On Being a Better Man

Brethren, the last season of our Masonic year 2024 is upon us. There is still time left to fulfill promises made and resolutions to be kept.  There is time to be better.  

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On becoming a Mason, I thought I would be taught in a didactic manner, the pathway to becoming better, that there would be some guide or book to read that would put me on the path to righteousness and virtue. 

Of course, the Holy Bible comes to mind as that guide, but although it is one of the three Great Lights, I have come to find that the pathway leads to a mirror: it leads to reflection and to observing in others what we would like to see in ourselves. This begins with our thoughts. This always comes to mind when I am contemplating or meditating on some action. 

"Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts”

Proverbs 4:23

Watch your thoughts, they become your words;

 watch your words, they become your actions; 

watch your actions, they become your habits; 

watch your habits, they become your character;

 watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”

Lao Tzu

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It is our own thoughts and actions that are at issue in the case of our betterment. We should be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say with conviction that we are better for having been initiated, passed, and ultimately raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason.  

But is it the act of these three levels of Masonry alone that make us better?  I would say it is the journey, the reflections, experiences, interactions, and observations along the level of travel that shape us into better men.  Our lodge has a virtual goldmine of mentors. 

A good mentor will inspire you, push you to break barriers, develop you, expand your perception, and most importantly, a good mentor does not judge. 

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"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Benjamin Franklin

Initiated in February 1731

St John’s Lodge in Philadelphia

A quote from one of our most respected leaders of this great country, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, who was raised a Master Mason on April 24, 1901. He was a member of Matinecock Lodge No. 806 of Oyster Bay, New York:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

In this case, recognizing our own faults but continuing to strive to overcome them, is something that makes us better men. 

Theodore Roosevelt said when addressing a grand lodge of prestigious and accomplished leaders:

“I know that you will not only understand me, but sympathize with me, when I say that, great though my pleasure is in being here as your guest in this beautiful Temple, and in meeting such a body of men as this is that I am now addressing, I think my pleasure is even greater when going into some little Lodge, where I meet the plain, hard-working men, — the men who work with their hands, — and meet them on a footing of genuine equality, not false equality, of genuine equality conditioned upon each man being a decent man, a fair-dealing man.”

In this case, we should keep ourselves "on the level" and realize that we are not competing to be better than someone else or trying to achieve something to reflect some sense of superiority but that we are each one of us just as worthy of brotherly love regardless of title or position in society. 

By becoming better men through the principles of Freemasonry, we become better friends, better husbands, better fathers, and better citizens. This process begins with the quality of thought, of self-talk and inner reflection.   If we can exemplify this in our lodge as mentors and role models, then our brethren will become better men in their journeys on the level of time to that...

“undiscovered country to whose bourn, no traveler return"

William Shakespeare 

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