May 19, 2025 • 33 mins
This is the final episode in our three-part series on Masonic Development with WB Will Rothery. Today, we’re diving into Leadership, Service and Legacy. Find out how living by our Masonic Values is the driving force that promotes Freemasonry for future generations.
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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 (00:32):
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 Arsa. Over the past
couple of weeks we've had Worshipful Brother Will rothreyon and
we've discussed now what do you do. You're a newly
raised Master Mason and you're looking to figure out how
to contribute to your lodge, to the officer line, even
(00:55):
to kind of start charting a path for yourself. This
week we'll be focusing on leadership, service and legacy. Our
brother from British Columbia, that's Canada, a worshipful Brother Will Rothrey.
Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Thank you for having me. It's been an amazing ride
so far and I'm excited for this episode.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This is for our newly raised Master Mason, so bang,
you got that obligation. Welcome to the fraternity. You're trying
to figure out what that heremic legend is all about.
And then somebody comes to you and says, hey, I'd
like for you to get into the officer line here
at the lodge. So, looking back on that moment, at
least on the leadership angle, what was the first chair
(01:36):
or office that you held in your lodge and what
was the process like of getting into that chair?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Will So my first role that I took on was
the junior deacon chair. Just so happened to there was
a little gap there. I slipped my way in. I
was ready to go soon after. I think it was
like three four months after I got my Master Mason degree,
and I just went all in and just care caried
on from there. But yeah, I was lucky enough to
(02:04):
hop on in at that point in time and to
you know, get my seat in the chair and get
the ball rolling.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Now, looking back, that's kind of a jump to get
started in as a newly obligated master Mason, because for one,
you have a speaking part, and two you have a
pretty important responsibility sitting by that door.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Unfortunately I don't actually because in Canada we actually don't
do that. So we actually have an inner guard and
we have a junior deacon.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Is junior deacon typically the place where new brothers start
in your lodge or in your jurisdiction.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I guess it really depends on the lodge. My lodge,
we probably haven't had any stewarts for a while, unfortunately,
but I know when I first joined the lodge we
did have a few guys who were stewarts, and a
couple of years after I joined we had stewarts, but
they were really just brethren who would just fill in
on the roll. There wasn't necessarily anybody who like really
(02:58):
sat in the chair. Well, we definitely have had people
like start at stewart then go to either we'll say
enter guard or chaplain or a lot of the times
they just go right into junior deacon. It's a good
place to start, don't get me wrong. Like starting at
the Stewart's stare is good.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And this conversation also speaks to kind of the underbelly
that's exposed in Freemasonry right now with the lodges. And
it's very typical to go to a lodge and just
see the apron and the jewel of the stewart sitting
in the chair, but no brother occupying the seat because
he's not there that night, or the lodge just simply
doesn't have them. There's just somebody whose name is on
there for the paper that goes to the Grand Lodge.
(03:40):
What this means to the newly raised master Mason isn't
the fact that, oh my gosh, you don't have any
brothers that are at your lodge. You don't have people
for this. It's just that our lodges are kind of
evolving as the membership is happening. So while we talk
about leadership, and I'm not saying, hey, you become a
master Mason and you should instantly like get into the
officer line of your lodge, I am saying this that
(04:03):
if you become a mastermation, you should start to become
actively involved with some of the functions of your lodge
and support it as best you can, because in most
jurisdictions you've been able to sit in there and attend
the meetings so you're familiar with what the lodge is doing,
or you're visited enough or you know enough of the brothers.
We've had this discussion on I think on the podcast
(04:23):
so many times about the membership issue that going around
and the joiners and people just want to stay home
and watch Netflix instead of coming to lodge. And my
point on this is is that you were selected by
a group of men who wanted you to be active
and involved in the lodge, not just a quote unquote member.
So some of this leadership is going to come in
(04:45):
different forms. It could be the worshipful Master comes up
to you seconds after getting your degree and says, hey,
I'd love for you to come join the line and
be a steward. That's what happened in my case. It
also may come down from somebody saying, hey, we need
help in the kitchen meals, or we need help at
this community event that we do, or there's a committee,
or there's something your professional trade perhaps maybe you're a
(05:09):
craft's an actual real operative craftsman, and they're like, we
can use some help around some of the repairs with
the lodge building. Or you're a business professional or a
lawyer or this or that, and how can you contribute
to what we're doing together. So the opportunity to lead
or be of service to your lodge, it's going to
come in many different forms, which also kind of lends
(05:30):
to the term servant leadership, which is what I think
Freemasonry is a great example of. We have one brother
who gets elected every year, sits in the East for
a term. Sometimes it's a year, sometimes it's two, and
he's just a servant of the East for that lodge,
serving his brothers. What comes to your mind when you
(05:52):
hear servant leadership and how we run our meetings.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Or our lodges, Everything that we do is rooted around
servant leadership. I mean, I know we're teaching leadership skills,
but even more so than that, we're really we are
since the very beginning, Like when you're developing your skills,
going through the different chairs, you're learning these abilities, you're
slowly learning all these different things that are building up
(06:18):
to you understanding servant leadership, and that's really serving your lodge,
that's serving your brethren, that's serving people in your everyday life,
your friends, your family, and really Masonry helps open that gap,
open that relationship for serving people and being a leader
at the same time, because in Masonry, we're not just
(06:40):
leading one another. We're leading each other as a group,
we're leading one another as individuals, as men, and we're
helping each other build each other up and on top
of that. The fact that it's the servant part is
so it's so important to understand that we are serving
each each other well, leading each other where it's not
(07:03):
just there's not too many cooks in the kitchen where
we're all cooks and we're learning how to cook together
and how to work together, and how to make the
best opportunity that we can, not only for ourselves but
for other peoples well. Serving each other, that's the most
important thing. Like, if you ever find yourself going through
the line and you end up getting all the way
(07:24):
up to master of the lodge, you become the worst
full master. You are not the sole leader at the
end of the day. You are, but you're serving your lodge.
You're serving your brethren. At no point in time should
you ever get fatalitarian or like start ordering people around
(07:45):
or telling people what to do. We're serving the lodge.
You're serving your brethren. So when you're leading, you also
have to keep that in mind. This is an organization
that all of us are a part of, and we're
all making it a better experience because of how we're
leading each other and how we're leading the lodge.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now, I know, I just got off of a huge
rant about why you should be active and engaged in
part of your lodge. And for some guys who are like, look,
I just don't have the time. My work is crazy.
It's very common, especially with the man in their thirties
going back to school for more education or continuing education
or starting a family. They've got just a lot happening.
(08:25):
So the idea of taking on additional responsibilities for this
volunteer organization that they thought that we're going to be
a part of that can be tough. I want to
talk about how lodges help develop leadership skills with their
members outside of hey, you're a lodge officer or you're
working on this committee. I think some of this comes
in how we do ritual and how the idea of
(08:49):
the beehive, the harmony of us all working together, those
soft skills that we're seeking, being able to communicate, mentorship
that's there, thinking, the thought process, through decision making. Where
are some places where you've seen or maybe you've benefited
from getting these skills because you go to lodge and
you're active and you participate.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I think a perfect example of that would be my
job in particular. I'm a wood finisher, which not a
whole lot of people probably know what that is. But
I basically just paint wood, kiss kitchens, cabinetry, so on
and so forth. And I've been in charge of my
department for quite a many years of about five six
years or something like that, but I've been at my
job on and off for like fifteen years. I left
(09:30):
a couple of years ago, came back for a little while,
and during that time, I've had different groups of people.
You're dealing with different people. They have completely different attitudes,
they have completely different ways of looking at things, so
on and so forth. So you have to find a
way to lead them in a way. Because I am
I'm head of my department. So when I have people
under me, I've had up to three different people under
(09:52):
me at one time. Right now, I only have one
guy under me, and him and I are really close.
I kind of have to put it aside, like our
friendships times, and lead him and make sure that he
knows what he's doing and how he's supposed to do
certain things. And the way that we negotiate with people,
the way that we communicate with people. It's very important
(10:13):
that we develop these skills. And masonry is a perfect
example of while you're going through the degrees or just well,
you're just being a brother and you're being around these
guys and you're seeing these examples of leadership and these
examples of servitude where we're helping each other out, and
you start to understand. One of the biggest lessons that
(10:33):
I've learned in the last couple of years is one
of my mentors told me that you have to treat
people differently. You cannot treat everybody the exact same. You
have to adjust the way that you talk to certain people,
and you have to understand that there's a specific way
of speaking to people. And that goes hand in hand
with leadership, whether or not it's at your work or
(10:56):
outside of work, maybe you're putting a foundation together, or
you're doing a fundraiser or you know, you're doing a
cupcake sale or something like that. Like someone has to
be in charge of that stuff, someone has to take lead,
someone has to give people structure and understanding about what's
going on. You can't just have a bunch of people
in the room like, oh, well, what's what's happening next,
(11:16):
So you kind of you kind of need to strike
up that understanding of leadership and lead, and it doesn't
mean that you have to tell people what to do
necessarily or tell people how to do it, as much
as you're explaining it to them in a way that
it's not you're not enforcing your will on them. You're
not you know, you're not telling them how to do it.
(11:39):
You're explaining it, or you know you're you're doing it
in a way that it's respectful, You're doing it in
a way that it's it's easy for you guys to
get along during the process.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I love that you're touching on the etiquette point because
unless you go to the military or some sort of
finishing academy like that and you're a man, you're not
learning how to tie a tip or, as you correctly
point out, how to speak to people address them the
politenesses that come with things you kind of lean on
a father figure or a close family friend or loved
(12:12):
one or whoever kind of filled in that role to
be the mentor early on in life, simple things like
teaching you how to shave, you know, how to walk
up and shake another man's hand, you know, like the
little things that you need later on as an adult.
And then you get to that adult stage and you're
still like, man, I've learned how to act quote unquote
professionally because I see how people interact at work and
(12:34):
I'm just kind of emulating or copying what I see.
But then you come into a Masonic lodge and you
have just just wide variety of guys. You have brothers
from another generation. They could be as old as your grandfather.
You have men that are younger than you, all different
walks of life, and you're interacting with them and you're
learning through those interactions. So I wanted to down I
(12:57):
jotted down five things and I wanted to kind of
go through them to see if you've gone through this
and what leadership trait or skill this connects with as
a freemason. Right, So example one, organizing a degree.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh oh man ough, Well, I can tell you right
now it's not easy. It's not easy necessarily to put
a degree together. And I'll say that in the sense
that everybody's not always on the same page, and you
have to make sure that everybody is on the same page,
and you have to make sure that everybody's willing to
(13:35):
be on the same page. So one of the things
that I would say is I've had difficulties in the
past with getting the guys together every week for a
practice with a degree coming up. It's not always easy.
And at the same time, it's like, you can't get
upset with people. You can't get frustrated about it. I
mean you can, but it's probably not going to help
(13:56):
because at the end of the day, where all this
we don't we're not being paid to be here. Nobody
is being paid to be here. So at the end
of the day, this is all voluntary, and you have
to treat people with respect when it's voluntary. You can't
get upset with people when they don't come to the practice.
I mean, if you try to do three four practices
(14:18):
in a row and one of the senior deacon isn't
showing up for every practice, well you have a problem.
Your degree is not going to happen if he's not
prepared and ready to go. So you got to be
really careful about how you're handling those situations. You have
to be very open and willing to work with the guys.
You have to be able to discuss times dates that
(14:41):
work with them, and every week it might change and
sometimes you have to make adjustments. You have to make
slight changes and you might be messaging ten different guys
or more to get ready for a degree. Even more
so than that, I put together a Master Mason degree
last year and at our outdoor lodge and man, there
(15:02):
was like fifteen components all together, and I put together
every single one of them. And that's calling people, phoning,
messaging people, emailing people constantly every day throughout the week,
trying to get it all together, getting everything figured out.
And you know, these are things that you don't really
think about when you're coming up, when you're going through
(15:25):
the degrees, when you're coming up through the lodge, it's
just like, oh, yeah, this is this is the next step.
Oh and this is what happens. And then you get
to master Mace or you get to become a Master
of the lodge, and it's much different.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I think the organizing a degree part is really
what puts you to the test. You run through it,
as you said, like you're trying to herd twelve and
you know, depends on the jurisdiction, it could be twelve
to fifteen people that are part of this cast, and
you know, conductors, people that are handling the various parts
your organization skills better be top notched, because if you
make one mismove, everyone on the team is going to
(15:58):
let you know, and it's like this whole house of
cards could come crumbling down, and really what you're working for,
as you pointed out, like you're trying to keep the
team's focus on, Hey, we want to put together the
best possible degree. Let's make sure we're there. So you're
a little bit of a cheerleader too, Like that's a
tough one. You kind of touched on the second thing
I was going to ask you about, which is emailing members,
which is a different conversation than the text messages that
(16:20):
we have together, where you know, when I send emails
for work, I often reread them several times, especially depending
on the department head level of who I'm communicating with.
I'm not just checking for spelling ears. I want to
make sure that the point that I'm trying to make
is clear that it's professional, it's respectful, and they understand
what I need from them so that I can finish
(16:41):
a task or get their input for a project. Same
thing when it comes to talking with brothers. So here's
the third example I was going to give you I
tease this one before we started recording, so you might
have had a little time to think about it. Introducing
guests at the lodge.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
At the very least, you got to go around and
maybe you might end up talking to a couple guys
you don't recognize and asking them, Hey, is this your
first time coming to the lodge. That's the one thing
first off, right off the bat, that you should constantly
every single time that you're coming to lodge and you're
having a regular meeting or an emergent meeting, if you
don't recognize the guy, go up and ask him. Anyways.
I know, at the end of the day, it's you know,
(17:16):
I don't care if someone calls me a worstful brother
or not. I attain the rank. Sure, But there are
some guys who worked really, really hard to be very
worsfuls or right worstfuls, and they want that they want
to be addressed as.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
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(17:53):
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(18:13):
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(18:36):
our viewers that are watching the live stream of this
podcast recording for a newly obligated Master Mason, I'm going
to show you the most important working tool that you
can buy for yourself. There's a pen. We don't carry
ink pens anymore. Treat yourself, buy a nice pen. Put
that in your breast pocket of your suit on the inside.
(18:57):
You'll think me later when you have to go to
a lodge and and something as simple as signing the
book to that you visited the lodge. If you are
asked to sit as senior deacon or whatever the chair is,
and the jurisdiction you're in that handles the introductions that
night for the worshipful master. You can write people's name.
This tool. These things that are like a dollar in
some instances life savers for Mason. So make sure to
(19:20):
carry one. Okay, I've got two more examples of leadership
opportunities and skills that you get, those soft skills that
were so craving for in life. Here's example number four,
saying the prayer at dinner.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Oh wow, people who have never done toasts before can
literally pull that one out of nowhere. You can. You
can go and look some up. You can go find them,
especially just toasts in general. Just learning how to do toast.
For one of the first things that I did is
a Mason, Like as soon as I you know, you
get your EA. A lot of the times most lodges
(19:55):
will have you kind of give a little a little
toast at the end of it, or kind of your
words of wisdom at the end of getting the degree
or whatever. But those first couple of times that you're
going to the repass and you're you know, you have
to do these toasts. A really good one to start
with would be grace. Obviously, we're we're all there because
(20:17):
we're all, you know, we all believe in a higher power.
We all believe in you know, the Grand architect, the
great architects, so on and so forth, and so it is.
I think it's a really good thing that we implement
that in right right before we even eat, before we
discuss eating. It's the one of the first things that
we do. And I think it is it's an important
(20:38):
part of dinner, of getting together, of creating that harmony
in the room right before we all sit down and eat.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I remember, as you know, an Ea, you gave the
example at dinner and they're like, brother ARSI can you
lead us in the prayer for tonight? And I got
up and I'm like, I've never done this before, Like
I don't even know what to say, like ugh. And
thankfully one of the older brothers reached into his wallet
and handed me a little piece of paper and I
(21:07):
opened it up and there was a prayer that was
printed on there, and I just read the prayer and
I thanked him and I gave it back to him
and he said, here's a tip, always have a prayer
in your wallet. Well, it's twenty twenty five. I don't
even carry a wallet anymore. But I can tell you
on my cell phone. I have prayers because there are
times when they need a chaplain for the night and
(21:27):
you get to go to the altar and that's a
really important thing to say, that prayer, and you don't
want to be sitting there going. Uh So, a simple
thing to have ahead of time. Okay, last leadership example
that sometimes gets overlooked as a master mason, and I
can't wait. I got to make sure I cross this
up so I can look at your face when I
say this. Cleaning up after dinners.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It's a it's necessary, It's absolutely necessary. I can't count
how many times, even as master of the lodge, have
come out of the lodge finished cleaning the lodge up
and then go out and then start cleaning up the
table and stuff. Everybody should be participating in that, because
I think it's a good habit to keep. First of all.
The other thing is, man, it's depressing when you go
(22:09):
to leave lodge and everything's still on the table and
everything's still stacked up, and nobody's made any effort. It's
just like everybody's so so worked up about Oh I
got to go home. I got to you know, I
got it all, lodge is done, we can get going now,
and it's like, come on, I'm like, take a few seconds,
like really, at the end of lodge, go clean up
a little bit, and then it's not so much of
(22:31):
a cleanup task for the next guy.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And even as a newly raised master mason. And that's
the whole point for this podcast episode. I'm sure you're
tuning in and saying, what does cleaning up after a
lodge dinners have anything to do with lodge leadership or
service or legacy, And I'm like, dude, you'd be surprised.
It's the little things I always tell people when I
offer a help and they're like, oh, no, you don't
have to help them, Like no, no, no, Once a steward,
(22:53):
always a steward, Like where can I help? You wouldn't
go to a friend's house and make a mess and
just get up and walk away from from it. You
really shouldn't kind of carry that behavior into your own loge.
God forbid, if you actually go visit another lodge, it
just looks bad. It reflects poorly on you, and it's
kind of like people look at you like, well, they
must think that that behavior is okay. Where they're from.
(23:14):
It's like no, no, no, no, don't let that happen. Do
want to get into the service part of what's available,
because hey, I've got my Master Mason degree. Now I
can go join all these other concordant bodies. I can
get involved with all of these things, so from local
breakfast fundraisers to coat and toy drives that we do
in the winter, to some of the larger nonprofit entities
(23:38):
that exist around senior healthcare needs or just taking care
of elderly folks in the community. Freemasonry, if you love charity,
they've got plenty of service organizations that you can be
a part of. When it comes to that, is there
an example of a brother or a story that you're
aware of where you were Like, man, I'm really proud
(24:00):
to know that this person was a Freemason and they
did this and they were either part of my lodge
or part of my jurisdiction. And I was just like,
so when I think of charity, relief and truth, like
this person took that to the next level.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I have two examples, and I will try to keep
them as brief as possible. So the first one that
I'm going to touch on is a lodge in my district.
It's called Concor Lodge. Amazing group of guys. I actually
have a really good relationship with a large chunk of
their lodge. I'd probably say like sixty or seventy percent
of our lodge I have good relationships with. But the
(24:35):
last couple of years here, I think like two years
ago or so, they actually became part of an initiative
in their city that's called one hundred Good Men or
something like that. Someone along those lines are a hundred
Men or something something like that. And what it is
is all these different businesses and organizations get together I
(24:58):
think about I think they they meet every quarter, so
four times a year they get together and they meet,
and every time they meet, they all pitch in, like
I think it's a hundred and they have a number
of members. It's not just one hundred people. It's actually
like one hundred groups. And there's like two to three
people in every group, and so every I don't remember
(25:20):
if it's every group or every person brings one hundred dollars,
but I'm pretty sure it's every group. So they end
up like basically accumulating like a couple thousand dollars at
every one of these meetings, and then they sit down
and they go through a list of charities that they
want to donate to, and they all vote on wh's
charity to donate to, and whatever gets the most amount
of votes, that's what they donate the charity to at
(25:42):
that meeting. When I first, like, when I first heard
about them talking about that stuff, that is phenomenal. That's
not something that you find very often. And the crazy
thing is like, yeah, they're doing it as a lodge,
but at the same time, it's the guys who are
going out of their way. Those two three guys that
are going to those meetings, they're going out of their
(26:02):
way to prepare themselves for those meetings and bringing all
that information back to the lodge. That's incredible. That's amazing.
The fact that they are able to be a part
of something like that, it's great. It shows the charity
and the relief at best part in freemasonry, and it's
showing us how to do those things. The other I
(26:25):
wouldn't say it's specifically one brother. There is one brother
who definitely took a little bit more lead on it,
but my lodge kind of helped out and what it
was was about two years ago or so, we acquired
a brother, a right worshipl brother from Saskatchewan who was
a past district deputy grand Master. And he was just
(26:47):
a phenomenal guy and he just everywhere he went he
always made friends. Everyone loved him. He came and moved
here to b C and he actually moved to my town.
After a little while of him being here, he ended
up suffering from a severe stroke and he's never been
the same since then. His speech is a little bit
(27:09):
muffled at times, like he's just he's not always on
the ball. He has really hard time with his mobility.
He basically needs a walker or a cane to get around,
and even at that, he has a really hard time
getting in and out of cars. When this all happened,
he didn't really have a whole lot of money. The
closest family he has is I think he has a
daughter down like three hours from here. What we started
(27:33):
doing is one of the guys specifically started going through
this process of getting him the care that he needed
in the home that he was at, and so for
a while there he wasn't getting any extra services or
anything like that done to try to help figure that
out and as a lodge to be able to pay
(27:53):
those bills for that brother to be able to help
them out in a time of need where he needs
some extra help and he's slowly getting better and he's
getting to a point where he can take over himself.
And I think they're only going in bi weekly for
cleaning and stuff now, But those types of stories right there,
that's why we're Mason's. That's why we get taught these
lessons about charity and relief is because one of these
(28:16):
days you don't know when that's going to be you.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We've talked a lot about on our last episode here
closing out the Masonic Leadership service in Legacy part. We're
going to get to Legacy in a second, but just
to kind of catch our listener up, so you're a
newly raised master Mason, we've talked about some of the
opportunities for soft skills to exist. If you look looking
for leadership skills, sure there's the officer line, but if
you're like, eh, there's other ways that you can help.
(29:06):
Even cleaning up after dinner, a simple thing like that.
Maybe some best practices to think about carrying a pan
around and your jack of pocket isn't going to hurt.
Knowing a prayer always a good idea, and introducing yourself
and others that come to visit your lodge. We've talked
about being able to step up and fill in in
other parts of your lodge that there's a need for things.
(29:27):
We'll just gave some fantastic examples about how we come
together as a craft to serve others. So I want
to close it out with this last point, kind of
the legacy. And I know you're like, whoa, whoa, My
Masonic story just began. I'm not ready to start getting
into legacy mode here. But you can. And it's a
simple step that you can start as early as today.
You can become a mentor and pass that knowledge onto
(29:50):
the next guy. And I know that kind of sounds
like a tall task, right because you're like, dude, I
just got raised. What do I know? Well? Will, what
does this guy know? How can he be a mentor
to the next brother.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Once you have the three degrees, you can go and
learn pretty much whatever. You can go and read any
type of literature, and so that gives you this whole
other aspect of freemasonry, and you can pass that on
to other brethren who are coming up, Like you might
not even be that much further along. If you just
became a master Mason. You have a little bit of
an understanding of the three degrees and the Hiamic legend
(30:26):
and all that other stuff. And there's a brother who's
coming up who's maybe just got his EA degree and
he doesn't quite understand, you know, what it was about
the first degree, and you might be able to give
him some sort of insight. You might be able to
pass on some a bit of knowledge to him, a
bit of more understanding, so that he can kind of
grasp what he went through a little bit better. Like
(30:48):
right now. Perfect example is I'm actually I'm dealing with
a candidate right now, and I'm mentoring a candidate, and man,
I feel like I'm cheating with him because he's just
flying through everybody. He's twenty six years old, and he says,
got such a mind, it's so quick, so fast. I've
met with him twice now and he's ready for his
proove up now, and so he's proven up this Monday.
(31:11):
And the amount of things that we can add to
each other's Masonic experiences, that's really what makes this a
way better experience is helping your fellow brother a bit
more an understanding. You know, it's the same thing with
like the allegory. We don't talk about it very much,
but if you can sit down with a brother who
(31:33):
just got his EA degree and he doesn't fully understand
the allegory of that degree, you can help start breaking
down some of those barriers. Or even you know, you
just got his Fellowcraft degree, maybe he didn't understand the
Middle Chamber lecture and you kind of have a bit
better of an understanding about it. Talk explain it, Explain
the symbology of it, explain the allegory behind it, and
(31:56):
you know, those those are great aspects to kind of
get into. You don't have to be really far along
to learn a little bit extra or to teach the
guy that's you know, coming up as well. If we're
not here building each other up, then how are we
getting built up? And especially when you're talking about legacy,
like looking at your Masonic career and figuring out like
(32:19):
what you want to do, Like your first year of
being a master Mason, you might not even know where
you're going to go to at the end of it,
but you have some awesome guys in your lodge that
have been there to give you information, give you knowledge,
really help you to understand. You know, what the degrees
are all about, what kind of lessons are being taught.
Those are all things that any level of Mason can
(32:39):
teach another level of Mason. Why we're here, why we're
doing this, is to improve ourselves and help improve others.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Thanks agetting to my brother and friend, Worshipful Will Rothrie
for his help of this three part series.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Now what.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I hope it has provided some lights to newly raised
master Mason's. If you've enjoyed The Crafts an online podcast,
you can do us a favor. Just share it with
one person, one brother you know, in your lodge or
your area. You can do it in person or promote
this on social media. We thank you in advance for
helping us connect with those seeking that additional light. I'm right,
Worshipful Brother Michael Arsay. I always enjoy our time together. Hey,
(33:18):
it's the best way to start Monday in my opinion,
I look forward to seeing you next week. Until then,
that peace and harmony prevailed
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 (00:32):
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 Arsa. Over the past
couple of weeks we've had Worshipful Brother Will rothreyon and
we've discussed now what do you do. You're a newly
raised Master Mason and you're looking to figure out how
to contribute to your lodge, to the officer line, even
(00:55):
to kind of start charting a path for yourself. This
week we'll be focusing on leadership, service and legacy. Our
brother from British Columbia, that's Canada, a worshipful Brother Will Rothrey.
Welcome back to the Craftsman Online Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Thank you for having me. It's been an amazing ride
so far and I'm excited for this episode.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
This is for our newly raised Master Mason, so bang,
you got that obligation. Welcome to the fraternity. You're trying
to figure out what that heremic legend is all about.
And then somebody comes to you and says, hey, I'd
like for you to get into the officer line here
at the lodge. So, looking back on that moment, at
least on the leadership angle, what was the first chair
(01:36):
or office that you held in your lodge and what
was the process like of getting into that chair?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Will So my first role that I took on was
the junior deacon chair. Just so happened to there was
a little gap there. I slipped my way in. I
was ready to go soon after. I think it was
like three four months after I got my Master Mason degree,
and I just went all in and just care caried
on from there. But yeah, I was lucky enough to
(02:04):
hop on in at that point in time and to
you know, get my seat in the chair and get
the ball rolling.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Now, looking back, that's kind of a jump to get
started in as a newly obligated master Mason, because for one,
you have a speaking part, and two you have a
pretty important responsibility sitting by that door.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Unfortunately I don't actually because in Canada we actually don't
do that. So we actually have an inner guard and
we have a junior deacon.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Is junior deacon typically the place where new brothers start
in your lodge or in your jurisdiction.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I guess it really depends on the lodge. My lodge,
we probably haven't had any stewarts for a while, unfortunately,
but I know when I first joined the lodge we
did have a few guys who were stewarts, and a
couple of years after I joined we had stewarts, but
they were really just brethren who would just fill in
on the roll. There wasn't necessarily anybody who like really
(02:58):
sat in the chair. Well, we definitely have had people
like start at stewart then go to either we'll say
enter guard or chaplain or a lot of the times
they just go right into junior deacon. It's a good
place to start, don't get me wrong. Like starting at
the Stewart's stare is good.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And this conversation also speaks to kind of the underbelly
that's exposed in Freemasonry right now with the lodges. And
it's very typical to go to a lodge and just
see the apron and the jewel of the stewart sitting
in the chair, but no brother occupying the seat because
he's not there that night, or the lodge just simply
doesn't have them. There's just somebody whose name is on
there for the paper that goes to the Grand Lodge.
(03:40):
What this means to the newly raised master Mason isn't
the fact that, oh my gosh, you don't have any
brothers that are at your lodge. You don't have people
for this. It's just that our lodges are kind of
evolving as the membership is happening. So while we talk
about leadership, and I'm not saying, hey, you become a
master Mason and you should instantly like get into the
officer line of your lodge, I am saying this that
(04:03):
if you become a mastermation, you should start to become
actively involved with some of the functions of your lodge
and support it as best you can, because in most
jurisdictions you've been able to sit in there and attend
the meetings so you're familiar with what the lodge is doing,
or you're visited enough or you know enough of the brothers.
We've had this discussion on I think on the podcast
(04:23):
so many times about the membership issue that going around
and the joiners and people just want to stay home
and watch Netflix instead of coming to lodge. And my
point on this is is that you were selected by
a group of men who wanted you to be active
and involved in the lodge, not just a quote unquote member.
So some of this leadership is going to come in
(04:45):
different forms. It could be the worshipful Master comes up
to you seconds after getting your degree and says, hey,
I'd love for you to come join the line and
be a steward. That's what happened in my case. It
also may come down from somebody saying, hey, we need
help in the kitchen meals, or we need help at
this community event that we do, or there's a committee,
or there's something your professional trade perhaps maybe you're a
(05:09):
craft's an actual real operative craftsman, and they're like, we
can use some help around some of the repairs with
the lodge building. Or you're a business professional or a
lawyer or this or that, and how can you contribute
to what we're doing together. So the opportunity to lead
or be of service to your lodge, it's going to
come in many different forms, which also kind of lends
(05:30):
to the term servant leadership, which is what I think
Freemasonry is a great example of. We have one brother
who gets elected every year, sits in the East for
a term. Sometimes it's a year, sometimes it's two, and
he's just a servant of the East for that lodge,
serving his brothers. What comes to your mind when you
(05:52):
hear servant leadership and how we run our meetings.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Or our lodges, Everything that we do is rooted around
servant leadership. I mean, I know we're teaching leadership skills,
but even more so than that, we're really we are
since the very beginning, Like when you're developing your skills,
going through the different chairs, you're learning these abilities, you're
slowly learning all these different things that are building up
(06:18):
to you understanding servant leadership, and that's really serving your lodge,
that's serving your brethren, that's serving people in your everyday life,
your friends, your family, and really Masonry helps open that gap,
open that relationship for serving people and being a leader
at the same time, because in Masonry, we're not just
(06:40):
leading one another. We're leading each other as a group,
we're leading one another as individuals, as men, and we're
helping each other build each other up and on top
of that. The fact that it's the servant part is
so it's so important to understand that we are serving
each each other well, leading each other where it's not
(07:03):
just there's not too many cooks in the kitchen where
we're all cooks and we're learning how to cook together
and how to work together, and how to make the
best opportunity that we can, not only for ourselves but
for other peoples well. Serving each other, that's the most
important thing. Like, if you ever find yourself going through
the line and you end up getting all the way
(07:24):
up to master of the lodge, you become the worst
full master. You are not the sole leader at the
end of the day. You are, but you're serving your lodge.
You're serving your brethren. At no point in time should
you ever get fatalitarian or like start ordering people around
(07:45):
or telling people what to do. We're serving the lodge.
You're serving your brethren. So when you're leading, you also
have to keep that in mind. This is an organization
that all of us are a part of, and we're
all making it a better experience because of how we're
leading each other and how we're leading the lodge.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now, I know, I just got off of a huge
rant about why you should be active and engaged in
part of your lodge. And for some guys who are like, look,
I just don't have the time. My work is crazy.
It's very common, especially with the man in their thirties
going back to school for more education or continuing education
or starting a family. They've got just a lot happening.
(08:25):
So the idea of taking on additional responsibilities for this
volunteer organization that they thought that we're going to be
a part of that can be tough. I want to
talk about how lodges help develop leadership skills with their
members outside of hey, you're a lodge officer or you're
working on this committee. I think some of this comes
in how we do ritual and how the idea of
(08:49):
the beehive, the harmony of us all working together, those
soft skills that we're seeking, being able to communicate, mentorship
that's there, thinking, the thought process, through decision making. Where
are some places where you've seen or maybe you've benefited
from getting these skills because you go to lodge and
you're active and you participate.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I think a perfect example of that would be my
job in particular. I'm a wood finisher, which not a
whole lot of people probably know what that is. But
I basically just paint wood, kiss kitchens, cabinetry, so on
and so forth. And I've been in charge of my
department for quite a many years of about five six
years or something like that, but I've been at my
job on and off for like fifteen years. I left
(09:30):
a couple of years ago, came back for a little while,
and during that time, I've had different groups of people.
You're dealing with different people. They have completely different attitudes,
they have completely different ways of looking at things, so
on and so forth. So you have to find a
way to lead them in a way. Because I am
I'm head of my department. So when I have people
under me, I've had up to three different people under
(09:52):
me at one time. Right now, I only have one
guy under me, and him and I are really close.
I kind of have to put it aside, like our
friendships times, and lead him and make sure that he
knows what he's doing and how he's supposed to do
certain things. And the way that we negotiate with people,
the way that we communicate with people. It's very important
(10:13):
that we develop these skills. And masonry is a perfect
example of while you're going through the degrees or just well,
you're just being a brother and you're being around these
guys and you're seeing these examples of leadership and these
examples of servitude where we're helping each other out, and
you start to understand. One of the biggest lessons that
(10:33):
I've learned in the last couple of years is one
of my mentors told me that you have to treat
people differently. You cannot treat everybody the exact same. You
have to adjust the way that you talk to certain people,
and you have to understand that there's a specific way
of speaking to people. And that goes hand in hand
with leadership, whether or not it's at your work or
(10:56):
outside of work, maybe you're putting a foundation together, or
you're doing a fundraiser or you know, you're doing a
cupcake sale or something like that. Like someone has to
be in charge of that stuff, someone has to take lead,
someone has to give people structure and understanding about what's
going on. You can't just have a bunch of people
in the room like, oh, well, what's what's happening next,
(11:16):
So you kind of you kind of need to strike
up that understanding of leadership and lead, and it doesn't
mean that you have to tell people what to do
necessarily or tell people how to do it, as much
as you're explaining it to them in a way that
it's not you're not enforcing your will on them. You're
not you know, you're not telling them how to do it.
(11:39):
You're explaining it, or you know you're you're doing it
in a way that it's respectful, You're doing it in
a way that it's it's easy for you guys to
get along during the process.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I love that you're touching on the etiquette point because
unless you go to the military or some sort of
finishing academy like that and you're a man, you're not
learning how to tie a tip or, as you correctly
point out, how to speak to people address them the
politenesses that come with things you kind of lean on
a father figure or a close family friend or loved
(12:12):
one or whoever kind of filled in that role to
be the mentor early on in life, simple things like
teaching you how to shave, you know, how to walk
up and shake another man's hand, you know, like the
little things that you need later on as an adult.
And then you get to that adult stage and you're
still like, man, I've learned how to act quote unquote
professionally because I see how people interact at work and
(12:34):
I'm just kind of emulating or copying what I see.
But then you come into a Masonic lodge and you
have just just wide variety of guys. You have brothers
from another generation. They could be as old as your grandfather.
You have men that are younger than you, all different
walks of life, and you're interacting with them and you're
learning through those interactions. So I wanted to down I
(12:57):
jotted down five things and I wanted to kind of
go through them to see if you've gone through this
and what leadership trait or skill this connects with as
a freemason. Right, So example one, organizing a degree.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Oh oh man ough, Well, I can tell you right
now it's not easy. It's not easy necessarily to put
a degree together. And I'll say that in the sense
that everybody's not always on the same page, and you
have to make sure that everybody is on the same page,
and you have to make sure that everybody's willing to
(13:35):
be on the same page. So one of the things
that I would say is I've had difficulties in the
past with getting the guys together every week for a
practice with a degree coming up. It's not always easy.
And at the same time, it's like, you can't get
upset with people. You can't get frustrated about it. I
mean you can, but it's probably not going to help
(13:56):
because at the end of the day, where all this
we don't we're not being paid to be here. Nobody
is being paid to be here. So at the end
of the day, this is all voluntary, and you have
to treat people with respect when it's voluntary. You can't
get upset with people when they don't come to the practice.
I mean, if you try to do three four practices
(14:18):
in a row and one of the senior deacon isn't
showing up for every practice, well you have a problem.
Your degree is not going to happen if he's not
prepared and ready to go. So you got to be
really careful about how you're handling those situations. You have
to be very open and willing to work with the guys.
You have to be able to discuss times dates that
(14:41):
work with them, and every week it might change and
sometimes you have to make adjustments. You have to make
slight changes and you might be messaging ten different guys
or more to get ready for a degree. Even more
so than that, I put together a Master Mason degree
last year and at our outdoor lodge and man, there
(15:02):
was like fifteen components all together, and I put together
every single one of them. And that's calling people, phoning,
messaging people, emailing people constantly every day throughout the week,
trying to get it all together, getting everything figured out.
And you know, these are things that you don't really
think about when you're coming up, when you're going through
(15:25):
the degrees, when you're coming up through the lodge, it's
just like, oh, yeah, this is this is the next step.
Oh and this is what happens. And then you get
to master Mace or you get to become a Master
of the lodge, and it's much different.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, I think the organizing a degree part is really
what puts you to the test. You run through it,
as you said, like you're trying to herd twelve and
you know, depends on the jurisdiction, it could be twelve
to fifteen people that are part of this cast, and
you know, conductors, people that are handling the various parts
your organization skills better be top notched, because if you
make one mismove, everyone on the team is going to
(15:58):
let you know, and it's like this whole house of
cards could come crumbling down, and really what you're working for,
as you pointed out, like you're trying to keep the
team's focus on, Hey, we want to put together the
best possible degree. Let's make sure we're there. So you're
a little bit of a cheerleader too, Like that's a
tough one. You kind of touched on the second thing
I was going to ask you about, which is emailing members,
which is a different conversation than the text messages that
(16:20):
we have together, where you know, when I send emails
for work, I often reread them several times, especially depending
on the department head level of who I'm communicating with.
I'm not just checking for spelling ears. I want to
make sure that the point that I'm trying to make
is clear that it's professional, it's respectful, and they understand
what I need from them so that I can finish
(16:41):
a task or get their input for a project. Same
thing when it comes to talking with brothers. So here's
the third example I was going to give you I
tease this one before we started recording, so you might
have had a little time to think about it. Introducing
guests at the lodge.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
At the very least, you got to go around and
maybe you might end up talking to a couple guys
you don't recognize and asking them, Hey, is this your
first time coming to the lodge. That's the one thing
first off, right off the bat, that you should constantly
every single time that you're coming to lodge and you're
having a regular meeting or an emergent meeting, if you
don't recognize the guy, go up and ask him. Anyways.
I know, at the end of the day, it's you know,
(17:16):
I don't care if someone calls me a worstful brother
or not. I attain the rank. Sure, But there are
some guys who worked really, really hard to be very
worsfuls or right worstfuls, and they want that they want
to be addressed as.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
That twenty five percent off beanies this week at Bricksmasons
dot Com. I know you're like, hey, right, worshipful, we're
in mid May. Why are you talking about warm things
to put on my head? Well, in some parts of
the world, it's still getting ready to be wintertime for
(17:53):
the rest of us. Yeah, how though summer is coming,
you can get some holiday shopping out of the way
or think about your next winter now at bricksmasons dot
com with new Beanie starting at just fourteen dollars with
all kinds of styles, It'll not only make you look
cool as a Freemason, but most importantly, keep that head warm.
Don't forget, there's no coupon code needed. The twenty five
(18:13):
percent off Beanie discount automatically applied when you drop your
item in the shopping cart at Bricksmasons dot com. For
(18:36):
our viewers that are watching the live stream of this
podcast recording for a newly obligated Master Mason, I'm going
to show you the most important working tool that you
can buy for yourself. There's a pen. We don't carry
ink pens anymore. Treat yourself, buy a nice pen. Put
that in your breast pocket of your suit on the inside.
(18:57):
You'll think me later when you have to go to
a lodge and and something as simple as signing the
book to that you visited the lodge. If you are
asked to sit as senior deacon or whatever the chair is,
and the jurisdiction you're in that handles the introductions that
night for the worshipful master. You can write people's name.
This tool. These things that are like a dollar in
some instances life savers for Mason. So make sure to
(19:20):
carry one. Okay, I've got two more examples of leadership
opportunities and skills that you get, those soft skills that
were so craving for in life. Here's example number four,
saying the prayer at dinner.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Oh wow, people who have never done toasts before can
literally pull that one out of nowhere. You can. You
can go and look some up. You can go find them,
especially just toasts in general. Just learning how to do toast.
For one of the first things that I did is
a Mason, Like as soon as I you know, you
get your EA. A lot of the times most lodges
(19:55):
will have you kind of give a little a little
toast at the end of it, or kind of your
words of wisdom at the end of getting the degree
or whatever. But those first couple of times that you're
going to the repass and you're you know, you have
to do these toasts. A really good one to start
with would be grace. Obviously, we're we're all there because
(20:17):
we're all, you know, we all believe in a higher power.
We all believe in you know, the Grand architect, the
great architects, so on and so forth, and so it is.
I think it's a really good thing that we implement
that in right right before we even eat, before we
discuss eating. It's the one of the first things that
we do. And I think it is it's an important
(20:38):
part of dinner, of getting together, of creating that harmony
in the room right before we all sit down and eat.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I remember, as you know, an Ea, you gave the
example at dinner and they're like, brother ARSI can you
lead us in the prayer for tonight? And I got
up and I'm like, I've never done this before, Like
I don't even know what to say, like ugh. And
thankfully one of the older brothers reached into his wallet
and handed me a little piece of paper and I
(21:07):
opened it up and there was a prayer that was
printed on there, and I just read the prayer and
I thanked him and I gave it back to him
and he said, here's a tip, always have a prayer
in your wallet. Well, it's twenty twenty five. I don't
even carry a wallet anymore. But I can tell you
on my cell phone. I have prayers because there are
times when they need a chaplain for the night and
(21:27):
you get to go to the altar and that's a
really important thing to say, that prayer, and you don't
want to be sitting there going. Uh So, a simple
thing to have ahead of time. Okay, last leadership example
that sometimes gets overlooked as a master mason, and I
can't wait. I got to make sure I cross this
up so I can look at your face when I
say this. Cleaning up after dinners.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It's a it's necessary, It's absolutely necessary. I can't count
how many times, even as master of the lodge, have
come out of the lodge finished cleaning the lodge up
and then go out and then start cleaning up the
table and stuff. Everybody should be participating in that, because
I think it's a good habit to keep. First of all.
The other thing is, man, it's depressing when you go
(22:09):
to leave lodge and everything's still on the table and
everything's still stacked up, and nobody's made any effort. It's
just like everybody's so so worked up about Oh I
got to go home. I got to you know, I
got it all, lodge is done, we can get going now,
and it's like, come on, I'm like, take a few seconds,
like really, at the end of lodge, go clean up
a little bit, and then it's not so much of
(22:31):
a cleanup task for the next guy.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And even as a newly raised master mason. And that's
the whole point for this podcast episode. I'm sure you're
tuning in and saying, what does cleaning up after a
lodge dinners have anything to do with lodge leadership or
service or legacy, And I'm like, dude, you'd be surprised.
It's the little things I always tell people when I
offer a help and they're like, oh, no, you don't
have to help them, Like no, no, no, Once a steward,
(22:53):
always a steward, Like where can I help? You wouldn't
go to a friend's house and make a mess and
just get up and walk away from from it. You
really shouldn't kind of carry that behavior into your own loge.
God forbid, if you actually go visit another lodge, it
just looks bad. It reflects poorly on you, and it's
kind of like people look at you like, well, they
must think that that behavior is okay. Where they're from.
(23:14):
It's like no, no, no, no, don't let that happen. Do
want to get into the service part of what's available,
because hey, I've got my Master Mason degree. Now I
can go join all these other concordant bodies. I can
get involved with all of these things, so from local
breakfast fundraisers to coat and toy drives that we do
in the winter, to some of the larger nonprofit entities
(23:38):
that exist around senior healthcare needs or just taking care
of elderly folks in the community. Freemasonry, if you love charity,
they've got plenty of service organizations that you can be
a part of. When it comes to that, is there
an example of a brother or a story that you're
aware of where you were Like, man, I'm really proud
(24:00):
to know that this person was a Freemason and they
did this and they were either part of my lodge
or part of my jurisdiction. And I was just like,
so when I think of charity, relief and truth, like
this person took that to the next level.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I have two examples, and I will try to keep
them as brief as possible. So the first one that
I'm going to touch on is a lodge in my district.
It's called Concor Lodge. Amazing group of guys. I actually
have a really good relationship with a large chunk of
their lodge. I'd probably say like sixty or seventy percent
of our lodge I have good relationships with. But the
(24:35):
last couple of years here, I think like two years
ago or so, they actually became part of an initiative
in their city that's called one hundred Good Men or
something like that. Someone along those lines are a hundred
Men or something something like that. And what it is
is all these different businesses and organizations get together I
(24:58):
think about I think they they meet every quarter, so
four times a year they get together and they meet,
and every time they meet, they all pitch in, like
I think it's a hundred and they have a number
of members. It's not just one hundred people. It's actually
like one hundred groups. And there's like two to three
people in every group, and so every I don't remember
(25:20):
if it's every group or every person brings one hundred dollars,
but I'm pretty sure it's every group. So they end
up like basically accumulating like a couple thousand dollars at
every one of these meetings, and then they sit down
and they go through a list of charities that they
want to donate to, and they all vote on wh's
charity to donate to, and whatever gets the most amount
of votes, that's what they donate the charity to at
(25:42):
that meeting. When I first, like, when I first heard
about them talking about that stuff, that is phenomenal. That's
not something that you find very often. And the crazy
thing is like, yeah, they're doing it as a lodge,
but at the same time, it's the guys who are
going out of their way. Those two three guys that
are going to those meetings, they're going out of their
(26:02):
way to prepare themselves for those meetings and bringing all
that information back to the lodge. That's incredible. That's amazing.
The fact that they are able to be a part
of something like that, it's great. It shows the charity
and the relief at best part in freemasonry, and it's
showing us how to do those things. The other I
(26:25):
wouldn't say it's specifically one brother. There is one brother
who definitely took a little bit more lead on it,
but my lodge kind of helped out and what it
was was about two years ago or so, we acquired
a brother, a right worshipl brother from Saskatchewan who was
a past district deputy grand Master. And he was just
(26:47):
a phenomenal guy and he just everywhere he went he
always made friends. Everyone loved him. He came and moved
here to b C and he actually moved to my town.
After a little while of him being here, he ended
up suffering from a severe stroke and he's never been
the same since then. His speech is a little bit
(27:09):
muffled at times, like he's just he's not always on
the ball. He has really hard time with his mobility.
He basically needs a walker or a cane to get around,
and even at that, he has a really hard time
getting in and out of cars. When this all happened,
he didn't really have a whole lot of money. The
closest family he has is I think he has a
daughter down like three hours from here. What we started
(27:33):
doing is one of the guys specifically started going through
this process of getting him the care that he needed
in the home that he was at, and so for
a while there he wasn't getting any extra services or
anything like that done to try to help figure that
out and as a lodge to be able to pay
(27:53):
those bills for that brother to be able to help
them out in a time of need where he needs
some extra help and he's slowly getting better and he's
getting to a point where he can take over himself.
And I think they're only going in bi weekly for
cleaning and stuff now, But those types of stories right there,
that's why we're Mason's. That's why we get taught these
lessons about charity and relief is because one of these
(28:16):
days you don't know when that's going to be you.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
We've talked a lot about on our last episode here
closing out the Masonic Leadership service in Legacy part. We're
going to get to Legacy in a second, but just
to kind of catch our listener up, so you're a
newly raised master Mason, we've talked about some of the
opportunities for soft skills to exist. If you look looking
for leadership skills, sure there's the officer line, but if
you're like, eh, there's other ways that you can help.
(29:06):
Even cleaning up after dinner, a simple thing like that.
Maybe some best practices to think about carrying a pan
around and your jack of pocket isn't going to hurt.
Knowing a prayer always a good idea, and introducing yourself
and others that come to visit your lodge. We've talked
about being able to step up and fill in in
other parts of your lodge that there's a need for things.
(29:27):
We'll just gave some fantastic examples about how we come
together as a craft to serve others. So I want
to close it out with this last point, kind of
the legacy. And I know you're like, whoa, whoa, My
Masonic story just began. I'm not ready to start getting
into legacy mode here. But you can. And it's a
simple step that you can start as early as today.
You can become a mentor and pass that knowledge onto
(29:50):
the next guy. And I know that kind of sounds
like a tall task, right because you're like, dude, I
just got raised. What do I know? Well? Will, what
does this guy know? How can he be a mentor
to the next brother.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Once you have the three degrees, you can go and
learn pretty much whatever. You can go and read any
type of literature, and so that gives you this whole
other aspect of freemasonry, and you can pass that on
to other brethren who are coming up, Like you might
not even be that much further along. If you just
became a master Mason. You have a little bit of
an understanding of the three degrees and the Hiamic legend
(30:26):
and all that other stuff. And there's a brother who's
coming up who's maybe just got his EA degree and
he doesn't quite understand, you know, what it was about
the first degree, and you might be able to give
him some sort of insight. You might be able to
pass on some a bit of knowledge to him, a
bit of more understanding, so that he can kind of
grasp what he went through a little bit better. Like
(30:48):
right now. Perfect example is I'm actually I'm dealing with
a candidate right now, and I'm mentoring a candidate, and man,
I feel like I'm cheating with him because he's just
flying through everybody. He's twenty six years old, and he says,
got such a mind, it's so quick, so fast. I've
met with him twice now and he's ready for his
proove up now, and so he's proven up this Monday.
(31:11):
And the amount of things that we can add to
each other's Masonic experiences, that's really what makes this a
way better experience is helping your fellow brother a bit
more an understanding. You know, it's the same thing with
like the allegory. We don't talk about it very much,
but if you can sit down with a brother who
(31:33):
just got his EA degree and he doesn't fully understand
the allegory of that degree, you can help start breaking
down some of those barriers. Or even you know, you
just got his Fellowcraft degree, maybe he didn't understand the
Middle Chamber lecture and you kind of have a bit
better of an understanding about it. Talk explain it, Explain
the symbology of it, explain the allegory behind it, and
(31:56):
you know, those those are great aspects to kind of
get into. You don't have to be really far along
to learn a little bit extra or to teach the
guy that's you know, coming up as well. If we're
not here building each other up, then how are we
getting built up? And especially when you're talking about legacy,
like looking at your Masonic career and figuring out like
(32:19):
what you want to do, Like your first year of
being a master Mason, you might not even know where
you're going to go to at the end of it,
but you have some awesome guys in your lodge that
have been there to give you information, give you knowledge,
really help you to understand. You know, what the degrees
are all about, what kind of lessons are being taught.
Those are all things that any level of Mason can
(32:39):
teach another level of Mason. Why we're here, why we're
doing this, is to improve ourselves and help improve others.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Thanks agetting to my brother and friend, Worshipful Will Rothrie
for his help of this three part series.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Now what.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I hope it has provided some lights to newly raised
master Mason's. If you've enjoyed The Crafts an online podcast,
you can do us a favor. Just share it with
one person, one brother you know, in your lodge or
your area. You can do it in person or promote
this on social media. We thank you in advance for
helping us connect with those seeking that additional light. I'm right,
Worshipful Brother Michael Arsay. I always enjoy our time together. Hey,
(33:18):
it's the best way to start Monday in my opinion,
I look forward to seeing you next week. Until then,
that peace and harmony prevailed
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