Guest Post - Some thoughts on the Masonic Fraternity

Past Grand High Priest Tom Dean sent me the following which he wrote following the passing of a good friend and Brother.  It is worth reading.

We all join the Masonic Lodge for various reasons:  because our family were members, we see it as an opportunity to help serve our community, we see a possible camaraderie that we are searching for, it sounds like a great organization, and so on and so on the reasons go.

I have come to believe that it is not why we join the Masonic Fraternity but the benefits we in  fact gain because we belong to the Masonic Fraternity.  Maybe it is my advancing age or my sentimental reasoning, but I often think about on what the Masons have meant to me.  The recent death of a Brother and Companion and caused me to reflect once again on what the Masonic Fraternity means to me  and maybe to you as well.

While I love our rituals and ceremonies and the many stories that are exemplified in them, I don’t  believe the ritual is what is most important to me.  The institution, as old as it is, is probably not the issue.  It is not the famous members who have seen fit to wear the Square and Compass that makes me  the proudest.  It is something much more simple, much more common………….it is the people that I have come to know and able to call brother and Companion.

I have had the good fortune to know brothers who are bankers, farmers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, janitors, machinists, plumbers,  dairy owners, insurance salesmen, truck drivers, carpenters, police officers, assembly line workers, social service personnel, college professors, teachers, administrators, counselors, iron workers, electricians, judges, business owners, laborers, and many,many others.  While I probably could belong to many organizations where I might find myself in contact with people  from all  walks of life, I would challenge them that it is not like the Masonic Fraternity.

If it had not been for the Masonic Fraternity I would be less of a person, there is no doubt. I have been able to obtain leadership positions in our Fraternity that mean a lot to me.  I have grown from my experiences as a Mason, both in leadership roles and as a person on the sidelines.  I look at the world in a different way than a lot of people who have not experienced our work do.  I strive, though probably not always successfully try to live my life by our precious tenants, especially Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth.  The Masonic Fraternity has been good  to me and I will never be able to put into the Fraternity all that I have gotten from it.

However with the recent passing of my Brother and Companion Bob Christensen I have stopped and thought a great deal about life and the hand that we are dealt.  I have reached the conclusion that it is only because of the Masonic Fraternity that I ever met Bob Christensen in the first place.  If I were not a member of our Fraternity Bob and I would have probably never crossed paths.  It is only because I was a Mason  that we met.  I am so glad that I belonged to the Masons to have that close personal friendship with Bob.

I, perhaps like you, are  fortunate to belong to this Fraternity and to have met all of these fine brothers.  As I look back, it is better than any honor, award, office that could  be bestowed upon me just in knowing and being friends, brothers and companions with these fine gentlemen.

If it were not for the Masonic Fraternity I would have never met or have touched my life the likes of Willard Loper from Sperry,  Bill Crawford from Glidden, Maynard Smith from West Liberty, Jay Cole Simser from Ames, Dennis Zahrt originally from Marengo, Jimmie Arnold from  Mt. Pleasant, Glenn Marshall from Cedar Rapids, Harley Holm from Stockport, Bob Allen from Ames, Don Heath from Cedar Falls, Glenn Holmes from Cedar Falls,  Jerry Marsengill from Des Moines, Glen Fanhauser from  Mt. Pleasant, Tom Weir from Mt. Pleasant, Tom Francis from Ottumwa, Vic Folkers from Cedar Rapids,  Max Yates and son Charles from Sioux City, Phil Severson from Sioux City,  Charlie Croker from Cherokee, Jimmie Fisher from Muscatine along with Phil Cook from Muscatine, Jim Newburg from Mt. Pleasant along with George Craig, Harry Huston from Winfield, Windy Gould from Ottumwa, Tom Corothers from Sioux City, Tom Eggleston from Cedar Rapids, Dean Harlan from Stockport, Glen Wilson from Mason City, Scotty Bonebrake from Leon,  Vic Raider from Burlington along with Loren Stein, Lonnie Hausner from Burlington as well, Marty Davis from Waterloo, and many, many, many others.

These people and many others have touched my life and left an imprint.  The imprint they have left in my life is more  important that any office, honor or award I have ever received.  These individuals and others in the Masonic Fraternity that I have been blessed to know have assisted in making me the person that I am today. 

I owe the Masonic Fraternity a debt of gratitude.  Not only for the rules and guides I have gained from belonging, but for allowing me the opportunity of a lifetime.  The opportunity to be a part of an organization where I have had the pleasure to meet and become life long friends, brothers and companions with so  many outstanding individuals from all walks of life.  The opportunity to have been able to have my life to be touched by so many outstanding individuals.   

My Brother and Companion Bob Christensen  has  entered into that house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens, and I thank God that my life was touched by Bob and so many others, but it never would have happened without the Masonic Fraternity.  For whatever reason I joined the Masons, I was wrong, but I do know what I have gained most from the Masonic Fraternity………….