From the Office of the Right Worshipful Grand Lecturer
January 30, 2010
Finding the Mason within and putting him together right.
There is a story of how the old man who turned to a famous sculptor whose work he had been admiring and asked “How do you take a chuck of stone and make it into such a beautiful statue? A silly question, of course but the answer of the sculptor is one to intrigue Masons: “There is really nothing to it. All I do is chisel away the stone I do not want and there is the statue. It was there all the time.
Then there is the woman who asked a great columnist, “How in the world do you write all those witty paragraphs?” He responded, “There's nothing to it. All I do is sit down to the computer and write them as they occur to me. The writing is easy; it is the occurring that is difficult.”
I imagine there has to be some occurring with the sculptor who knocks away chucks of stone in order to uncover the beautiful statue, but isn't there a Masonic lesson in the story of the sculptor and the statue? Don't we take men in the raw and knock off the rough parts to reveal the beauty within that was there all the time? Masonry doesn't take men for the purpose of giving them new souls. It doesn't want them unless under the rough exterior there is concealed a beauty of character that may be revealed through proper manipulation of our Working Tools that may be developed through what Freemasonry has to offer.
It is up to us as Masons to make sure that when we find that rough stone we can see the beauty of Masonry within them. We need to remember what we are about “taking good men and making them better”. The sculptor does not just take any old stone but one of the best stones to make his statue. This is the same philosophy we need to stick with when we sign the petition of a potential new brother. We need to know what type of man we have before us. We do not need to be like some of the other Masonic houses that just want bodies and numbers for the Money. We are an organization of quality not quantity and our membership requirements should be the same.
This brings to mind the story of the story of the father who wished relief from answering questions while he read his Sunday paper. The paper contained a full-page map of the world. A brilliant idea was born. Dad took the map to the dining room table, cut it into zig-zag pieces and told is little bunch of questions that he couldn't ask another until he had put the map together. Within minutes the little boy called Dad to see the completed work. “How did you get it together so quickly?” dad wished to know. “As you started to cut the map up I noticed there was a picture of a man on the other side. I turned the pieces over, put the man together, and when the man was put together right the whole world was all right.”
I need not point out the moral in that story. Have we ever had a calamity, have we ever had a crisis, have we ever been in any kind of mess that wasn't due to men not being put together right? Over the years we have continued to bring men in who were not put together right and were not of high moral or Masonic quality, men who should never have been allowed to become a Mason. It appeared we were only looking for numbers not men made of the right stuff to become a Mason. These men were put together in every wrong way possible and we were too blind not to see them for what they were.
When men are put together right, the whole world will be all right. It is our job to see that the right men are put together right. Thus when we get our rough stones and mold then into better men we must not only make sure they have that quality and special something in them from the beginning but assure they are taught the proper ways to live that moral and upstanding life that will keep them meeting by the plum, acting upon the level and parting upon the square. When you start with quality you will end up with quality but if you start out with poor junk you will always end up with junk.
Edward J.A. Moore
RW Grand Lecturer
Excerpts used from: Bede, E. (1945). 3-5-7 minute talks on freemasonry . New York: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co..