June 30, 2025 • 31 mins
WB Tim Sheils (Silver Spring Lodge No. 215, Grand Lodge of Maryland) shares insight from his presentation, "#metoo, Masonry, and Masculinity." It's a conversation that challenges us to think about tradition, evolution, and the role of men in a changing world.
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Transcript
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,
a Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, right, Worshipful Brother Michael Lars and I
say this with a smile because I can see about
my screen. It's been some time since I've seen my
next guests. We are going to have a really important
conversation on the role of men in modern society. This
is just one of those conversations that, as they say,
(00:51):
the song goes at times a common and there's been
some challenges that have been going on, and our guest
this week is going to help us think about some
of the tradition that evolution and really what the role
of a modern man means today in a changing world.
But speaking of evolving, changing and modernizing, it looks a
little bit different since the last time I saw Hello,
(01:11):
Worshipful Brother Tim.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Shills, thank you, And depending on what ear you saw me,
I might have had hair and not a beard, so
it's uh, it's been going back and forth ex theast
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Wasn't going to put that out, but yeah, you actually
you did have the beard, and the hair on top
of your head was about as long as the beard
hair for our YouTube live streamers that are watching along.
And fortunately I've rocked the same haircut since you know,
twenty twelve, so no big change for me there. But
what was the inspiration? Just a summer cut or.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
You know, it's it's it's self thinning. So it was
it was abound to happen anyway, and even going into it,
if you you know, we've got our past master's portraits
on the wall. My first year, you know, clean cut,
clean shaven everything. Yeah, that was your COVID hit and
I was like, all right, let's just go full full barrel.
The next year is just you know, looking like Albert Pike,
(02:04):
and so I was just say, that's a cautionary tale,
never never to do. Two years sequentially in the East,
I'm gonna see if they can get that added to
you know, worship for Brother Tim Shields and then in
quotes full feral underneath that Master's portrait. I try to
keep my portraits is out of date as possible.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Now, one of the things that isn't at a date
and the reason why you're on this podcast, ironically, it
is something that was kind of a byproduct of that
twenty twenty COVID era was the me too movement, which
still exists today when it comes to where we fit
in as freemasons and kind of this role of masculinity,
which I'm sure that title guys are like, WHOA, what
is all this about? And you know, you and I
(02:44):
were kind of talking about when you first put this
program out or sort of doing the research into it,
the waves so to speak, was still traveling to shore
and now we've kind of got the slap back going
into the ocean. So take us back to those initial
days when you saw all of the happening. What inspired
you to tackle this topic and how was it received
by the brothers of your lodge.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
This was the first presentation that I actually gave in
in my lodge, you know, not long after the Me
too movement in twenty seventeen when when it really hit Twitter.
And there's kind of two main things that inspired this.
So the first one was Gillette the shaving company made
a commercial extremely focused on the me too movement. I
(03:27):
don't remember seeing the commercial, but I saw articles about
it and I was like, what's up with this commercial?
People were really getting up in arms about this commercial
by a shaving cream company. You know, the whole point
of it is that this whole idea of boys will
be boys, you know, be manly men needs to change.
And you know the only thing from that commercial that
(03:49):
exists to this day because they pulled it from YouTube,
is that meme of like the one guy holding his
friend back that kind of shows up. And the idea
was that, you know, this whole time of cacpullying and
bullying needs to stop. So that was part one. The
other part was Alissa Milano posted on Twitter her experiences
(04:11):
and said, you know, if you've experienced this too, do
the hashtag me too. I'm not on Twitter x now,
whatever they want to call it. I remember seeing on Facebook,
you know, a surprisingly number of a surprising number of
people posting B two and people are getting up in
arms about this commercial that's saying, don't do this stuff.
(04:32):
And it's happening to a lot of people that I know.
And part of it too, with getting to the presentation
within the lodge, It's like, so there's this extremely controversial commercial,
but if you strip back any of the environment around it,
the me too movement, because you know, men were getting
(04:55):
very defensive. So then there became like not all men
and a whole bunch of different you know, I'm not
like that, so it's irrelevant. So there was a lot
of backlash because people were getting defensive about it, and
so I thought, okay, why not take this idea. We
don't talk politics and masonry, but you know, you can
(05:16):
still talk social issues. And I wanted to see if
I could frame this in a way that was Masonic.
And the first version of this presentation I did focused
on areas in the lectures in the charges that kind
of remind you, hey, don't be a jerk. And and
so I thought it was it was an interesting exercise
(05:39):
to be able to present that in a lodge with
a diverse group of guys and see how the large
part of that commercial is what are we doing with
this next generation? How do we teach boys to be men?
And I think that is you know, masonry, it's it's
four men, but what are we teaching men to do?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
In masonry and this me too. This was the movement
that brought down Harvey Weinstein. He was like the public
enemy number one. He became the face of this back.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He's got a retrial that just started. So again we
talked about the wave of pulling back where these consequences
have not been permanent. You know, everybody to crying cancel culture.
It was more like lay low for a while. Culture,
although Harvey Weinstein still in jail, just became another way
of fracturing people of like you support kind of this
(06:33):
side of the arguments versus another. And so yeah, that's
kind of with like the culture wars that have been
going on of where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And that's what makes it interesting because freemasonry, is you
also touched on, is like we're supposed to kind of
stay in the middle. As a matter of fact, we're
actually not even supposed to be in the middle. We're
supposed to be on the sidelines where politics and all
the things from the profane world should not be coming
into our lodges. And as you mentioned, you were a
newly raised master mason at Silver Spring Lodge number two
fifteen and Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of the nation's capital.
(07:07):
You're relatively a new dad, right, and here you are
with your first program or presentation that you're going to
give to Lodge. And while most people would expect, oh,
we have a brother Tim, he's you know, only been
doing this for a few years. He's going to get
up and give us first program, probably going to be
on one of the working tools of any of our degrees.
Nothing wrong with any of that. And here you are
(07:27):
tackling this like what did your Lodge brothers think about
or what were they saying to you after you gave
you this program? It went really well within Lodge.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
You know, nob nobody stood up and walked out, So
that's always that's always a benefit, that's a win. Yeah,
we did have a good conversation about it because the main,
you know, thrust of the talk was these are experiences
that have happened to people that I know. This is
a commercial that teaches us how to behave This is
(07:57):
why I would want to apply that to my life.
And here's lessons from our degrees that that I've taken in.
So you know, if you if you have it about
things that I've learned, things that I've experienced, it may
not be what people agree with. But you know, I
can't really argue that, Yes, the friends that I know
have have posted me too. We do have a more
(08:20):
diverse lodge than other lodges that that I've visited, and
I you know, that becomes strength because people are used
to other viewpoints and don't get all up in arms
about it. I've seen similar presentations like this about like
masculinity and masonry, and they're kind of on the on
the other side of the coin, where it's you know,
(08:41):
here's what some of these issues are, here's some of
the problems. And it wasn't that we need to treat
people better. It was that here's society's ills, and this
is what's causing this problem. So, you know, depending on
where you're at, you can get different versions of it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Just like any guests that comes on our program or
any speaker that I see in a lodge, Like inside
my mind, I have, you know, the standard work and lecture,
our ritual book. In my mind, I kind of take
a highlighter and as soon as the speaker starts or
the guest or the brother starts talking, I'm highlighting to
connect parts of our ritual that I know that we're
instructed or that we're told certain things, the lessons about
(09:18):
being a Freemason, and for this particular topic, I immediately
started thinking of the EA charge, where we're told to
be a good citizen. I think of the obligation, the
part and the fellowcraft degree. When it comes to how
we will treat female family members of brothers, I also
think about, you know, in the third degree, just the
idea of the role of spreading the love of brother lisament,
(09:40):
so to speak, across all people and living in harmony.
Did any of our Masonic ritual or were there any
parts of what we do as Freemasons that influenced your presentation?
We talk about for cardinal virtues, and between the liberal
arts and sciences and the cardinal virtues, those are kind
of two of the presentations that I've made that I
give the most. You know, we talk about the virtues,
(10:04):
and actually even the four cardinal virtues are the less
important ones in terms of how we treat other people.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It's more how we comport ourselves. So the theological virtues,
the faith, hope, and charity, and our degree, but it
really is better translated as love. If you're treating people
with love then you know you're not tack calling people
on the street. Continuing with that theme of the virtues,
I gave a presentation for the Scottish Rite about the
(10:30):
virtues and one of the main questions I've always had
with the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues, you know,
why are we teaching these in lodge? Why are they
a big chunk of the first degree that you get
if we're being virtuous. If our goal is Mason's is
to be virtuous, what does virtuous mean with that? The
(10:53):
idea of and you know, this is kind of jumping
ahead to like the masculinity and manliness part, but if
you are to be a you know, good man, if
you're gonna be a manly man, then you are a
virtuous man. And that's really yeah. I should have saved
this for the end, because that's that's like the key,
but that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
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Jason Lee for doing that. Patreon dot Com Craftsman Online Podcast,
thank you for your continued support. We're talking about the
(12:39):
Me Too movement, Masonry and masculinity with Worshipful Brother Tim Shields,
and with your presentation, I was also thinking of just
Freemasonry in general. I go back to, you know, especially
in America, how we've been tied to the beginning of
the birth of our country. But also Masons at key
points in time have been in leadership or in positions
of authority where they can speak could take actions for others.
(13:01):
And I was thinking of like the women's suffrage movement,
for example, the Civil Rights Act, and they continued, you know,
fight for a quality that is in our nation today,
all the way up to what the Lily Ledbetter Act,
where you know, we said, hey, a woman needs to
be paid just as equally as a man does. And
it's interesting that you know, a brother of a male
(13:22):
fraternity got up and gave this program. I guess one
thing you could look at, thankfully, is that some of
the examples that you share with me in your program,
when you go to click the link for the Gillett
commercial that you referenced earlier, or some of the other
things that were happening in society in twenty seventeen, you
can't find them anymore. They've now been removed. So do
you feel that while you didn't think at the time
(13:46):
your presentation would have this far of an impact, do
you feel that you were able to there's been progress
in what you've talked about.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
That's you know, that's an interesting question. Because if you
look at you know, kind of the progression through society,
you did have a lot of high profile court cases,
some of those, you know, Harvey Weinstein's back on trial,
other people there, you know, charges were dropped or you
(14:18):
know that there it didn't seem like there was as
much accountability. There is still within smaller groups accountability. You know,
I I go to punk and metal shows and there
is a decent amount of accountability for musicians where if
(14:40):
somebody in a band is not acting the way you
would want, then you know, that's when people would would say, oh,
it's cancel culture. But it definitely gets harder for those
musicians to continue going. So in kind of some of
these smaller groups, I think can still see that that's
(15:01):
been solidified because it's been shown that it's I don't
want to say right, but that it is behavior that
a group expects from people and if you deviate from
that then then you know you aren't part of that
social group anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
On a larger scale, you know, like the Times Up movement,
which kind of started more of the push of go
within Hollywood in two thousand and three, they they stopped operating,
so there their funds is kind of dried up and
it petered out. Some of these these bigger structured organizations
I think have kind of faltered, but I do still
(15:43):
see it within within groups of people.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I don't know if for ever, and it's one of
those things where hopefully in my lifetime, you know, we
see the solution that works best for everybody moving forward.
What I'm happy to see is that this is one
of those things that happened where we didn't just talk
about it like other things that happen in our country,
and hopes and prayers were sent to the individuals affected,
and everybody moved on to whatever the next thing was.
(16:07):
That there have been a series of advancements now to
the point that you've talked about is here we are
as modern men, and in Freemason we were pursuing those
ancient mysteries that have been you know, laid out to
us through our Masonic ritual. But somewhere in the middle
there is that classic definition of like this is what
being a man is all about. But a lot of
(16:29):
that definition is tied to our grandfather's era, that that
greatest generation of what being a man was, and there's
been a lot of change between now and then how
did you kind of cover that topic for those guys
that kind of feel like they're being torn between the
classic definition of manhood while wanting to embrace some of
(16:50):
these modern expectations.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
One of the things that Me Too movement provided was
a definition of toxic masculinity, so it's these are behaviors
that are not helpful. A lot of people then took
that to be well, that's what we're talking about with
masculinity is you know, all you know, it should be
okay to protect women, that should be you know, a
(17:13):
man's function, that sort of thing. And it's like, well
that's not that's still not what being a man is
looking at. Then, some of the other examples going through history,
this idea of masculinity and manliness changes, so you know,
in presentations, I don't like having a whole wall of tech.
(17:35):
Sometimes I just have pictures, which is even less helpful.
There's lots of different examples through time of what men
were expected, what was kind of the norm, and so
you had in like the twenties, you know, guys are
wearing corsets and tights, so and you follow that through
(17:55):
you get like the forties, like carry Grant era, and
then and you get James Bond coming in and and
you know, then in the eighties everything is just like
hyper masculinity with with you know, Rambo and Rocky. Besides
this masculinity still less toxic masculinity, but you get this
(18:16):
idea of like bachoess and and berrillity.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's funny you mentioned that, do you watch the Amazon
show Reacher at all?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I watched the first I read an interview with Lee
Child that that I thought was a good interview. So
I saw the movies with Tom Cruise and Burner Herzog
was the villain one of them.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But I can't remember the name of the actor who
plays Reacher now, and I'm sure that our listener is
yelling it's this guy. I'm like, he's just this big,
larger than life dude. I mean he looks like in
the books.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, that's that. That was a controversy of casting Tom Cruise,
who you know this tall Yeah, they went from Mighty
Mouse to a guy that looks like you'd be a
starting tackle or offensive lineman on a pro team.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
But it's funny we talked about that masculinity part because
when I talk about the show with like coworkers or
friends and they're like, oh, you watch this. I'm like, yeah,
you know, it's kind of silly. It's definitely one of
those like made for TV series that you can tell
came from like a book and then a movie. But
here's the interesting thing. It's like the Arnold Swarzenegger Sylvester Stallone,
you know, tough guy action heroes that we would remember
(19:21):
seeing in those cheesy, campy eighties nineties movies, but he
doesn't say the things that those guys would have said.
And it's always the female love interest in that series
that makes the first move, which, as guys I can
tell you, we know that is completely fictional. But it
is interesting to see how this movement right, people are
(19:43):
becoming aware of it. So I'm happy to see some
bit of progress that I don't know, maybe you'll feel
this way too, that we're getting to a healthier definition
of what a man is like. You can still be
this muscular or not guy. You can still do these
quote unquote traditional or stereotypical mainly roles, but it's okay
(20:04):
if you're sensitive or if you show compassion. That's not
a sign of weakness anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Right, And that's that's kind of the big issue with
toxic masculinity is that showing emotion or weakness is you know,
a feminine trait and to be shunned. And you know,
especially with media now like movies and TV shows, you
(20:29):
do get moving slowly, but stronger women or female characters
or people of color and roles, and you know, as usual,
you get both sides of that pendulum of you know, oh,
these companies are going woke, but you know, if you
look around, you know you're going to get a mix
of people in places, so it is more representative of society.
(20:52):
And yeah, it's it doesn't matter in terms of like
a story or a movie. You know, think about kind
of what the character's saying, are doing, and you know,
it doesn't necessarily have to be a man doing it.
It could be anybody doing it. It could be the
female character who's the hero. And you know, having that
(21:18):
spread out, you know, whereas in Rambo two three, actually
I might you know, it might still be more of
the the hot shots where there actually is a love interest.
I don't know if there's as much of a love
interest in Rambo. Oh yeah, yeah, Charlie Sheen's Yeah. In
(21:40):
culture that you know, like you and I grew up
consuming it was you know, the guy's taking charge and
doing everything and he gets the girl at the end.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Of course. I know worship for brother Tim Shields. I've
sat in lodge with him at his lodge, Silver Spring
and Lodge number two fifteen in Silver Spring, Maryland. I
found you in this program. As I mentioned, you know,
before we started recording. I've seen you give other programs
in your lodge. They're usually more on esoteric topics, but
I found this would be pretty fascinating. Thanks for our
friend Robert Johnson with the Winds Came You podcast. He
(22:10):
created the Speakers Bureau. So long story short, if you
would like to have Tim come to your lodge and
speak about this or any of his other topics, look
in the notes for this episode. We'll make sure that
you can find that link to have that connection and
maybe book them. My other hope is that anyone who's
listened to at least five minutes of any of our
podcast episodes here on Craftsmen Online, they've heard that men
(22:30):
coming into our lodges are wanting to join the Ancient
and gentle craft or freemasonry. They're all being pulled in
for different reasons, but then they kind of have that
common mindset once they become a Mason, because they understand
the benefits of what we provide not only to our
lives and personal development, but our families and our lodges
and our communities. My question for you, brother, is, how
(22:52):
are you concerned now as we look back on the
program that you delivered about how freemasonryes and just free
since in general as a male fraternity, how are we
going to be viewed by future generations? It is an
interesting question.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And and you know there's there's two parts of that
that I've always kind of found interesting. One. You know,
we host blood drives in uh in our lodge, and
it's in our our social hall where we have our
wall of past master's portraits, and and so you know,
people at the blood drive, because you know, we're usually there,
(23:30):
a bunch of us will give blood, but you kind
of see people looking at them and it's like, you know,
just throw after a row of old white guys.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was I was gonna say that's a Unfortunately, that's
the picture that's common in a lot of our Maisanta calls.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Right, and and I am glad that we do have
a diverse lineup of partial masters now once once I
finish editing their portraits so we can print them. But
but you know, it is kind of that's still that
mentality of from your grandfather or father's generation with the
idea of being a gentleman, of being a man, and
(24:05):
you know, it's still kind of I think that same
idea that most people that most people have. But on
the flip side as well, what I do mention of
people is, you know, I'm the past president of the
Maryland Masonic Research Society as well, which is a no,
it's not affiliated with any Grand Lodge and as such
(24:25):
it deals with Masons of all walks. So we there's
co Masons, there's women Masons in this group, and you
know I've given this presentation of that group as well,
so there are outlets for women who want to be Masons.
And again circles back to kind of one of the
big questions about masculinity and Freemasonry of if Blue Lodge,
(24:50):
United Grand Lodge Bengland affiliated Masonry is remaining this fraternity,
like what as men are we talking about that?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
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(26:01):
I'm a Freemason, and they look at you like you're
chasing an old relic, you know, because they picture like
freemasonry either that's going to be the American Revolution, what
they know about the Freemasons that were there as the
founding fathers. Or they have that picture of a Freemason
with a top hat and a top hat and a
walking cane and a long coat and you know, a
fancy mustache and somebody that I'm picturing would be from
(26:25):
like the you know, late nineteenth early twentieth century kind
of guy. Sadly they don't picture people our age. They
may think of an older family member, usually as you mentioned,
like kind of around the grandfather age, like oh yeah,
my grandfather or an uncle or something, and they look
at somebody like me and they're like, why why are
you doing this? Like what are you getting out of this?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And to that point, it's it's these discussions because as
I mentioned earlier, like freemasonry has been around since essentially
the beginning of time, right, and we've been through all
of these changes in society and in life, and somewhere
behind that was kind of this quiet group of men
that were just doing the thing, you know, all of
the things in the background. So I imagine this topic
(27:07):
isn't going to be the first time it's ever been discussed,
at least in this forum. But I'm sure that there's
a worshipful master or maybe a brother that would like
to stand up and have an open discussion in their lodge,
maybe a program on this same subject. What advice do
you have for them so that that evening produces a
positive outcome.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
A big part of it is going to be no, no,
your audience. Right, So, if if you're in a lodge
in a more conservative area. I mean chance, Sorry, you're
not going to go this route with your with your presentation.
But so it's it's kind of just rhetoric, right, It's
it's what do you want to tell people? And how
are you going to tell them? We've got the little
(27:49):
arts and sciences for that, but it's it's you know,
at least try to make it personal and you know
how it applies to you. If people disagree with it.
You know, the benefit masonry is that we get people
from everywhere in different walk lives. So look into some
of those strengths. But also you know, understand that your
point of view isn't necessarily the only one too.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I start thinking,
So you had mentioned your son when you did this presentation,
was like what two two three years old?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Two?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, So now he's nine seven eight nine eight yeah, eight, okay, okay,
so not having that conversation yet about girls at least
a big conversation now now, No, you're still to be
nice to everybody, don't pull hair, you know, keep your
finger out of your nose kind of conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah, he's gotten better about the No.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, I used to think that was going to be
my son's full time job. He always had his finger
up there. But I think, I think about this with
my son, and you know, he's eighteen years old, and
I feel like young men now are on a delayed
entry program into you know, exploring girls, right or exploring romance.
I just I find myself catching myself when I speak
(29:03):
about these things, because it's not just one thing anymore.
It could be many things, right when he does ask
for advice in his own way, because each generation handles
things a little bit differently. Now, sometimes it's something veiled
through a text message, or you know, we actually have
a face to face and make sure that there's nobody around.
I immediately think back to the advice that my dad
would have given me and how awkward those moments were,
(29:26):
and how can I make this less awkward for him?
But I also find myself catching it and saying, well,
that's not really appropriate anymore. I mean, there's certain traditions
where you know, a man should offer I use the
word a man should offer to pay for dinner, a
man should offer to open doors. But don't be offended
if the young lady that you're with or the other
(29:46):
person that you're with does these things, Like I think
people still respect some of the traditions that are involved,
but it's not something that has to be there all
the time, like out on display. And maybe that's part
of like a healthy byproduct that could come from some
of these discussions in lodges, is other men, other fathers,
(30:06):
like just talking about geez, what's it like these days?
You know, how do you have these conversations? That's super
helpful for me.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
A lot of those conversations generally just happen after lodge.
You know, there was a quote in there of it's
one thing for the women to put their foot down
and say no, this is unacceptable, but other men need
to be the one correcting each other too, you know. Again,
that's that's that whispering good council.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worship of Brother
Tim Shields. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you
follow the Craftsman Online podcast on Spotify or hit that
subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. That's how you're going to
get next week's episode without really having to think about it.
I'm right, worshipel brother Michael arsay, this is the best
way to start the week, and I look forward to
doing it again next time. Until then, but peace and
(30:57):
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,
a Masonic authority, or Craftsman Online dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hey, welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast, the only
Masonic podcast endorsed by the Grand Lodge of New York.
I'm your host, right, Worshipful Brother Michael Lars and I
say this with a smile because I can see about
my screen. It's been some time since I've seen my
next guests. We are going to have a really important
conversation on the role of men in modern society. This
is just one of those conversations that, as they say,
(00:51):
the song goes at times a common and there's been
some challenges that have been going on, and our guest
this week is going to help us think about some
of the tradition that evolution and really what the role
of a modern man means today in a changing world.
But speaking of evolving, changing and modernizing, it looks a
little bit different since the last time I saw Hello,
(01:11):
Worshipful Brother Tim.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Shills, thank you, And depending on what ear you saw me,
I might have had hair and not a beard, so
it's uh, it's been going back and forth ex theast
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Wasn't going to put that out, but yeah, you actually
you did have the beard, and the hair on top
of your head was about as long as the beard
hair for our YouTube live streamers that are watching along.
And fortunately I've rocked the same haircut since you know,
twenty twelve, so no big change for me there. But
what was the inspiration? Just a summer cut or.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
You know, it's it's it's self thinning. So it was
it was abound to happen anyway, and even going into it,
if you you know, we've got our past master's portraits
on the wall. My first year, you know, clean cut,
clean shaven everything. Yeah, that was your COVID hit and
I was like, all right, let's just go full full barrel.
The next year is just you know, looking like Albert Pike,
(02:04):
and so I was just say, that's a cautionary tale,
never never to do. Two years sequentially in the East,
I'm gonna see if they can get that added to
you know, worship for Brother Tim Shields and then in
quotes full feral underneath that Master's portrait. I try to
keep my portraits is out of date as possible.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Now, one of the things that isn't at a date
and the reason why you're on this podcast, ironically, it
is something that was kind of a byproduct of that
twenty twenty COVID era was the me too movement, which
still exists today when it comes to where we fit
in as freemasons and kind of this role of masculinity,
which I'm sure that title guys are like, WHOA, what
is all this about? And you know, you and I
(02:44):
were kind of talking about when you first put this
program out or sort of doing the research into it,
the waves so to speak, was still traveling to shore
and now we've kind of got the slap back going
into the ocean. So take us back to those initial
days when you saw all of the happening. What inspired
you to tackle this topic and how was it received
by the brothers of your lodge.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
This was the first presentation that I actually gave in
in my lodge, you know, not long after the Me
too movement in twenty seventeen when when it really hit Twitter.
And there's kind of two main things that inspired this.
So the first one was Gillette the shaving company made
a commercial extremely focused on the me too movement. I
(03:27):
don't remember seeing the commercial, but I saw articles about
it and I was like, what's up with this commercial?
People were really getting up in arms about this commercial
by a shaving cream company. You know, the whole point
of it is that this whole idea of boys will
be boys, you know, be manly men needs to change.
And you know the only thing from that commercial that
(03:49):
exists to this day because they pulled it from YouTube,
is that meme of like the one guy holding his
friend back that kind of shows up. And the idea
was that, you know, this whole time of cacpullying and
bullying needs to stop. So that was part one. The
other part was Alissa Milano posted on Twitter her experiences
(04:11):
and said, you know, if you've experienced this too, do
the hashtag me too. I'm not on Twitter x now,
whatever they want to call it. I remember seeing on Facebook,
you know, a surprisingly number of a surprising number of
people posting B two and people are getting up in
arms about this commercial that's saying, don't do this stuff.
(04:32):
And it's happening to a lot of people that I know.
And part of it too, with getting to the presentation
within the lodge, It's like, so there's this extremely controversial commercial,
but if you strip back any of the environment around it,
the me too movement, because you know, men were getting
(04:55):
very defensive. So then there became like not all men
and a whole bunch of different you know, I'm not
like that, so it's irrelevant. So there was a lot
of backlash because people were getting defensive about it, and
so I thought, okay, why not take this idea. We
don't talk politics and masonry, but you know, you can
(05:16):
still talk social issues. And I wanted to see if
I could frame this in a way that was Masonic.
And the first version of this presentation I did focused
on areas in the lectures in the charges that kind
of remind you, hey, don't be a jerk. And and
so I thought it was it was an interesting exercise
(05:39):
to be able to present that in a lodge with
a diverse group of guys and see how the large
part of that commercial is what are we doing with
this next generation? How do we teach boys to be men?
And I think that is you know, masonry, it's it's
four men, but what are we teaching men to do?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
In masonry and this me too. This was the movement
that brought down Harvey Weinstein. He was like the public
enemy number one. He became the face of this back.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
He's got a retrial that just started. So again we
talked about the wave of pulling back where these consequences
have not been permanent. You know, everybody to crying cancel culture.
It was more like lay low for a while. Culture,
although Harvey Weinstein still in jail, just became another way
of fracturing people of like you support kind of this
(06:33):
side of the arguments versus another. And so yeah, that's
kind of with like the culture wars that have been
going on of where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And that's what makes it interesting because freemasonry, is you
also touched on, is like we're supposed to kind of
stay in the middle. As a matter of fact, we're
actually not even supposed to be in the middle. We're
supposed to be on the sidelines where politics and all
the things from the profane world should not be coming
into our lodges. And as you mentioned, you were a
newly raised master mason at Silver Spring Lodge number two
fifteen and Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of the nation's capital.
(07:07):
You're relatively a new dad, right, and here you are
with your first program or presentation that you're going to
give to Lodge. And while most people would expect, oh,
we have a brother Tim, he's you know, only been
doing this for a few years. He's going to get
up and give us first program, probably going to be
on one of the working tools of any of our degrees.
Nothing wrong with any of that. And here you are
(07:27):
tackling this like what did your Lodge brothers think about
or what were they saying to you after you gave
you this program? It went really well within Lodge.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
You know, nob nobody stood up and walked out, So
that's always that's always a benefit, that's a win. Yeah,
we did have a good conversation about it because the main,
you know, thrust of the talk was these are experiences
that have happened to people that I know. This is
a commercial that teaches us how to behave This is
(07:57):
why I would want to apply that to my life.
And here's lessons from our degrees that that I've taken in.
So you know, if you if you have it about
things that I've learned, things that I've experienced, it may
not be what people agree with. But you know, I
can't really argue that, Yes, the friends that I know
have have posted me too. We do have a more
(08:20):
diverse lodge than other lodges that that I've visited, and
I you know, that becomes strength because people are used
to other viewpoints and don't get all up in arms
about it. I've seen similar presentations like this about like
masculinity and masonry, and they're kind of on the on
the other side of the coin, where it's you know,
(08:41):
here's what some of these issues are, here's some of
the problems. And it wasn't that we need to treat
people better. It was that here's society's ills, and this
is what's causing this problem. So, you know, depending on
where you're at, you can get different versions of it.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Just like any guests that comes on our program or
any speaker that I see in a lodge, Like inside
my mind, I have, you know, the standard work and lecture,
our ritual book. In my mind, I kind of take
a highlighter and as soon as the speaker starts or
the guest or the brother starts talking, I'm highlighting to
connect parts of our ritual that I know that we're
instructed or that we're told certain things, the lessons about
(09:18):
being a Freemason, and for this particular topic, I immediately
started thinking of the EA charge, where we're told to
be a good citizen. I think of the obligation, the
part and the fellowcraft degree. When it comes to how
we will treat female family members of brothers, I also
think about, you know, in the third degree, just the
idea of the role of spreading the love of brother lisament,
(09:40):
so to speak, across all people and living in harmony.
Did any of our Masonic ritual or were there any
parts of what we do as Freemasons that influenced your presentation?
We talk about for cardinal virtues, and between the liberal
arts and sciences and the cardinal virtues, those are kind
of two of the presentations that I've made that I
give the most. You know, we talk about the virtues,
(10:04):
and actually even the four cardinal virtues are the less
important ones in terms of how we treat other people.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It's more how we comport ourselves. So the theological virtues,
the faith, hope, and charity, and our degree, but it
really is better translated as love. If you're treating people
with love then you know you're not tack calling people
on the street. Continuing with that theme of the virtues,
I gave a presentation for the Scottish Rite about the
(10:30):
virtues and one of the main questions I've always had
with the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues, you know,
why are we teaching these in lodge? Why are they
a big chunk of the first degree that you get
if we're being virtuous. If our goal is Mason's is
to be virtuous, what does virtuous mean with that? The
(10:53):
idea of and you know, this is kind of jumping
ahead to like the masculinity and manliness part, but if
you are to be a you know, good man, if
you're gonna be a manly man, then you are a
virtuous man. And that's really yeah. I should have saved
this for the end, because that's that's like the key,
but that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
You can find the Craftsman Online podcast on Patreon at
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(11:42):
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Or if you just want access to some of our
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(12:02):
know of one of our Patreon subscriber who never listens
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Jason Lee for doing that. Patreon dot Com Craftsman Online Podcast,
thank you for your continued support. We're talking about the
(12:39):
Me Too movement, Masonry and masculinity with Worshipful Brother Tim Shields,
and with your presentation, I was also thinking of just
Freemasonry in general. I go back to, you know, especially
in America, how we've been tied to the beginning of
the birth of our country. But also Masons at key
points in time have been in leadership or in positions
of authority where they can speak could take actions for others.
(13:01):
And I was thinking of like the women's suffrage movement,
for example, the Civil Rights Act, and they continued, you know,
fight for a quality that is in our nation today,
all the way up to what the Lily Ledbetter Act,
where you know, we said, hey, a woman needs to
be paid just as equally as a man does. And
it's interesting that you know, a brother of a male
(13:22):
fraternity got up and gave this program. I guess one
thing you could look at, thankfully, is that some of
the examples that you share with me in your program,
when you go to click the link for the Gillett
commercial that you referenced earlier, or some of the other
things that were happening in society in twenty seventeen, you
can't find them anymore. They've now been removed. So do
you feel that while you didn't think at the time
(13:46):
your presentation would have this far of an impact, do
you feel that you were able to there's been progress
in what you've talked about.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
That's you know, that's an interesting question. Because if you
look at you know, kind of the progression through society,
you did have a lot of high profile court cases,
some of those, you know, Harvey Weinstein's back on trial,
other people there, you know, charges were dropped or you
(14:18):
know that there it didn't seem like there was as
much accountability. There is still within smaller groups accountability. You know,
I I go to punk and metal shows and there
is a decent amount of accountability for musicians where if
(14:40):
somebody in a band is not acting the way you
would want, then you know, that's when people would would say, oh,
it's cancel culture. But it definitely gets harder for those
musicians to continue going. So in kind of some of
these smaller groups, I think can still see that that's
(15:01):
been solidified because it's been shown that it's I don't
want to say right, but that it is behavior that
a group expects from people and if you deviate from
that then then you know you aren't part of that
social group anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
On a larger scale, you know, like the Times Up movement,
which kind of started more of the push of go
within Hollywood in two thousand and three, they they stopped operating,
so there their funds is kind of dried up and
it petered out. Some of these these bigger structured organizations
I think have kind of faltered, but I do still
(15:43):
see it within within groups of people.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I don't know if for ever, and it's one of
those things where hopefully in my lifetime, you know, we
see the solution that works best for everybody moving forward.
What I'm happy to see is that this is one
of those things that happened where we didn't just talk
about it like other things that happen in our country,
and hopes and prayers were sent to the individuals affected,
and everybody moved on to whatever the next thing was.
(16:07):
That there have been a series of advancements now to
the point that you've talked about is here we are
as modern men, and in Freemason we were pursuing those
ancient mysteries that have been you know, laid out to
us through our Masonic ritual. But somewhere in the middle
there is that classic definition of like this is what
being a man is all about. But a lot of
(16:29):
that definition is tied to our grandfather's era, that that
greatest generation of what being a man was, and there's
been a lot of change between now and then how
did you kind of cover that topic for those guys
that kind of feel like they're being torn between the
classic definition of manhood while wanting to embrace some of
(16:50):
these modern expectations.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
One of the things that Me Too movement provided was
a definition of toxic masculinity, so it's these are behaviors
that are not helpful. A lot of people then took
that to be well, that's what we're talking about with
masculinity is you know, all you know, it should be
okay to protect women, that should be you know, a
(17:13):
man's function, that sort of thing. And it's like, well
that's not that's still not what being a man is
looking at. Then, some of the other examples going through history,
this idea of masculinity and manliness changes, so you know,
in presentations, I don't like having a whole wall of tech.
(17:35):
Sometimes I just have pictures, which is even less helpful.
There's lots of different examples through time of what men
were expected, what was kind of the norm, and so
you had in like the twenties, you know, guys are
wearing corsets and tights, so and you follow that through
(17:55):
you get like the forties, like carry Grant era, and
then and you get James Bond coming in and and
you know, then in the eighties everything is just like
hyper masculinity with with you know, Rambo and Rocky. Besides
this masculinity still less toxic masculinity, but you get this
(18:16):
idea of like bachoess and and berrillity.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
It's funny you mentioned that, do you watch the Amazon
show Reacher at all?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I watched the first I read an interview with Lee
Child that that I thought was a good interview. So
I saw the movies with Tom Cruise and Burner Herzog
was the villain one of them.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But I can't remember the name of the actor who
plays Reacher now, and I'm sure that our listener is
yelling it's this guy. I'm like, he's just this big,
larger than life dude. I mean he looks like in
the books.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Yeah, that's that. That was a controversy of casting Tom Cruise,
who you know this tall Yeah, they went from Mighty
Mouse to a guy that looks like you'd be a
starting tackle or offensive lineman on a pro team.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
But it's funny we talked about that masculinity part because
when I talk about the show with like coworkers or
friends and they're like, oh, you watch this. I'm like, yeah,
you know, it's kind of silly. It's definitely one of
those like made for TV series that you can tell
came from like a book and then a movie. But
here's the interesting thing. It's like the Arnold Swarzenegger Sylvester Stallone,
you know, tough guy action heroes that we would remember
(19:21):
seeing in those cheesy, campy eighties nineties movies, but he
doesn't say the things that those guys would have said.
And it's always the female love interest in that series
that makes the first move, which, as guys I can
tell you, we know that is completely fictional. But it
is interesting to see how this movement right, people are
(19:43):
becoming aware of it. So I'm happy to see some
bit of progress that I don't know, maybe you'll feel
this way too, that we're getting to a healthier definition
of what a man is like. You can still be
this muscular or not guy. You can still do these
quote unquote traditional or stereotypical mainly roles, but it's okay
(20:04):
if you're sensitive or if you show compassion. That's not
a sign of weakness anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Right, And that's that's kind of the big issue with
toxic masculinity is that showing emotion or weakness is you know,
a feminine trait and to be shunned. And you know,
especially with media now like movies and TV shows, you
(20:29):
do get moving slowly, but stronger women or female characters
or people of color and roles, and you know, as usual,
you get both sides of that pendulum of you know, oh,
these companies are going woke, but you know, if you
look around, you know you're going to get a mix
of people in places, so it is more representative of society.
(20:52):
And yeah, it's it doesn't matter in terms of like
a story or a movie. You know, think about kind
of what the character's saying, are doing, and you know,
it doesn't necessarily have to be a man doing it.
It could be anybody doing it. It could be the
female character who's the hero. And you know, having that
(21:18):
spread out, you know, whereas in Rambo two three, actually
I might you know, it might still be more of
the the hot shots where there actually is a love interest.
I don't know if there's as much of a love
interest in Rambo. Oh yeah, yeah, Charlie Sheen's Yeah. In
(21:40):
culture that you know, like you and I grew up
consuming it was you know, the guy's taking charge and
doing everything and he gets the girl at the end.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Of course. I know worship for brother Tim Shields. I've
sat in lodge with him at his lodge, Silver Spring
and Lodge number two fifteen in Silver Spring, Maryland. I
found you in this program. As I mentioned, you know,
before we started recording. I've seen you give other programs
in your lodge. They're usually more on esoteric topics, but
I found this would be pretty fascinating. Thanks for our
friend Robert Johnson with the Winds Came You podcast. He
(22:10):
created the Speakers Bureau. So long story short, if you
would like to have Tim come to your lodge and
speak about this or any of his other topics, look
in the notes for this episode. We'll make sure that
you can find that link to have that connection and
maybe book them. My other hope is that anyone who's
listened to at least five minutes of any of our
podcast episodes here on Craftsmen Online, they've heard that men
(22:30):
coming into our lodges are wanting to join the Ancient
and gentle craft or freemasonry. They're all being pulled in
for different reasons, but then they kind of have that
common mindset once they become a Mason, because they understand
the benefits of what we provide not only to our
lives and personal development, but our families and our lodges
and our communities. My question for you, brother, is, how
(22:52):
are you concerned now as we look back on the
program that you delivered about how freemasonryes and just free
since in general as a male fraternity, how are we
going to be viewed by future generations? It is an
interesting question.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And and you know there's there's two parts of that
that I've always kind of found interesting. One. You know,
we host blood drives in uh in our lodge, and
it's in our our social hall where we have our
wall of past master's portraits, and and so you know,
people at the blood drive, because you know, we're usually there,
(23:30):
a bunch of us will give blood, but you kind
of see people looking at them and it's like, you know,
just throw after a row of old white guys.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was I was gonna say that's a Unfortunately, that's
the picture that's common in a lot of our Maisanta calls.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Right, and and I am glad that we do have
a diverse lineup of partial masters now once once I
finish editing their portraits so we can print them. But
but you know, it is kind of that's still that
mentality of from your grandfather or father's generation with the
idea of being a gentleman, of being a man, and
(24:05):
you know, it's still kind of I think that same
idea that most people that most people have. But on
the flip side as well, what I do mention of
people is, you know, I'm the past president of the
Maryland Masonic Research Society as well, which is a no,
it's not affiliated with any Grand Lodge and as such
(24:25):
it deals with Masons of all walks. So we there's
co Masons, there's women Masons in this group, and you
know I've given this presentation of that group as well,
so there are outlets for women who want to be Masons.
And again circles back to kind of one of the
big questions about masculinity and Freemasonry of if Blue Lodge,
(24:50):
United Grand Lodge Bengland affiliated Masonry is remaining this fraternity,
like what as men are we talking about that?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
You know, we don't want women around. The Craftsman Online
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(26:01):
I'm a Freemason, and they look at you like you're
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they know about the Freemasons that were there as the
founding fathers. Or they have that picture of a Freemason
with a top hat and a top hat and a
walking cane and a long coat and you know, a
fancy mustache and somebody that I'm picturing would be from
(26:25):
like the you know, late nineteenth early twentieth century kind
of guy. Sadly they don't picture people our age. They
may think of an older family member, usually as you mentioned,
like kind of around the grandfather age, like oh yeah,
my grandfather or an uncle or something, and they look
at somebody like me and they're like, why why are
you doing this? Like what are you getting out of this?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
And to that point, it's it's these discussions because as
I mentioned earlier, like freemasonry has been around since essentially
the beginning of time, right, and we've been through all
of these changes in society and in life, and somewhere
behind that was kind of this quiet group of men
that were just doing the thing, you know, all of
the things in the background. So I imagine this topic
(27:07):
isn't going to be the first time it's ever been discussed,
at least in this forum. But I'm sure that there's
a worshipful master or maybe a brother that would like
to stand up and have an open discussion in their lodge,
maybe a program on this same subject. What advice do
you have for them so that that evening produces a
positive outcome.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
A big part of it is going to be no, no,
your audience. Right, So, if if you're in a lodge
in a more conservative area. I mean chance, Sorry, you're
not going to go this route with your with your presentation.
But so it's it's kind of just rhetoric, right, It's
it's what do you want to tell people? And how
are you going to tell them? We've got the little
(27:49):
arts and sciences for that, but it's it's you know,
at least try to make it personal and you know
how it applies to you. If people disagree with it.
You know, the benefit masonry is that we get people
from everywhere in different walk lives. So look into some
of those strengths. But also you know, understand that your
point of view isn't necessarily the only one too.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah. It's interesting you say that because I start thinking,
So you had mentioned your son when you did this presentation,
was like what two two three years old?
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Two?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, So now he's nine seven eight nine eight yeah, eight, okay, okay,
so not having that conversation yet about girls at least
a big conversation now now, No, you're still to be
nice to everybody, don't pull hair, you know, keep your
finger out of your nose kind of conversation.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Yeah, he's gotten better about the No.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No, I used to think that was going to be
my son's full time job. He always had his finger
up there. But I think, I think about this with
my son, and you know, he's eighteen years old, and
I feel like young men now are on a delayed
entry program into you know, exploring girls, right or exploring romance.
I just I find myself catching myself when I speak
(29:03):
about these things, because it's not just one thing anymore.
It could be many things, right when he does ask
for advice in his own way, because each generation handles
things a little bit differently. Now, sometimes it's something veiled
through a text message, or you know, we actually have
a face to face and make sure that there's nobody around.
I immediately think back to the advice that my dad
would have given me and how awkward those moments were,
(29:26):
and how can I make this less awkward for him?
But I also find myself catching it and saying, well,
that's not really appropriate anymore. I mean, there's certain traditions
where you know, a man should offer I use the
word a man should offer to pay for dinner, a
man should offer to open doors. But don't be offended
if the young lady that you're with or the other
(29:46):
person that you're with does these things, Like I think
people still respect some of the traditions that are involved,
but it's not something that has to be there all
the time, like out on display. And maybe that's part
of like a healthy byproduct that could come from some
of these discussions in lodges, is other men, other fathers,
(30:06):
like just talking about geez, what's it like these days?
You know, how do you have these conversations? That's super
helpful for me.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
A lot of those conversations generally just happen after lodge.
You know, there was a quote in there of it's
one thing for the women to put their foot down
and say no, this is unacceptable, but other men need
to be the one correcting each other too, you know. Again,
that's that's that whispering good council.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Thanks again to my guest this week, worship of Brother
Tim Shields. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you
follow the Craftsman Online podcast on Spotify or hit that
subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. That's how you're going to
get next week's episode without really having to think about it.
I'm right, worshipel brother Michael arsay, this is the best
way to start the week, and I look forward to
doing it again next time. Until then, but peace and
(30:57):
harmony prevail.
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