Educating from the East

Worshipful Brothers,

You as the Worshipful Master of your lodge have a duty to educate the craft. This need not be a difficult task. A great deal of educating your brethren can consist of going over the basics  The things we all learned when we were initiated as Entered Apprentices, passed to Fellowcrafts and then raised to a Master Mason. As time goes by, we frequently lose sight of what it really means to be and live as a Mason. The activities below are easy to do but they reinforce our tenets. For many of them, all that is required is a ritual book. I would suggest only doing one of these activities at a meeting and discussing afterwards.

•    Read the Charge of one of the degrees and ask brothers what it means to them personally.

•    Re-obligate all the brothers on one of the degrees. This can be done on all the degrees. Ask the brothers if they really understand what they have obligated themselves to.

•    Read the lecture of a degree. Preferably not the first section lecture. The other lectures explain a tremendous amount about our craft and the symbolism, but are rarely recited in lodge.

•    Arrange a visit to another lodge. It is very interesting to see how different lodges, some in our own districts have their own traditions.

•    Hold a lodge of instruction. It can be as simple as the proper way to ballot (found in the Policy & Procedures manual) or which hand to carry the staff in depending on which degree you are open on.- Left hand on the EA, right on the FC, and left on the MM.