February 17, 2025 • 28 mins
In his first book, “Harmony in the Hive,” WB Nathan St. Pierre presents a compelling and practical vision for the revitalization of Freemasonry through the framework of the Beehive. In this episode, we go inside his recent book and expand on the steps outlined that can revitalize your Lodge from becoming a social club to that sacred space for personal development, spiritual enrichment and social improvement.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Lodge, concordant Body, a pendant Body,
Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, Michael Arsa, and you've settled in for
an episode on Harmony in Beehive. Yeah, it's a book review.
I did the reading so that hopefully you will as
well as we lay out a vibrant vision for Freemasonry's
future with our guests this week, a returning champion, worshipful
(00:54):
Brother Nathan Saint Pierre, an author and brother. Welcome back
to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
As always, I'm delighted to be here and I'm happy
to support the channel and anyway I can.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, we are happy to support you, especially when it
comes to your first book, Harmony in the Hive. Before
we jump in between the covers of the book, I
want to get kind of the story behind the story,
because I like how you opened up the introduction referencing
Most Worshipful Dwight L. Smith. He's a past master of
the Grand Lodge of Indiana, and he had written something
called whither are We Traveling? How does that tie into
(01:27):
the inspiration for you to write this book?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So most Worshipful Dwight Smith wrote with her are We Traveling?
In nineteen sixty three, so it's only four years after
the absolute keeak of membership at American Freemasonry. He actually
he had a great quote. He said, the century of
the common man has been a failure. So what he's
doing is he's shining a light on we may have
(01:52):
a lot of butts and seats, but it's not what
it was. It's declining. And he was sounding an alarm.
I saw me as picking up called alarm, and then
I started seeing a pattern. So, for example, when I
joined the craft in two thousand and nine. In twenty
and four, there was a PDF that had been published
anonymously by a group of informations called Knights of the North,
(02:14):
and the PDF was called Laudable Pursuit, and it was
a response to Dwight Smith's whether or are we Traveling?
Where he sets up a series of questions. And so
these brothers in the twenty first century, at the dawn
of the twenty first century. They were saying, here's how
everything he said has come to pass exactly as he
(02:34):
said it would. These patterns over the course of years
start start coming up. And then as I would read more,
I started noticing, wait a second, So and so said
this exact same thing in seventeen twenty eight. And so
when I start to see this pattern, I went, well,
I need to say it before it's twenty twenty eight
(02:56):
and we're still doing the same thing that we've always
done and getting the same results that we always got.
And then wondering where are all the men right, because
we have this great thing, and they're going to come
in and they're going to look for what made it great,
and if they see you canned green beans and reading
the minutes, they're going to go. I thought, I thought
(03:16):
these were the basins.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You break your book into three parts. The first part
of this book you address the same question as you
pointed out that's existed in the craft since like the
turn of the century, the decline in our membership and
where are we going, like what's going on with that? However,
you take a different slant on your like well, in
order to solve X. We need to improve the experience
(03:40):
of being a Mason, and you give a lot of
clues for that. We're going to get into that as well.
The second part of the book you really dive into
the Masonic leadership structure and you kind of bring out
the secret weapon as a way to engage people back
into being active members of the lodge. And that's this
thing called Masonic education. And then the third part of
(04:02):
the book I think is the most powerful, where it's
this is where I hear your voice. It's the how too.
It's how to become an agent of change, especially if
you don't have a human resource there, we have the
written version of Nathan as a resource to kind of
help you and keep your confidence. So with those three
parts in mind, I want to kind of dive into
(04:23):
the book. You touched on the beehive. I remember when
you were still finishing up this and we talked about
your book and you were going to use the beehive
on the cover. How did this all connect?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
William Preston reminds us that the symbols are carefully chosen
to impress what it is as a wise and serious truths,
and so this ties directly to the hermetic art of memory,
a concept that a podcast has explored with Jason Short
in the past. But in essence, we use symbols to
(04:53):
create mental images that then trigger associated text or ideas,
and it's a practice that every one of us engages
in constantly unconsciously. These symbols were historically part of everyday
life until very recently. So the letter G is another
fantastic example because now part of it's because I'm a nerd,
(05:17):
but it's literally everywhere and every time I see when
I go behold the letter G like and like, I'm uh, well,
a sesame street or something like.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
By the way, today's episode is sponsored by the letter G.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
That's the legend sponsored by the letter G. Actually, it
might be sponsored by the letter B, because if you
consider the ubiquitous B, you can't live your life without
encountering them. My personal connection to the bee Hive came
in twenty ten when I first visited Utah, the Beehive State,
(05:53):
because at the time I was I was naive and
I thought, wow, like, they're not even trying to hide
the LDS connections to the Masonic Fraternity. But it was
when I went back recently in twenty twenty four that
I realized that I was incorrect. The LDS church communities
(06:14):
do a better job, by and large of embodying the
ideals of the beehive, you know, that is to say,
like cooperation, industriousness, and the importance of community. That realization
inspired me to want to reclaim the behive for the fraternity.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
The start of every chapter you come back to the
theme of the beehive, and as you kind of mentioned,
like every time I sit in a third degree, that
kind of it was one of those quick things that
they mentioned, the harmony the hive of industry and how
we're all supposed to be. I will always think of
you and this book, and so I'm thankful for you
kind of resurrecting that and tying it in to your theme.
(06:54):
You talk about, you know, a very interesting path of
how to build your lodge with a strong foundation, improve
the leadership. The foundation would be education, engaging the members
and all of that. You also get into some of
the pain points, and one of them that you got
into is kind of this balance of the operative and
(07:15):
speculative practices that exist in freemasonry. When I got to
that particular chapter in the book, I referred to it
as oh, the business of freemason really like, oh yeah,
are exciting business meetings And as important as Masonic education is,
it could always be done better. You get beyond PowerPoint
programs and lectures with some of your ideas. So how
(07:38):
can we make that important part of our meetings more
engaging for everyone involved?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Many lodges see what you describe as the business of
freemasonry as synonymous with freemasonry, and they also see learning
how to do that as Masonic education. In other words,
the entire purpose of this thing is to learn how
to exist in this world, this fake like thing that
we have created called freemasonry. You know, when you point
(08:07):
these things out, many people think that that is what
Masonic education is. Is you learned by being in the chair? Yep,
that's what masonry is like. Now, this is I think
where you're steering us. Which is very important. Is that
men don't learn the way that children learn. Adults need
to know. How is this important to me? We will
(08:28):
I use this in my life. Let me show you
what I know, like, let us learn from each other.
In the book, I talk about a process that Nole's
talks about, which is Onragg, which is the way that
adults learn. And so if your Masonic education practices can
more model that, you're going to have a better response
(08:48):
to it, because then it's not going to just be oh, well,
so and so came and talked to us for you know,
twenty minutes about the stars.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I just want to jump in on that point right there,
because you were kind of like mind melding here and
I love this. So it's exactly the point that you're
making is too often, and think about it. How many
speakers have you seen in a lodge to get up
and just pontificate on a subject or an area that
they know a lot about or have researched about. Yes,
which is basically kind of just a report and is
another guy. You know, you give them the respect, You're like, oh, okay,
(09:18):
this is interesting, and you get the feeling that what's
in it for them as the speaker is to share
a bunch of cool information with you, and maybe you
walk out of their feeling a little bit smarter. When
I read this book, it gave me a new idea
for how I want to start approaching presentations or speaking
engagements and lodges in that I also want to learn
(09:39):
something from the audience. That needs to be a goal
for me, whether it's on that topic or something near
to it. I want to walk away with that light
bulb turned on feeling as well.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I mean, how is if you think about it like
as professional development? Okay? What is being professionally developed if
you aren't growing? And this is what got lost when
we got rid of the festive board. A practical way
that this looks in action is Okay, I talked for
twelve minutes about something, half the people dozed off. Whatever.
(10:11):
But because we have festive board. After the meeting and
we're all at dinner, instead of talking about whether or
not the Cubs are going to go to the playoffs again,
we go, hey, what did you think about so and
so's paper? Well, actually he talked over our heads a lot. Okay,
let's let's get into that, all right. Let me tell
(10:32):
you what I and so now. And it's never and
it feels so beautiful because you're eating and you don't
I don't feel like, oh wow, they really didn't get it.
They hate me and they don't like it, and they
like Instead you feel like, oh no, I get that.
I should come at this a different way, all right,
I'll give you a practical example. So that style of
(10:55):
formal paper meditation response after that works really well with
my last group of guys. That doesn't work really well
with my current group of guys. Do I punt on
Masonic education?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know what works really well with my group of
guys when I point to stuff that's literally hanging in
the lodge room and then I say do you know
why that's there? And then they say no, and then
I go I do, And everybody leaves that feeling like
oh yeah, because so you're following me like you just
have to. It's it's not about it has to look
like this. I heard a great quote today. Tradition needs
(11:32):
a vote. It doesn't need a veto. Tradition needs to
be you need to weigh it against this is what
we need or we're gonna like spiritually die. And so so,
since we need education and we know that the old
way of trying it hasn't been working, that doesn't mean
don't try education. It means rethink how we do education
(11:56):
and make it make sense.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
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(13:19):
And this kind of leads into another point that you
make where we talk about Freemasonry and the rumor that
it's a quote unquote thinking man's game. And I really
like the point that you made that where you say,
if early Masons were intellectually curious, and most modern Masons
feel like they've answered to call or serve, to serve
a higher purpose. Then we have so much that we
(13:41):
can talk with them about instead of running to what
unfortunately kind of turns into a mind dump, which is
quote unquote the esoterics.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The way that I talk about it is freemasonry is
the greatest esoteric tradition of the past, you know, three
four hundred years, because all other esoteric traditions come from it.
And now you know you're gonna have pe dance over here.
They're gonna say, well, Mason's came from the resicicur sentence.
And then sometimes it's like, no, unimpaired was the word
(14:10):
that I used, or uninterrupted? I think so instead of
trying to add other stuff to freemasonry, you should instead
read what freemasonry actually said about freemasonry, and that is
what hasn't happened. Now, you talk to a lot of
guys that are like minded with me, who do read
this stuff, because we're all shocked as to it's it's
(14:32):
twenty twenty five. We have everything digitized, you know, Hathy,
trust Gail, all of these these eighteenth century digitation services.
You can read anything you want to read from early
masonry right now on Google books, and around the nineties
early two thousands in freemasonry scholarship, you had a lot
(14:53):
of minimalists. They were cutting it all down in a
very postmodern way as all academics in that time were
taught to do, which was to say, your narrative is bs,
it's only this, this is why they were doing this,
so on and so forth, and so this is where
you get the it's all enlightenment. And they were all dists,
(15:14):
and they were all this like you know, these sort
of sweeping generalizations that we heard often. Well, now we
can read the primary source of stuff and see like,
oh they weren't. They were super mystical and they actually
believed this stuff. I think what I say in the
book is what's always been shocking to me is that
we tell this narrative that the intelligentsia of England just
(15:36):
at one point in the seventeen hundreds decided that they
wanted to commandeer the stone Guilts and make a dinner
club out of it. And that just doesn't make any sense.
Why is Desigulie and Robert and Sir Robert Moray and
all of these these these heavy hitters in English society,
Why are they going to hang out with the Scottish
(15:57):
stone workers. It wasn't because they thought like, oh, we're
going to take this and we're going to make it
all about the enlightened. It was because they were like, Hey,
I think these guys might be honest.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
The book is Harmony in the Hive. We've got the
author worship of Brother Nathan Saint Pierre here on the
Craftsman Online podcast, and we've covered kind of the first
two parts of the book where you get into, you know,
improving the membership experience and the secret weapon is education. Now,
the other thing that's extremely necessary for a lodge to
(16:29):
have a vision for the future or to have a
future as you get into the beehive discussion is and
I love how you did this where you outline the
different roles and responsibilities of bees in a hive and
how they overlay with Masonic lodge officers. I just loved
how you did this. So my question, too, Brother Nathan,
is how can the master of the lodge, who would
(16:51):
kind of be the queen bee in this scenario, put
certain specialized officers of the lodge to labor with tasks
that specifically we're late to that chair.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, first, and foremost, stop changing masters every year. That's
the answer that nobody wants to hear. But this practice
has often been mischaracterized as tradition and is in many
ways detrimental because it frames officers as part of a pipeline.
When officers are really your circulatory system. You have to
(17:23):
keep a strong master engaged. You don't scare him off,
and to be frank, you're going to silence your past
masters who just want to squalk, because if they have
so much to say, let them run for the chair
and face the membership's decision. Then once you have a
strong master, he then can see how the bees best
(17:49):
serve the hive. Because there's no longer this idea of
oh well, in seven years, I have to be the
one and who's doing that. Oh well, in a certain
number of years, I have to be the one who
is doing that. Instead there's the oh you happen to
be doing a master of business administration. We really could
(18:09):
use some help with our the way that we're doing
our finances or whatever, like or like our charity aims,
or in other words, like use your brothers to their
strengths instead of being like, oh, you an example, I
have a I have a music degree, so this year
I'm the organist. I don't play the organ because my guys,
they they they they're so great. The answer was when
(18:30):
I was like, I don't play the organ, they said,
you're a better hack than the rest of us, and
that that is absolutely one hundred percent true. And so
I will happily sit in that chair worst of thank
you out there. So you know, I fake it as
all as all good Masons should do, because that's my
lodge is asking me to do.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Are you learning to play the organ?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Though that sounds kind of cool, I'm faking it as
like there's a cool button that when you press it
auto chords, so I just have to do their bass
note and then like I'm learning all these fun I'm
learning all these fun tools. But like the ultimately the
point is that when you when you have the ability
(19:09):
to the master stays and then he understands your like
your strengths. You're not just putting the person like you
have to do the meals because the junior warden is
in charge of refreshment, so you're in charge of dinner
and now like maybe the last person was much better
at dinner, like and so you want to keep this
(19:29):
person like. So, for example, like everyone's talking about how
amazing our dinners are. Now, I don't think that brother
wants to do dinners for the rest of his life,
but yet everyone would be certainly happy if he did,
like instead of you know, putting the job based on
what like you think they're supposed to do, unless you're
(19:51):
limited by your bylaws, I don't want to like. This
is why in my book I I never talk about
like pillar chairs. I talk about the tyler and the marshall,
and and and roles that are are perennial but that
you have some flexibility with. So for example, if your
tyler has to be without the door, it makes total
sense for him to be in charge of membership development.
(20:13):
So that way, while yours and telegrafts are cleaning up
and setting up for dinner, he's running Catechism with them
or some other kind of you know things. So you
have that constant hive industry going on.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, the marshall overseas fellowship activities and lodge hospitality. Love that,
you know, two things I feel like the secretary and
the treasure as elected officers, they do have a lot
of stuff on their plate. But these are I never
thought of possibly turning these into programs and letting them
talk about this, like the secretary managing communications, record keeping, treasure,
(20:51):
financial stability, and transparency like these are important things that
are heavy Masonic themes that I don't think many lodges
are doing in a twenty five minute PowerPoint presentation that
somehow is getting squeezed around all the business of the
lodge that night, that's.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Right, And if it did happen, you'd all check out
because it's like, oh, this isn't this isn't what I
want to hear, right, instead of making it engaging, like
maybe there's a better way to do it, and I
didn't know, but you knew. And the fact that I
didn't say anything about it, I never knew that I
didn't know, and you didn't know that I didn't know.
(21:27):
Did you See? Now we have this and we're just,
you know, blissfully ignorant together, instead of if you have
these types of programs where you are open about you know,
here are some communication challenges that we've been facing with
MPD and an aging membership. Here are some financial struggles
(21:49):
that we have been seeing. And here is how awesome
we've been doing post COVID like these types of it's
just transparency. This type of transparency just just gives everybody
this feel of Okay, I'm part of something, I matter,
my ideas matter, me being here matters, and that's all
(22:10):
that's all we want.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So worshipful. You touched on a lot of important themes
in this book, and I found myself when I was
reading it going I wish I had gotten this five
years ago. I wish I'd gotten this before I started
going through the pillar officer chairs, because this would have
been super helpful and not only planning my trestle board,
but just another perspective on how to approach things. I
(22:57):
got to ask you when you sat down to write
this book, was there a particular brother or brothers in
mind that you had, as like, this is the audience,
this is the person that needs to pick this harmony
in the high book up.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yes, I wrote this book for myself. I told my
wife that it's breadcrumbs to myself, and she's like, what
do you Your wife.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Must deal with so many of these Nathanisms, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
It's a lot when I'm finding the same thing at
seventeen twenty eight, eighteen twenty eight, nineteen twenty eight, I
get to be the twenty twenty eight a couple of
years early. So when it's twenty one twenty eight, freemasonry
is still, you know, arguing about who's going to clean
the grease trap. Somebody will will find this book in
(23:46):
the Lodge library and say.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
This brother one hundred years ago had.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That's some ideas. And so that's that's that's for whom
I wrote the book I want and you know, those
of those those Nathan Saint Pierre's who are a living
who might find this book and go, I'm not alone,
m there. There really was a certain generation that that
that that did certain things.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I want to give you the highest compliment and seriously
like this book. So when I finished reading it, you know,
anyone who's ever received a copy of a book that
I've read will see that pages are highlights. There's usually
notes written on the book because as I'm thinking, I
want to get my thoughts down, and I'm like this copy,
I'm going to share it with my junior warden this
year or my senior warden this year, and I want
(24:32):
it back and I'll share it with the junior warden.
But just like Kirk McNulty's contemplating the Way of the Craftsmen.
This book is going to be continuously dropped into my
Amazon shopping cart, and it's going to be a gift
from Brother RC to incoming men who are serving on
my officer line at my lodge, because I want them
to have this information.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Thank you so much, right Worshville that that really is
the highest compliment. The dedication, the dedication that I have
to the book is to the author of the book
not yet written. And it's because of Kirk. You know,
Kirk inspired me by by being a big part of
my time in the East especially and then when I
(25:17):
found out how he had been inspired by his father
in law, and then they both came from Wilmshurst's Lodge,
and so I really I almost felt an obligation to
those brothers to put something of lasting quality. And so
so that really is the highest compent u.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you got it. Yeah, And I look forward to
ordering this every year. Mark my words now.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Brother brother Tyler Vanie, who has a shop called Fraternal
Designs dot com. He sells autographed copies of all Masonic
author books and including Kirk's books and various other things,
but he has for lodges specifically he gives a discount
on copies twenty five or hmmm. So for any Masons
(26:03):
who are listening who might be interested in getting a
book reading group or some kind of study group together.
And you know, oh and currently as of recording, it's
on sale on Amazon, which comes out of there at
not mine, so let's go Amazon anyway. But I bring
up Brother van Ice because that is a wonderful, wonderful
(26:24):
thing that he is doing specifically to encourage Masonic education
to be happening. So Fraternal Designs dot com or the
Tyler van Ice.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And just like we do for all of our interviews
with the author, I don't want you to be plugging
your book and where to buy it. That's our job. Yes,
you can find this on Amazon. Yes, it's in a
lot of other places, and we're going to have the
links to get that in the notes for this episode.
So do us a favor and put that show description
to get the notes so you can get a copy
of Harmony in the Hive in your hands. Worshipful Brother
(26:57):
Nathan Saint Pierre, it is always a pleasure to get
you back on the Craftsman online podcast, and I say
this with a lot of excitement. I can't wait until
you come back and share more Nathanisms with me.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Absolutely, and we're currently talking about getting me up to
the mid Atlantic, to the DC area to do a
book event, hopefully in the in the next couple months.
That is something that is currently in the works, so
look forward to being with you. I also want to
give a shout out to Arizona Masonic Con. I'll be
with those brothers in March of this year because yes,
(27:32):
I also would love to be with you again and
hope to get to Saint John Sunberlett. That's a hopeful one.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worshipful Brother Nathan
Saint Pierre. I think all of us are hoping we
can transform our lodges back to a sacred space for
freemasonry and not a social club. If you've enjoyed this episode,
hey make sure you open up that podcast player, follow
on Spotify, subscribe on Apple Podcasts so the you get
the latest episode every Monday morning. This is right worsh
(28:04):
for Brother Michael arts Day. I always enjoy our time
together and I hope you do as well. Until next time,
let peace and harmony prevail
The Commons. Opinions and views shared during this program are
of those individual Freemasons and do not reflect the official
position of a Grand Lodge, concordant Body, a pendant Body,
Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, Michael Arsa, and you've settled in for
an episode on Harmony in Beehive. Yeah, it's a book review.
I did the reading so that hopefully you will as
well as we lay out a vibrant vision for Freemasonry's
future with our guests this week, a returning champion, worshipful
(00:54):
Brother Nathan Saint Pierre, an author and brother. Welcome back
to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
As always, I'm delighted to be here and I'm happy
to support the channel and anyway I can.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, we are happy to support you, especially when it
comes to your first book, Harmony in the Hive. Before
we jump in between the covers of the book, I
want to get kind of the story behind the story,
because I like how you opened up the introduction referencing
Most Worshipful Dwight L. Smith. He's a past master of
the Grand Lodge of Indiana, and he had written something
called whither are We Traveling? How does that tie into
(01:27):
the inspiration for you to write this book?
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So most Worshipful Dwight Smith wrote with her are We Traveling?
In nineteen sixty three, so it's only four years after
the absolute keeak of membership at American Freemasonry. He actually
he had a great quote. He said, the century of
the common man has been a failure. So what he's
doing is he's shining a light on we may have
(01:52):
a lot of butts and seats, but it's not what
it was. It's declining. And he was sounding an alarm.
I saw me as picking up called alarm, and then
I started seeing a pattern. So, for example, when I
joined the craft in two thousand and nine. In twenty
and four, there was a PDF that had been published
anonymously by a group of informations called Knights of the North,
(02:14):
and the PDF was called Laudable Pursuit, and it was
a response to Dwight Smith's whether or are we Traveling?
Where he sets up a series of questions. And so
these brothers in the twenty first century, at the dawn
of the twenty first century. They were saying, here's how
everything he said has come to pass exactly as he
(02:34):
said it would. These patterns over the course of years
start start coming up. And then as I would read more,
I started noticing, wait a second, So and so said
this exact same thing in seventeen twenty eight. And so
when I start to see this pattern, I went, well,
I need to say it before it's twenty twenty eight
(02:56):
and we're still doing the same thing that we've always
done and getting the same results that we always got.
And then wondering where are all the men right, because
we have this great thing, and they're going to come
in and they're going to look for what made it great,
and if they see you canned green beans and reading
the minutes, they're going to go. I thought, I thought
(03:16):
these were the basins.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
You break your book into three parts. The first part
of this book you address the same question as you
pointed out that's existed in the craft since like the
turn of the century, the decline in our membership and
where are we going, like what's going on with that? However,
you take a different slant on your like well, in
order to solve X. We need to improve the experience
(03:40):
of being a Mason, and you give a lot of
clues for that. We're going to get into that as well.
The second part of the book you really dive into
the Masonic leadership structure and you kind of bring out
the secret weapon as a way to engage people back
into being active members of the lodge. And that's this
thing called Masonic education. And then the third part of
(04:02):
the book I think is the most powerful, where it's
this is where I hear your voice. It's the how too.
It's how to become an agent of change, especially if
you don't have a human resource there, we have the
written version of Nathan as a resource to kind of
help you and keep your confidence. So with those three
parts in mind, I want to kind of dive into
(04:23):
the book. You touched on the beehive. I remember when
you were still finishing up this and we talked about
your book and you were going to use the beehive
on the cover. How did this all connect?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
William Preston reminds us that the symbols are carefully chosen
to impress what it is as a wise and serious truths,
and so this ties directly to the hermetic art of memory,
a concept that a podcast has explored with Jason Short
in the past. But in essence, we use symbols to
(04:53):
create mental images that then trigger associated text or ideas,
and it's a practice that every one of us engages
in constantly unconsciously. These symbols were historically part of everyday
life until very recently. So the letter G is another
fantastic example because now part of it's because I'm a nerd,
(05:17):
but it's literally everywhere and every time I see when
I go behold the letter G like and like, I'm uh, well,
a sesame street or something like.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
By the way, today's episode is sponsored by the letter G.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
That's the legend sponsored by the letter G. Actually, it
might be sponsored by the letter B, because if you
consider the ubiquitous B, you can't live your life without
encountering them. My personal connection to the bee Hive came
in twenty ten when I first visited Utah, the Beehive State,
(05:53):
because at the time I was I was naive and
I thought, wow, like, they're not even trying to hide
the LDS connections to the Masonic Fraternity. But it was
when I went back recently in twenty twenty four that
I realized that I was incorrect. The LDS church communities
(06:14):
do a better job, by and large of embodying the
ideals of the beehive, you know, that is to say,
like cooperation, industriousness, and the importance of community. That realization
inspired me to want to reclaim the behive for the fraternity.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
The start of every chapter you come back to the
theme of the beehive, and as you kind of mentioned,
like every time I sit in a third degree, that
kind of it was one of those quick things that
they mentioned, the harmony the hive of industry and how
we're all supposed to be. I will always think of
you and this book, and so I'm thankful for you
kind of resurrecting that and tying it in to your theme.
(06:54):
You talk about, you know, a very interesting path of
how to build your lodge with a strong foundation, improve
the leadership. The foundation would be education, engaging the members
and all of that. You also get into some of
the pain points, and one of them that you got
into is kind of this balance of the operative and
(07:15):
speculative practices that exist in freemasonry. When I got to
that particular chapter in the book, I referred to it
as oh, the business of freemason really like, oh yeah,
are exciting business meetings And as important as Masonic education is,
it could always be done better. You get beyond PowerPoint
programs and lectures with some of your ideas. So how
(07:38):
can we make that important part of our meetings more
engaging for everyone involved?
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Many lodges see what you describe as the business of
freemasonry as synonymous with freemasonry, and they also see learning
how to do that as Masonic education. In other words,
the entire purpose of this thing is to learn how
to exist in this world, this fake like thing that
we have created called freemasonry. You know, when you point
(08:07):
these things out, many people think that that is what
Masonic education is. Is you learned by being in the chair? Yep,
that's what masonry is like. Now, this is I think
where you're steering us. Which is very important. Is that
men don't learn the way that children learn. Adults need
to know. How is this important to me? We will
(08:28):
I use this in my life. Let me show you
what I know, like, let us learn from each other.
In the book, I talk about a process that Nole's
talks about, which is Onragg, which is the way that
adults learn. And so if your Masonic education practices can
more model that, you're going to have a better response
(08:48):
to it, because then it's not going to just be oh, well,
so and so came and talked to us for you know,
twenty minutes about the stars.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
I just want to jump in on that point right there,
because you were kind of like mind melding here and
I love this. So it's exactly the point that you're
making is too often, and think about it. How many
speakers have you seen in a lodge to get up
and just pontificate on a subject or an area that
they know a lot about or have researched about. Yes,
which is basically kind of just a report and is
another guy. You know, you give them the respect, You're like, oh, okay,
(09:18):
this is interesting, and you get the feeling that what's
in it for them as the speaker is to share
a bunch of cool information with you, and maybe you
walk out of their feeling a little bit smarter. When
I read this book, it gave me a new idea
for how I want to start approaching presentations or speaking
engagements and lodges in that I also want to learn
(09:39):
something from the audience. That needs to be a goal
for me, whether it's on that topic or something near
to it. I want to walk away with that light
bulb turned on feeling as well.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I mean, how is if you think about it like
as professional development? Okay? What is being professionally developed if
you aren't growing? And this is what got lost when
we got rid of the festive board. A practical way
that this looks in action is Okay, I talked for
twelve minutes about something, half the people dozed off. Whatever.
(10:11):
But because we have festive board. After the meeting and
we're all at dinner, instead of talking about whether or
not the Cubs are going to go to the playoffs again,
we go, hey, what did you think about so and
so's paper? Well, actually he talked over our heads a lot. Okay,
let's let's get into that, all right. Let me tell
(10:32):
you what I and so now. And it's never and
it feels so beautiful because you're eating and you don't
I don't feel like, oh wow, they really didn't get it.
They hate me and they don't like it, and they
like Instead you feel like, oh no, I get that.
I should come at this a different way, all right,
I'll give you a practical example. So that style of
(10:55):
formal paper meditation response after that works really well with
my last group of guys. That doesn't work really well
with my current group of guys. Do I punt on
Masonic education?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know what works really well with my group of
guys when I point to stuff that's literally hanging in
the lodge room and then I say do you know
why that's there? And then they say no, and then
I go I do, And everybody leaves that feeling like
oh yeah, because so you're following me like you just
have to. It's it's not about it has to look
like this. I heard a great quote today. Tradition needs
(11:32):
a vote. It doesn't need a veto. Tradition needs to
be you need to weigh it against this is what
we need or we're gonna like spiritually die. And so so,
since we need education and we know that the old
way of trying it hasn't been working, that doesn't mean
don't try education. It means rethink how we do education
(11:56):
and make it make sense.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
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(13:19):
And this kind of leads into another point that you
make where we talk about Freemasonry and the rumor that
it's a quote unquote thinking man's game. And I really
like the point that you made that where you say,
if early Masons were intellectually curious, and most modern Masons
feel like they've answered to call or serve, to serve
a higher purpose. Then we have so much that we
(13:41):
can talk with them about instead of running to what
unfortunately kind of turns into a mind dump, which is
quote unquote the esoterics.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
The way that I talk about it is freemasonry is
the greatest esoteric tradition of the past, you know, three
four hundred years, because all other esoteric traditions come from it.
And now you know you're gonna have pe dance over here.
They're gonna say, well, Mason's came from the resicicur sentence.
And then sometimes it's like, no, unimpaired was the word
(14:10):
that I used, or uninterrupted? I think so instead of
trying to add other stuff to freemasonry, you should instead
read what freemasonry actually said about freemasonry, and that is
what hasn't happened. Now, you talk to a lot of
guys that are like minded with me, who do read
this stuff, because we're all shocked as to it's it's
(14:32):
twenty twenty five. We have everything digitized, you know, Hathy,
trust Gail, all of these these eighteenth century digitation services.
You can read anything you want to read from early
masonry right now on Google books, and around the nineties
early two thousands in freemasonry scholarship, you had a lot
(14:53):
of minimalists. They were cutting it all down in a
very postmodern way as all academics in that time were
taught to do, which was to say, your narrative is bs,
it's only this, this is why they were doing this,
so on and so forth, and so this is where
you get the it's all enlightenment. And they were all dists,
(15:14):
and they were all this like you know, these sort
of sweeping generalizations that we heard often. Well, now we
can read the primary source of stuff and see like,
oh they weren't. They were super mystical and they actually
believed this stuff. I think what I say in the
book is what's always been shocking to me is that
we tell this narrative that the intelligentsia of England just
(15:36):
at one point in the seventeen hundreds decided that they
wanted to commandeer the stone Guilts and make a dinner
club out of it. And that just doesn't make any sense.
Why is Desigulie and Robert and Sir Robert Moray and
all of these these these heavy hitters in English society,
Why are they going to hang out with the Scottish
(15:57):
stone workers. It wasn't because they thought like, oh, we're
going to take this and we're going to make it
all about the enlightened. It was because they were like, Hey,
I think these guys might be honest.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
The book is Harmony in the Hive. We've got the
author worship of Brother Nathan Saint Pierre here on the
Craftsman Online podcast, and we've covered kind of the first
two parts of the book where you get into, you know,
improving the membership experience and the secret weapon is education. Now,
the other thing that's extremely necessary for a lodge to
(16:29):
have a vision for the future or to have a
future as you get into the beehive discussion is and
I love how you did this where you outline the
different roles and responsibilities of bees in a hive and
how they overlay with Masonic lodge officers. I just loved
how you did this. So my question, too, Brother Nathan,
is how can the master of the lodge, who would
(16:51):
kind of be the queen bee in this scenario, put
certain specialized officers of the lodge to labor with tasks
that specifically we're late to that chair.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Well, first, and foremost, stop changing masters every year. That's
the answer that nobody wants to hear. But this practice
has often been mischaracterized as tradition and is in many
ways detrimental because it frames officers as part of a pipeline.
When officers are really your circulatory system. You have to
(17:23):
keep a strong master engaged. You don't scare him off,
and to be frank, you're going to silence your past
masters who just want to squalk, because if they have
so much to say, let them run for the chair
and face the membership's decision. Then once you have a
strong master, he then can see how the bees best
(17:49):
serve the hive. Because there's no longer this idea of
oh well, in seven years, I have to be the
one and who's doing that. Oh well, in a certain
number of years, I have to be the one who
is doing that. Instead there's the oh you happen to
be doing a master of business administration. We really could
(18:09):
use some help with our the way that we're doing
our finances or whatever, like or like our charity aims,
or in other words, like use your brothers to their
strengths instead of being like, oh, you an example, I
have a I have a music degree, so this year
I'm the organist. I don't play the organ because my guys,
they they they they're so great. The answer was when
(18:30):
I was like, I don't play the organ, they said,
you're a better hack than the rest of us, and
that that is absolutely one hundred percent true. And so
I will happily sit in that chair worst of thank
you out there. So you know, I fake it as
all as all good Masons should do, because that's my
lodge is asking me to do.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Are you learning to play the organ?
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Though that sounds kind of cool, I'm faking it as
like there's a cool button that when you press it
auto chords, so I just have to do their bass
note and then like I'm learning all these fun I'm
learning all these fun tools. But like the ultimately the
point is that when you when you have the ability
(19:09):
to the master stays and then he understands your like
your strengths. You're not just putting the person like you
have to do the meals because the junior warden is
in charge of refreshment, so you're in charge of dinner
and now like maybe the last person was much better
at dinner, like and so you want to keep this
(19:29):
person like. So, for example, like everyone's talking about how
amazing our dinners are. Now, I don't think that brother
wants to do dinners for the rest of his life,
but yet everyone would be certainly happy if he did,
like instead of you know, putting the job based on
what like you think they're supposed to do, unless you're
(19:51):
limited by your bylaws, I don't want to like. This
is why in my book I I never talk about
like pillar chairs. I talk about the tyler and the marshall,
and and and roles that are are perennial but that
you have some flexibility with. So for example, if your
tyler has to be without the door, it makes total
sense for him to be in charge of membership development.
(20:13):
So that way, while yours and telegrafts are cleaning up
and setting up for dinner, he's running Catechism with them
or some other kind of you know things. So you
have that constant hive industry going on.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, the marshall overseas fellowship activities and lodge hospitality. Love that,
you know, two things I feel like the secretary and
the treasure as elected officers, they do have a lot
of stuff on their plate. But these are I never
thought of possibly turning these into programs and letting them
talk about this, like the secretary managing communications, record keeping, treasure,
(20:51):
financial stability, and transparency like these are important things that
are heavy Masonic themes that I don't think many lodges
are doing in a twenty five minute PowerPoint presentation that
somehow is getting squeezed around all the business of the
lodge that night, that's.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Right, And if it did happen, you'd all check out
because it's like, oh, this isn't this isn't what I
want to hear, right, instead of making it engaging, like
maybe there's a better way to do it, and I
didn't know, but you knew. And the fact that I
didn't say anything about it, I never knew that I
didn't know, and you didn't know that I didn't know.
(21:27):
Did you See? Now we have this and we're just,
you know, blissfully ignorant together, instead of if you have
these types of programs where you are open about you know,
here are some communication challenges that we've been facing with
MPD and an aging membership. Here are some financial struggles
(21:49):
that we have been seeing. And here is how awesome
we've been doing post COVID like these types of it's
just transparency. This type of transparency just just gives everybody
this feel of Okay, I'm part of something, I matter,
my ideas matter, me being here matters, and that's all
(22:10):
that's all we want.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
So worshipful. You touched on a lot of important themes
in this book, and I found myself when I was
reading it going I wish I had gotten this five
years ago. I wish I'd gotten this before I started
going through the pillar officer chairs, because this would have
been super helpful and not only planning my trestle board,
but just another perspective on how to approach things. I
(22:57):
got to ask you when you sat down to write
this book, was there a particular brother or brothers in
mind that you had, as like, this is the audience,
this is the person that needs to pick this harmony
in the high book up.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yes, I wrote this book for myself. I told my
wife that it's breadcrumbs to myself, and she's like, what
do you Your wife.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Must deal with so many of these Nathanisms, that's amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
It's a lot when I'm finding the same thing at
seventeen twenty eight, eighteen twenty eight, nineteen twenty eight, I
get to be the twenty twenty eight a couple of
years early. So when it's twenty one twenty eight, freemasonry
is still, you know, arguing about who's going to clean
the grease trap. Somebody will will find this book in
(23:46):
the Lodge library and say.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
This brother one hundred years ago had.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
That's some ideas. And so that's that's that's for whom
I wrote the book I want and you know, those
of those those Nathan Saint Pierre's who are a living
who might find this book and go, I'm not alone,
m there. There really was a certain generation that that
that that did certain things.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I want to give you the highest compliment and seriously
like this book. So when I finished reading it, you know,
anyone who's ever received a copy of a book that
I've read will see that pages are highlights. There's usually
notes written on the book because as I'm thinking, I
want to get my thoughts down, and I'm like this copy,
I'm going to share it with my junior warden this
year or my senior warden this year, and I want
(24:32):
it back and I'll share it with the junior warden.
But just like Kirk McNulty's contemplating the Way of the Craftsmen.
This book is going to be continuously dropped into my
Amazon shopping cart, and it's going to be a gift
from Brother RC to incoming men who are serving on
my officer line at my lodge, because I want them
to have this information.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Thank you so much, right Worshville that that really is
the highest compliment. The dedication, the dedication that I have
to the book is to the author of the book
not yet written. And it's because of Kirk. You know,
Kirk inspired me by by being a big part of
my time in the East especially and then when I
(25:17):
found out how he had been inspired by his father
in law, and then they both came from Wilmshurst's Lodge,
and so I really I almost felt an obligation to
those brothers to put something of lasting quality. And so
so that really is the highest compent u.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, you got it. Yeah, And I look forward to
ordering this every year. Mark my words now.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Brother brother Tyler Vanie, who has a shop called Fraternal
Designs dot com. He sells autographed copies of all Masonic
author books and including Kirk's books and various other things,
but he has for lodges specifically he gives a discount
on copies twenty five or hmmm. So for any Masons
(26:03):
who are listening who might be interested in getting a
book reading group or some kind of study group together.
And you know, oh and currently as of recording, it's
on sale on Amazon, which comes out of there at
not mine, so let's go Amazon anyway. But I bring
up Brother van Ice because that is a wonderful, wonderful
(26:24):
thing that he is doing specifically to encourage Masonic education
to be happening. So Fraternal Designs dot com or the
Tyler van Ice.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
And just like we do for all of our interviews
with the author, I don't want you to be plugging
your book and where to buy it. That's our job. Yes,
you can find this on Amazon. Yes, it's in a
lot of other places, and we're going to have the
links to get that in the notes for this episode.
So do us a favor and put that show description
to get the notes so you can get a copy
of Harmony in the Hive in your hands. Worshipful Brother
(26:57):
Nathan Saint Pierre, it is always a pleasure to get
you back on the Craftsman online podcast, and I say
this with a lot of excitement. I can't wait until
you come back and share more Nathanisms with me.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Absolutely, and we're currently talking about getting me up to
the mid Atlantic, to the DC area to do a
book event, hopefully in the in the next couple months.
That is something that is currently in the works, so
look forward to being with you. I also want to
give a shout out to Arizona Masonic Con. I'll be
with those brothers in March of this year because yes,
(27:32):
I also would love to be with you again and
hope to get to Saint John Sunberlett. That's a hopeful one.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worshipful Brother Nathan
Saint Pierre. I think all of us are hoping we
can transform our lodges back to a sacred space for
freemasonry and not a social club. If you've enjoyed this episode,
hey make sure you open up that podcast player, follow
on Spotify, subscribe on Apple Podcasts so the you get
the latest episode every Monday morning. This is right worsh
(28:04):
for Brother Michael arts Day. I always enjoy our time
together and I hope you do as well. Until next time,
let peace and harmony prevail
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