
You're stupid, you're dumb.
You shouldn't have said that.
My voice is really annoying.
I don't know about yours.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Mine is weird, is it?
Mine connects weird things,things that don't have a
connection, and they come out asjokes sometimes.
But, um, one of the things that, um, the the lower mind cannot.
It does not have the ability tounderstand or implement logic.
It just doesn't exist for thelower mind.

(01:11:36):
So, and not that long ago, theystarted a series of studies
that said that when you'retalking politics, you're using
that lower mind that has yourlogic, and you'll see people I'm
talking and they'll contradictthemselves.
Enlightenment, you know.
I just want to say one thing theEnlightenment brought

(01:11:56):
rationality into focus yeahthinking things through instead
of being an animal, and sothat's why it was um so
effective and so so different,and out was so effective and so
different.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
And out of the Enlightenment came modern
democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
It came at the same time, it came right along with
it.
Yeah, that was part of the planthey said.
I think it was John Locke thatsaid there's natural law and
there's natural rights and fromthat, from logic steps, he got
to the point that we haveinalienable rights.

(01:12:32):
So that you know that cameright from masonry.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Now you're.
You're a big.
You're obviously very educatedperson.
Like I said, you, you you gotyour CPA's license.
You're a a very educated person.
Like I said, you got your CPA'slicense.
You're a practicing attorney.
These aren't things the averageJoe accomplishes in their life.
And you read a lot.
You probably always read a lotand as a Mason, you've utilized

(01:12:58):
your love for knowledge andyou've read a lot of Mackey
Albert Mackey writings aboutFreemasonry and you've read a
lot of Mackey.
Albert Mackey ratings aboutFreemasonry.
How much has that impacted yourMasonic life, what you've read
from Albert Mackey?

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
I'm glad you brought that up because, as I said
earlier, I like to make surethat what I'm reading is correct
and you know, scientific andthat kind of thing.
You know you'll never see mequoting the Internet.
You'll see me quoting theperson who wrote the thing on
the Internet.
And I'll only quote them if Isee where they studied, where

(01:13:33):
they got it, if they're for realand one of the things that I
was curious because ever sinceI've known you, you've always
referenced Albert Mackey.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
Oh right I wondered, and now I have you on a podcast,
I thought it would be a goodopportunity to ask you how much
has what you've read aboutAlbert Mackey impacted your life
as a Mason in Masonry.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Well, the only two and this was again the only two
writers that I um know areauthoritative are mackie and um
albert pike right I haven'ttaken the time to find out.
I've read a lot of other stufffrom people, but I was wondering
if anybody listening to thepodcast can tell me another um,

(01:14:19):
writer or philosophy of masonry,that um that is considered
authoritative, and we can figureout why he's considered
authoritative and I can startquoting him.
It's a very funny thing.
I'll tell the listeners.
We used to have these kind ofdiscussion groups and Chris and

(01:14:42):
I didn't even realize I wasdoing this.
I was always citing mackieeverything I said was mackie and
maybe one pike, and so, um,yeah, it was what's that I
busted your balls.
A little bit about that yeah,you said do you have anybody
else to cite except mackie?
I got very defensive because,first of all, I didn't.

(01:15:05):
Second of all, to me it seemedlike that was enough because the
guy's very prolific.
He's a major world-class mind.
That went on for a long time.
Thank you for lightening up onthat.
It's a very serious question,something I've been looking for.
If anybody knows whether any ofthe other authors out there are

(01:15:28):
considered authoritative, andwhy, or authors that I haven't
seen, that's great.
I really need that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
If you're listening to this show whenever it is
could be a year after this wasreleased and you happen to be
listening to it go ahead andemail Chris at
OnTheLevelPodcastcom and send uswho you read, who are your
Masonic authors that you trust,and we'll put a list up on our
website of everyone's favoriteMasonic authors for you to go

(01:15:58):
get information.
Here's the thing about it.
This is why I busted your ballsabout it Not to bust your balls
, because what you're doing isthe right thing.
When I see a lecturer and atthe end of his lecture he has
citations, I respect thatlecturer so much more than the
person who just says a bunch ofsensational things and says,
thank you, have a nice night,and walks away.

(01:16:19):
I don't know what was real andwhat wasn't real.
The fact that you're citing aperson makes makes it much more
um, authoritative.
Whatever is being talked aboutand it is good people should do
that my problem with it wasalways this isn't a person who
has any authority to speak aboutfreemasonry, any more than you
or me.
He's just a brother talkingabout what he thinks about the

(01:16:43):
fraternity.
It's not necessarily a Masonicauthor in the sense of a creator
of Freemasonry.
This is just a person who'spassionate about the fraternity
in the same way we are, and so IBlasphemy.
I know, I know I didn't say that, but to me it's like we are all
searching for our own answersto this stuff and if we take

(01:17:07):
Albert Mackey as the definitivesource of the meaning of
everything in Freemasonry, wemight lose some of our required
critical thinking process tofind our own answer if we just
take his answer answer, if wejust take his answer.
But I know that's not whatyou're doing.
When you cite him, you'reactually sparking discussion
when you cite Maki, and this iswhat Maki says about it.

(01:17:29):
And then I know this about youand something I greatly
appreciate about you Wheneveryou're hosting any kind of
dialogue, you make sureeverybody talks, whether they
want to or not.
You always look at them and saywhat do you think about that,
chris?
And you're forcing them tothink about it.
And even if they don't want to,when you call somebody out,
they have to say something.
They got to think about it, andso you're forcing them to think

(01:17:52):
about the top.
So don't think that I don'tappreciate what you're doing.
I just you know, I just like tobust your balls.
That had nothing to do withsaying you were wrong for that
at all.
I need to say this.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
You are right.
Quoting one source is not theway things should be done.
It should be a lot of sources.
One of the problems is thatthere are he wrote so much that
nobody else is even close.
You're right that nobody else iseven close, and I only cite him
blindly when he hasn't giventhe derivation.

(01:18:26):
But he often takes you throughthe whole logical steps that
lead him to what he says, andthat's another reason that
people respect him.
So, but it's hard for me todescribe the volume of the
material and it's hard for me todescribe the um, the support,
the great support and thinkingthat went into that stuff.

(01:18:49):
So I've never been one to justcite one person, but, like I say
I can't find any other and hisis just so good it is good and
it is logical too.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
You're right.
When you read what mackiewrites about things, you always
wind up shaking your head.
I think on yeah, yeah, yeah, Iguess he's right.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
I could see that let me give you an example.
Um, I think I just opened upone of his books and in there it
says um mason's revere labor.
Yeah, I didn't know, that Inever heard of that and he goes
into all this, you know, and itmakes sense once you hear that,
because we're all about labor,the working tools, and we're

(01:19:28):
building something yeah yeah,but he says we hate permits
because they don't make anything.
And that's just an example of umof dozens of things that um.
You'll read something and youlook at the bottom it was
written by Albert Mackey, so Idon't want to focus too much on
him.
I want to get some other peopleand so anybody else knows, yes,
send it in.

(01:19:49):
I love the authoritativewriters.

Speaker 1 (01:19:50):
Send us your favorite Masonic writers so that we can
publish it and Dave can have newsources to cite.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
Dan Brown doesn't count.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
I don't think Dan Brown is a Mason or was a Mason.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
He just wrote about things that involve Masonry.
Yeah, I had Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Barnes on the podcast .
Who's the creator of Amity?
Yeah, I heard that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Do you know, jeremy?
No, but I heard the podcast.
Okay, yeah, he actually met.
You know, dan Brown didresearch in his lodge and he
wrote the book the year he wasthe master.
Wow, yeah, and there's acharacter like whose hand got
cut off.
That could potentially beJeremy.
So it's a really small worldmasonically in the United States

(01:20:40):
.
This is one of the great thingsabout our fraternity is that
we're supposed to be finding ourown answers.
We're supposed to be askingthese questions and taking in
other sources and deciding forourselves what's right and wrong
.
Because there is no real dogmato the fraternity that says you

(01:21:08):
must believe this Really.
It's more about, like you said,we revere labor.
So our dogma is more about youmust do this.
If you want to be a good person, you must do charity.
If you want to be a betterperson, you must help other
people.
You must must listen to otherpeople, you must try to subdue
your passions.
We're all about like what weshould do to become better.

(01:21:30):
That's our dogma, is likeaction.
And if you're not doing thework, how are you ever going to
become a better person?
it takes effort and labor andwork.
It's hard work to changenegative things about yourself.
Really hard work, I would agreewith that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
I would agree 50% with that, because I think
there's also a lot to be saidfor studying yeah, because
studying can give you ideas andit can start taking you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
when you see how somebody interprets something,
you can kind of like spark yourown ideas about things and say I
never thought about that, Inever really imagined it.
It meant that and uh, it'shappened to me many times, and
and I we've talked about it likethere's a part of our ritual in
the opening and closing of ourceremonies called the battery,

(01:22:23):
and I'm not going to say what itis or when it happens, but you
know what I'm talking about whenI say it, and I came to you and
asked what is this, not thatbattery?
There's a really good joke,though.
Uh, you know, what did thebattery say to the bag of chips?
If you're ever ready, I'm freeto lay, okay.
If you're ever ready, I'm freeto lay, okay.

(01:22:45):
I just made babies cry.
Don't cry, baby don't cry.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
That's right, that's funny.
I love the sound effects wherewas I going then?

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
uh, the battery, yeah , the battery.
This is a good example.
Um, a couple of us werewondering what does this really
mean?
Why do we really do this?
And we got some answers thatmade logical sense, and I think
you gave me one, which was well,there's a number, the number
equates to the degree, and thisis a signal to us as to which
degree we're in, and that's whythe battery is important.

(01:23:18):
Logical makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
I get that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
But I was looking for an esoteric answer that I never
got.
No matter how many people Iasked, nobody really had a good
esoteric answer.
For what's the symbolism of it?
The logical reason behind itdoes make sense to me, but
everything in Freemasonry has anesoteric meaning too.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
I have my opinion on that.
My opinion is it means sit downand shut up.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
You know what?
But nobody does sit down whenthey do the battery in the
opening and closing ceremony.
It's like not related, is it?
No, it's not.
Everybody's already standingwhen they do that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
Is it to break the bad things off of you, to make
your stone smooth.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
That's, that's how I take it honestly and so um, in
my research, which was justasking people, I kind of
understood the logical reasoningfor it and I get it.
But, um, that symbolic meaningand esoteric meaning I had to
come up with on my own and I didadopt it and it's forever going
to be a part of who I am as aMason.

(01:24:26):
Now, whenever I go to anopening or closing of a lodge, I
close my eyes and I forcemyself to imagine those rough
parts breaking off.
When I hear that and more forone degree than another, because
you need it more in that degreethan the other, one degree than
another, because you need itmore in that degree than the
other when you're about to gointo a full business meeting,

(01:24:47):
you better be preparing yourselfto be a vessel.
For what do we call it?
Uninterested brotherly love,like we're not passionate.
Uninterested, there's a wordthey use for that?

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
I don't know that word.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
No, no.
But I think that's one of thegreat things about our
fraternity is that you can pullthose little things out of it
for yourself that nobody but youmight believe.
But it's not wrong if it'smaking you better.
It's right for you and that'skind of a beautiful thing about

(01:25:27):
Freemasonry is that we can.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
We're all having our own individual experiences, even
though we're doing it togetherwell, I talk out of both sides
of my mouth because I say that.
You know, young people need tolearn stuff.
Learn it all, go through thesteps before they start giving
their interpretations to it.
But, by the same token, there'ssomething in one of the rituals

(01:25:55):
I won't say which it talksabout good and evil, and I
changed it.
I just felt like changing it.
I changed it to good and bad.
So you know you're having agood day, you know there'll be a
bad one, you're having a badday, you'll have a good one.
And I was not authorized to doit.
It's not right and I have noexcuse for it.

(01:26:15):
And you know, let me have itthose are themes in the
fraternity right.

Speaker 1 (01:26:21):
The light and the dark, the good and the bad,
those are are themes in thefraternity right.
The light and the dark, thegood and the bad, those are
definite themes in thefraternity.
So, you're not wrong in talkingabout it like that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
That's not that simple, Matt.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
No, it was definitely about good and evil and how.
I think what you're talkingabout is where it's trying to
tell us that inside of man, allmen are good and evil.

Speaker 2 (01:26:44):
Like nobody's pure, nobody good and evil, nobody's
pure.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Nobody's pure evil, nobody's pure good.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
We all have both inside of us Again you taught me
something, and that's just mine, is that if you're having a, if
everything's going badly,people say, oh, I'm just a jerk,
everything's going to go bad.
Yeah, but then there's a good,then there's a good part, and

(01:27:09):
the same thing with the good,everything is going well.
Be prepared because a hurricanemight hit you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
Actually I've used your explanation of that to
other people.
I have you and I know youwouldn't be mad about that, but
the very same explanation youused.
I've given it to people Becauseit does make sense to me.
It does actually help people.
I think it can help people tostart looking at it that way

(01:27:37):
when the sun's shining, youbetter start planning for the
darkness, because that sun ain'tgoing to stay out forever.
And when you're fumbling alonein the dark, don't think it goes
on for eternity.
It's going to end.
You'll find the light again,and so don't get lost in the
darkness.
Keep moving forward.
Hey man, those are good lessonsfor people.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
I think I could just say that reminds me of another
thought, instead of just sayingthat's what it stands for.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
Yeah, I just thought of that now, even on this
podcast, because I talk a lot,people think I'm trying to be
authoritative.
So I have to repeatedly say andagain, I'm not trying to teach
anybody here, I'm just tellingyou One man's perspective on
this thing we're talking about.

(01:28:23):
I can't speak for the wholefraternity Other than when I'm
citing stuff out of here.
That's the only time I'mspeaking for the fraternity.
Talking things out really doeshelp.
I mean, when I have anxietyabout something, I notice when
that, because my voice is evil,like I said, it's always feeding
me negativity.

(01:28:43):
So if I'm left to my owndevices, I get darker and darker
in the places that I'm thinkingabout.
So for me it's really helpfulto talk about things, because
people other people have waymore positive outlooks on things
than I do and I can be like ohOK, I can see that you know,
know, and I could take some oftheir positivity into myself I.

(01:29:05):
But I need to talk about itwith people or else I'm going to
be a depressive person.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
yeah well, that's probably part of our like tribal
need.
Well, I mean, I told you I makethose crazy connections, so I
must have been the medicine manin the uh in evolution, or the
or the village idiot I cantotally see you with those big
gauge holes in your ears andlike a bone in your nose maybe,

(01:29:29):
and some paint on your face.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
I can totally see that because you'd be, stylish
man.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
I'll have to give you some of those.
I wish I had some examplesbecause they're really weird Of
your medicine man.
Thinking Of my connections.
Oh weird connections you make.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
Can you remember any of them, Sheesh?
We've talked a lot about spaceand the universe and the meaning
of life and time.
We've talked a lot aboutpsychology.
Well, here's one.
That's what you gave me REMsleep, when your eyes are going,
when you reach that rapid eyemovement Part of your sleep.

(01:30:12):
That's like when you're havingthe most productive sleep.
And I've always known that.
But you told me oh hey, modernpsychology has this thinking
that if you can reproduce thateye movement, you can process it
in your waking mind.

Speaker 2 (01:30:27):
Yeah, my boss also told me.
He said you know, when you'rehappy, you smile.
It also goes the other wayaround.
So if you're not happy, if yousmile, it'll make you happier.
And I'd like you to do someresearch on that, if you don't
mind.
The physical act of smiling,making you emotionally feel
better yeah, so when you'rehappy, you smile, and it works

(01:30:53):
the other way around when yousmile, you become happy it's
true, it's so primal.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
Go look on YouTube for a clip of this really old
gorilla.
And this gorilla is dying andalmost doesn't really interact
with the world at all anymorebecause the gorilla is so old
and dying.
But the man who actually taughtthat gorilla as a baby sign
language and stuff came to seeit on his deathbed and that

(01:31:25):
gorilla's face lit up with themost heartfelt smile and joy
that you could imagine andyou're like, wow, this is
definitely something primalwithin us that's smiling,
reflecting our happiness.
I know you're right about that.
There's definitely a physicalconnection to the emotional
happiness yeah, and uh, maybe,maybe, if you can fake, you got

(01:31:49):
to fake it till you make it,isn't that?
That's exactly what that meansyeah if you're not feeling happy
, just smile, you'll get thereyeah, and I'm jewish and a rabbi
once told me.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
He says you know if you're, we told everybody.
It was a sermon.
He said if you're not sure youbelieve in God, you know, go
through, go to services and gothrough everything anyway and
eventually you will.
Yeah, you know it goes bothways.
If you believe in God, you goto the services.
If you go to the services, hecan help you believe in God.

Speaker 1 (01:32:21):
Well, we have covered brotherhood.
We've talked about thesuperfluities of life and what
that means to us as Masons.
We've talked about doing ourpassions, as well as a lot of
other crazy things, on thisshort podcast.
This podcast is by no means ahuge deal, but it does get out
there, so you're potentially,now and in the future, going to

(01:32:44):
be heard by a lot of people thatare Masons all over the world,
and maybe by some people thataren't Masons, and so I always
like to leave every podcast bygiving our guests the
opportunity to speak to thosepeople directly.
So, as we leave the worshipfulDavid Finkelstein on the way out
, what would you say to thoseMasons listening today?

Speaker 2 (01:33:08):
I would say don't leave your new Masons in the
dark.
Show them brotherhood thebrotherhood they're Masons.
An EA is a Mason and you wantto show him brotherhood the
Brotherhood they're Masons.
An EA is a Mason and you wantto show him Brotherhood.
And the way to show himBrotherhood is to be his friend.
Don't leave him sitting in thedark for a month until you hear

(01:33:34):
from us Call him.
Take him to lunch, go bowlingballgame.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
Show Brotherhood to the new brothers.
I love it.
It's never too soon to startshowing that you care about
somebody.
Once they join the fraternity,they need it.
That being said, for On theLevel podcast, we appreciate the
wonderful David Finkelstein ofLiberty Lodge and for a member,
it's Arizona Lodge number 147,my home lodge, and I hope you

(01:34:09):
come back.
I hope I didn't scare you away.
Love to have you back on theshow to talk more.
All right, thank you, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:34:16):
Thank you.
That's it for us on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
We're out.

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