Have you ever tossed a beanbag with the aim of not just scoring points but also building a stronger community? Chris and I sure have, and we're thrilled to bring you the stories from our latest cornhole tournament, where the echoes of laughter mingled with the clinking of Masonic camaraderie. We didn't just play a game; we wove the threads of community engagement, as non-Masons stepped up to the plate, showcasing the unanticipated power of unity and support beyond our lodge walls.
Navigating the waters of tradition and contemporary life, we shed light on the soul of Masonry, discussing everything from the Florida Masonic Monitor's wisdom to the quiet satisfaction of Masonic education and the catechism's role in our personal growth. Our tales range from heated HOA meetings to the gentle art of conflict resolution within our brotherhood, all while maintaining the dignity and respect our teachings implore. The profound sense of mentorship within the fraternity shines, as we traverse anecdotes of teaching and being taught, reinforcing the significance of community support.
But what about the misconceptions that sometimes cast a shadow over Freemasonry? We tackle this head-on, separating fact from fiction and affirming the fraternity's commitment to self-improvement, community service, and the pursuit of truth. Exploring the realms of faith, science, and the stewardship of our planet, we share insights that blend ancient Masonic values with contemporary interpretations. So pull up a chair and join us in this rich conversation, where the bonds of brotherhood and the spirit of enlightenment come to life in the most unexpected of ways.
Have you ever tossed a beanbag with the aim of not just scoring points but also building a stronger community? Chris and I sure have, and we're thrilled to bring you the stories from our latest cornhole tournament, where the echoes of laughter mingled with the clinking of Masonic camaraderie. We didn't just play a game; we wove the threads of community engagement, as non-Masons stepped up to the plate, showcasing the unanticipated power of unity and support beyond our lodge walls.
Navigating the waters of tradition and contemporary life, we shed light on the soul of Masonry, discussing everything from the Florida Masonic Monitor's wisdom to the quiet satisfaction of Masonic education and the catechism's role in our personal growth. Our tales range from heated HOA meetings to the gentle art of conflict resolution within our brotherhood, all while maintaining the dignity and respect our teachings implore. The profound sense of mentorship within the fraternity shines, as we traverse anecdotes of teaching and being taught, reinforcing the significance of community support.
But what about the misconceptions that sometimes cast a shadow over Freemasonry? We tackle this head-on, separating fact from fiction and affirming the fraternity's commitment to self-improvement, community service, and the pursuit of truth. Exploring the realms of faith, science, and the stewardship of our planet, we share insights that blend ancient Masonic values with contemporary interpretations. So pull up a chair and join us in this rich conversation, where the bonds of brotherhood and the spirit of enlightenment come to life in the most unexpected of ways.
Hey, chris, yeah, fred, what's a Mason?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question, fred.
Speaker 1:You've reached the internet's home for all things masonry. Join Chris and I as we plumb the depths of our ancient craft, from the common gavel to the trowel. Nothing is off the table, so grab your tools and let's get to work. This is On the Level. Ay-ya-ya, ay-ya. I think we got stuck in a time vortex. I'm pretty sure we did. I think we missed a week. Did we miss a week?
Speaker 2:I don't know if anyone missed us, but we did miss a week.
Speaker 1:We missed a week, man. How does that happen? What is that?
Speaker 2:You know you're a busy man, now that you're a celebrity.
Speaker 1:Oh, is that what it is? I'm a busy man, am I?
Speaker 2:I've been doing something with the fans.
Speaker 1:Where were you?
Speaker 2:I haven't seen you in ages. It's been like 9 hours since I've seen you, I was in North Carolina. Oh.
Speaker 1:And enjoying myself immensely with my youngest son and his new bride Up there. He just bought a house and did a bunch of cool stuff, so went up there to hang out with the boy and yeah, it was a good time. Man had a really good time. I love North Carolina man. I love it. It's beautiful in North Carolina. I'd live there. I have obligations here to take care of my mother and my in-laws so we're the kind of their health surrogates so we can't leave. But if I could leave I would leave, make no mistake.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would too, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We live in a very interesting place in Sarasota, Florida. Yeah. It just keeps getting busier and busier here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be hard to drive, hard to park, hard to get into a restaurant. It's going to be Orlando I say it all the time and people from Orlando are like what, what's wrong with Orlando? It's like Orlando is the most crowded place on the planet. That's what's wrong with it.
Speaker 2:Or Miami, you could say the same thing about Miami, but we kind of like Miami Do we, we kind of like Miami I like to visit Miami. I wouldn't want to live there. I would never live there.
Speaker 1:I would never I wish. Even though we live here in Sarasota, I would be a fan of flying into Miami, enjoying myself, and flying back to Sarasota, because driving into Miami is not fun.
Speaker 2:You're right, it's better than driving to the keys, where you can't stop once you start it depends on what you're driving bro when I roar down there with my brothers on our Harleys it's a good drive, yeah, baby. I shouldn't try to huff it on my huffy. No, no, don't do that, no.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Bob. Bob's listening, bob would do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bob would do it, no problem, he'd be like, yeah, I'm going to start in Russia and I'm going to drive my bike down to the keys.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, good you could drive on water. Yes, he probably can. Yeah, bob can drive on water Ride on water.
Speaker 2:That is correct. I guess you don't drive a bike. You ride a bike. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yes, so what's been going on, man, with you? What's the latest? The?
Speaker 2:latest, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm just trying to get through this here. You know, trying to get to the end.
Speaker 1:Trying to get to the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get it we did a big cornhole tournament for our district fundraiser, which was awesome. We raised a little bit more money than we thought we would.
Speaker 1:How much exactly it was about $3,500.
Speaker 2:Not bad. We got the Master Mason Association. Not too bad.
Speaker 1:Not bad, not bad at all. This was money that was from outside Lodge. In other words, these were non-Masons that came in for the cornhole tournament, yeah, and spent their money.
Speaker 2:I would say we annoyed that none of the people from our district came to our district fundraiser. I mean, that was more than slightly annoyed initially, and then I realized, hey, this is actually a good thing, because we showed that you can raise money from tapping the outside public and not have to keep asking Masons for money over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, that's what I always call the spaghetti dinner syndrome, where we have a spaghetti dinner and fish fry, and the only people who come and pay for a plate are the people who are in the Lodge that we're trying to raise money for in the first place.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah exactly. We're taking money from people to give it back to them. We are the epitome of a hidden tax Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good on you guys. Man, I could not be there. Like I said, I was in North Carolina, but it went well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had lots of people show up from outside and some became interested in the fraternity, definitely interested in joining the shrine, so they got to get through us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got to get through us to get to there, that's right.
Speaker 2:Either way, that's a bonus for Freemasonry there was quite a few people interested.
Speaker 1:The Master Mason Association picked up about $3,500 for the coffers, which is important for that important organization. Hello, is this thing on Everybody? Yes it's on. It's on Support your local Master Mason Association.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the best way you can support them is to show up once in a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Especially if you are a warden or a master.
Speaker 1:Correct, definitely should be there.
Speaker 2:But most of the lodge secretaries need to be there too, and the treasurers. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. Everyone should be there. It should be there, you should.
Speaker 1:It's the only place where you can get every lodge in your district together to coordinate. There's no other vehicle for doing this. It's super important that a representative from every lodge be there every week. If not, like you just said, chris, a majority of the officers should be there and participate and it's fun. It's fun and the School of Education afterwards, where we all get together and get to hear.
Speaker 2:I've learned. Not everybody does that. I guess we're one of the few that do that.
Speaker 1:But he's right.
Speaker 2:After our Master Mason Association meeting our district instructor hosts everybody. Hopefully that was there to learn some kind of esoteric ritual work after. Right and he does that for about an hour.
Speaker 1:And it's called Florida Work, not Lodge Work. Shout out to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brother Dobs, there I actually teach Florida Work and it's so funny because you see the same people time after time. After he teaches them Florida Work, they raise their hand. Excuse me, I would just like to say I wasn't taught this way. It's like we know. We know. That's why we're here. None of us were taught this way. That's why we're here.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's funny. What was it? Justin brought up a couple of things that nobody wanted to hear, and good on him for doing it. What was it? Oh, applause after the.
Speaker 2:Some of these are hard to implement, right Like this one.
Speaker 1:You're not supposed to applaud after the lecture.
Speaker 2:Or the charge, or the charge Really anything Right?
Speaker 1:And it's so it's customary. I guess it's customary, but it just feels like you're supposed to. There's that moment when the charge is done and then they start walking back and you just feel like it's an automatic reflex.
Speaker 1:It's like you just feel like you need to be applauding, you know, but you're not supposed to, and I guess it just holds to the solemnness of it and everybody gets to reflect a little bit on what just took place. What was the other thing that he was saying? Anything else that we're not supposed to do, that every lodge in Florida does, and you're actually not supposed to do it. And I don't think it has anything to do with wearing sandals.
Speaker 2:I don't know. No, we can do that. We can wear sandals on our head if we want.
Speaker 1:That was just a little dig to our past, Grandmaster Aw.
Speaker 2:No, a man we love and respect big time. Yes, yes, he tried to level us up and we wouldn't have it.
Speaker 1:We would not have it.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, sir, where are my flip flops to lodge?
Speaker 1:With my socks, no or without.
Speaker 2:I guess you can wear without now.
Speaker 1:Apparently so, yes, so anyways. Rabbit trail there.
Speaker 2:So there was one other controversy Stalling to try to remember it and I can't remember, I can't remember. It'll pop into our heads at the most impetuned time.
Speaker 1:He's probably shouting at his phone right now. It's like you, morons, can you not remember anything?
Speaker 2:This is how it's supposed to work. The committee on work puts out every year these are the things you need to tell everybody in the state. They bring all the district instructors together and then they come out and they're supposed to hammer it into our thick heads, and so this is the way that Ars chooses to do it. He's already got the whole district there, all the players right, the masters and the wardens and everybody. Yeah, shuttle them into a room and give them the information that the Grand Lodge wants them to have, and hopefully they'll take it back to their lodges. It's a pretty good system of disseminating information, if you ask me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So almost everybody's doing their job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've stalled long enough. We're not going to remember it. Sorry Right, honorable broom, for.
Speaker 2:We'll have to have him back on the show. We'll have to have him back on the show to scold us for our lack of attention, well, he also, you know he has a good thing he's doing after the school of instruction he sends a note to all the secretaries and asks them to read it at all the meetings. So everybody gets the same information, which is communication, is very important, especially in free masonry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. That's right Get as much information in the hands of as many people as possible, because you know, participation is everything and without the right information, without the correct calendar dates and all of that stuff, you know it's really important that during your stated meetings talking about upcoming dates, by the way, master Mason Association, you can get upcoming dates for each individual lodge while you're there. Oh, I remembered what it was.
Speaker 2:Oh, what? Oh, the Tyler has to stay outside the lodge.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that was the big one. It's not allowed inside at all at any point that was and that was could have been directed to the Mighty 147, because we brought in the royal chair and sat it next to the door so the Tyler me could come in during the, during the, during the stated meeting. And yeah, that got, that got whacked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got whacked hard, I know, I know.
Speaker 1:I know you like that one.
Speaker 2:I mean, the thing is in my mind because I had to think through this as the master and make a decision and I thought, hey, he's a brother of our lodge. I sure appreciate if all the Lodge brothers that are here could be in the same room making decisions together, right? So the Tyler did his job, he tiled the lodge, but we're talking about after eight o'clock at night on a weeknight, yeah, and we would lock the outer doors, lock the door, and it never came.
Speaker 1:No, no, not once.
Speaker 2:No one's ever going to roll up at a master mason lodge at eight o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:And say, hey, I would have joined if only someone had answered the door at eight o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, right? Yeah, it doesn't really ever happen, and so the guys just sitting out there doing nothing while we're having business meeting, and so, yeah, I asked you to come in because I really thought it was important to have you with us.
Speaker 1:And hence the reason why it is best to have a past master to be your Tyler, somebody who knows everybody, who's been, you know, in your lodge for a while and doesn't necessarily need to be in there absorbing. You know all of the degree work and the opening and closing of the lodge and everything that's going on in there. Me, I was way too new in masonry to be a Tyler. I don't think that's.
Speaker 2:Well, that'll let all the enthusiasm out of your sales. It really will. It really did by yourself in a room.
Speaker 1:It really did, and I was missing out on getting you know, absorbing all of it, because that's part of our. You know, that's how you learn it, man. You just got to be in there and you see it, hear it and do it over and over again, and that's one of the reasons why we're able to do what we do. So, anyways, another rabbit trail there for you.
Speaker 2:That's a requirement, so we follow it.
Speaker 1:We follow it now.
Speaker 2:That's what you do. You follow the rules.
Speaker 1:The Seachair is still there but, rest assured, the Tyler's uh derriere is not in it during the launch. No, he is outside uh doing what he's supposed to do.
Speaker 2:One thing's for sure he's not clapping for anybody, so at least one guy's following the rules.
Speaker 1:No, he's not clapping. No Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe he is, probably is out there. No one can hear me. I will clap.
Speaker 1:Thing is is if he were clapping it'd be okay, because he's not in the launch? Yeah, so maybe we'll work on that.
Speaker 2:So we're finishing them.
Speaker 1:Uh, Entered Apprentice Charge we are finishing the Entered Apprentice Charge as promised. And again, our apologies. Uh, brothers, if you were last Wednesday looking for us and you didn't find us, that's because we were lost. We were lost in time. And, uh, I I'm just going to have to tell you it was totally my fault. I teched, I did a tech no no, and I absolutely just killed the file that we, that we recorded on. We spent the entire time. It was a really great episode.
Speaker 1:Uh and um, when I transferred it over, it went away. I mean, and I looked everywhere for it, it just went away, bye-bye, bye-bye, never to be heard again. So we, um, we're planning on hitting it that next day to do it over again. And then, with my trip to North Carolina coming up, it just got. It just got crazy. And uh, yeah, here we are now. Sorry, thank you for beingwhile. So, yeah, so the the enter-deprentice charge, and we're gonna, we'll get through this because there's not, there's not too much here. We're almost done with it. Two paragraphs, three paragraphs, but I do know that we, we touched on a lot of things during the one week, during the lost episode. I hope we can get back to lost episode.
Speaker 2:Only two people will know that there's a lost episode right, yeah, right, that's okay, we can make it better now we can make it better because it's only good because you and I are talking about free masonry. And here we are, we can fix it we can fix.
Speaker 1:It, we can fix it so.
Speaker 1:I'm on page 63 in our little blue book, the Florida Masonic Monitor. This is published. You can actually find all of this on the Grand Lodge website published. None of this is secret, as we say all the time. We would never do that. All of our encrypted stuff remains that way and we don't. We don't write it down, we don't do any of those things we're obligated not to.
Speaker 1:But these are things that we feel every mason should be familiar with and I know that there are some, some brothers, who are ea's that don't want to go forward into this book and read fellowcraft and masonry things. That is your choice. I would encourage you to do it, just to know what's coming your way, but you don't have to you, if you want to experience it for the first time, you know as you go through it. I think that's you know, that's your choice. I look back and think to myself you know, it's just some basic outlines would have been very helpful, especially in the ea degree. Everybody's nodding their head yes, right now it's like, yeah, I was totally lost and then they started shooting me with an informational fire hose.
Speaker 2:Well, to be honest, you a lot of people may only hear the the charge a couple times if they don't go back to degrees and there's no way you're gonna remember what was in that charge right right after hours of hearing things, that's the last thing you heard hence why we're given the little blue book, yeah, so that we can read it and read it.
Speaker 1:And please do. And if you are an ea or a fellowcraft, you don't have that little blue book yet, but when you get it, when you get the little blue book, I would encourage you to get a couple of stickies and throw them in there and read through it regularly, just to familiarize yourself with what it means to be a Mason. We need some of that because sometimes and lately there's all kinds of misbehaviors going on out there with regard to Masonry. Should we talk about that or should we let that one go? Maybe we'll let that one go.
Speaker 2:It does seem to be silly season lately it is silly season, isn't? It why just came out of nowhere but a lot of Masonic drama all at once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and I got up in our stated meeting last night and just reminded the brethren. I just felt like I needed to remind the brother and that you know, if you have an issue with another brother, it is never appropriate, it is never a good idea, it is never Masonic for you to post on social media your displeasure with another brother, even if your cause is right. It doesn't matter, and what I tried to encourage everybody last night was don't even read the whole thing. You know once you see where this, this, this post or this letter or this, this, this conversation is going stop, stop, don't, don't get drawn into it and like.
Speaker 1:Kevin Smith jumped up junior warden last night and said and don't, and don't engage, and I think that was really good advice don't inflame don't inflame it, don't engage it and and what he would tell you, as junior warden, it is your junior warden's responsibility to take those, to take any kind of issues you have with another brother that you couldn't resolve between the two of you, you take it to the junior warden, you put it in his lap and then you move on, man and he. He deals with it from a third party perspective. He doesn't take sides and he just looks at the situation and makes a determination, and that that goes up higher. We this is all part of our, our system. Free masonry is a self-governing fraternity. We have our own government, we have our own system for dealing with things like this, but we don't use it in this case. It's being used and it's being used well. So I'm very encouraged by that.
Speaker 1:But again, brothers, if you see at first thing, for goodness sakes, never post anything anywhere outside of a lodge about another brother. Just don't do it. It's never a good idea, it's never correct or right, at no time. It in your mind while you're typing. I'm hoping my words will come through to you. It's not the thing to do, it's not a thing no, you can't do it.
Speaker 2:It's not good for anybody, probably ever ever but as mason's in particular absolutely we're supposed to like, look and think about this kind of behavior and not do it right, you're bringing, and we're not preaching from on high.
Speaker 2:I I have been guilty in the past of not thinking before I spoke right. I'm guilty of it, especially when you get caught up and you're, you know, passionate. But I mean, you got to learn from those lessons. You have to admit to yourself you made a mistake when you make a mistake, or else how else you ever gonna progress?
Speaker 2:yeah, I have to realize you're doing something that was wrong. And then what do you do when you do that? Because you will make a mistake. We all do sooner later right you tell people you made the mistake, you ask for forgiveness and you show them that you learned a lesson. That's what you do. It's not hard just just own it, admit it and then learn a lesson. That's what mason's do and and in in.
Speaker 1:In confessing it I'll use that word and and humbling yourself and coming back to a person and saying, look, what I did was wrong and I need to do better. That in itself is the lesson. When you don't do that, when you just bury it or move on or get you know or just, you know, try to gaslight people about the situation, you don't learn the lesson. And I can guarantee you, man, it will happen again in your life. It will, because the pain of having to go and admit you were wrong in front of other people is the lesson it will. It will teach you the next time you will remember that pain yeah, you don't want that again and you don't want to do that again, man.
Speaker 1:So that is the lesson and one of the reasons why we have we have brothers out there and I say this to my church brothers all the time that we don't learn the lessons because we don't do the lesson. You know, you got to do the lesson and the lesson is. Sorry, bro, you. You blew it, man, and I'm speaking to myself right here and and now you have to.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example. I live in a villa complex and it's strictly HOA controlled. I mean like they. If you've ever heard the term HOA Nazis, well, the ultimate HOA Nazi literally lives directly across the street from my front door. So when I go out, my front door there he is every day anyway.
Speaker 1:So our project, our complex, is getting roofs done, so it's like one building at a time they're going through doing roofs. Well, it was his day to do the roof and he doesn't like me, I'm just letting you know up front. He had the roofers parked their cars and trucks directly in front of my house and I came home from work have after having a long day and, of course, me being in the trades, and I got out of my truck and I went up to the roofers and I said, hey, why, why you parking here? What's wrong with you guys, why you got a park right in front of my house, yeah, so I was.
Speaker 1:I was on their case and they were, and they all looked at me at the same time and most of them were Hispanic, and they looked at me and said not our cars. And I said, oh no, not their cars well, who's is?
Speaker 1:it and then all of a sudden outcomes the HOA Nazi to tell me that it's the neighbor's cars. I had them parked there because of the roofing situation. We didn't want them parking in their driveways, and then I just lost it. Man, I just, I just I burned him right there in front of everybody and got really angry and then went inside. The next day I'm leaving for work and and God is just on me over this, and I can feel the spirit of God in me, like you know what you need to do right, and I'm like I don't want to do that and he's like you know what you need to do right.
Speaker 1:And it's like, lord, I don't want to do that. And he said third time, which is a biblical preset you know what you got to do right. So I knocked on his door and knocked on his door and out comes him and his wife, and I had to shake his hand and say, rob, I'm really sorry about yesterday. That's not the way I'm supposed to behave, especially with my neighbor. I hope you can forgive me and I don't want to. I don't want to have to do that again. And that was so painful. Yeah, it was so painful, especially because his wife hates me even more than him and she's just gleaming at me like it's like whatever. I was wrong.
Speaker 2:I really meant to learn a lesson.
Speaker 1:I'm a Christian, I'm a Mason. I have an obligation to behave in a certain way in front of other people. So what I did was wrong, but what I did to correct it was the right thing to do, and when I left there, I feel better. Right, I feel a lot better and I and I know after, and I know the next time that comes up, I'm gonna be thinking in the right frame of mind, right, because of what I did.
Speaker 2:So that's, that's my story, and that's exactly how Masonry should work, you it's painful to change. We've talked about this, it is. Changes is not easy, that's right that's right.
Speaker 1:You know somebody is getting in the way of what I want. Therefore, you know I have a choice. I have a choice. You know I can, I can do, I can handle it the right way or I can handle it the wrong way. And unless we, unless we learn these lessons and do the work, do the work, mason, we're never gonna, we're never gonna be in a position where when, when, reaction right, it's all about reaction.
Speaker 1:You know it's all about us when you hit your finger with a hammer, what comes out of your mouth? It's a reaction that comes out of your mouth. Well, what comes out of your mouth is what's in your heart. It's a great test. Go ahead and try it. I dare you. But but if you don't learn the lessons, if you don't do the work and learn the lessons, the same thing's gonna come out of your mouth every time you can't expect any change if you don't do any of the work.
Speaker 1:I think we beat this one to death. What do you think? Should we move?
Speaker 2:on. No, they got it.
Speaker 1:They got it. They got it all right. So page 63, the entered apprentice degree charge.
Speaker 1:We left off talking about the state yes and our, our, our obligation to the government to be loyal to the country, and we we touched a little bit on that, that, in fact, you know if, if the government stops being the government, what is our responsibility as masons? You can't be loyal. It's not a suicide pact, right? So if they're going off the cliff, being loyal and subjective to an organization of any kind that's going over a cliff and harming itself is not wise. So I we don't need to revisit that conversation, but at some point, you're right, we probably don't need a whole conversation, but I do agree with you.
Speaker 2:It's worth repeating that we're to defend our government, even if it's from itself correct.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right but there are ways in which we, as masons, are to go about that correct. It's clear from our charge that we're not to raise up arms and try to overthrow our government, but there are mechanisms of the government. We should be pushing and pulling levers to try to make sure that it doesn't go off the rails and then it stays our government. So it's. It's tough because, again, people's passions to get the better of them. We're in an environment where you're meant to learn to hate, and so I feel like it's really easy to start thinking about taking up arms against your own brothers right in this kind of environment and people are really passionate.
Speaker 2:It's similar to Freemasonry. People are really passionate about things yep and they have their idea of what's right and they really don't care about what your idea is of what's right. Not a lot of conversation happening, right, and when there's not a lot of conversation happening, you can guarantee that things are gonna go off the rails 100% of the time. They always go off the rails when the communication stops right, yeah communication has stopped community are going to go off the rails.
Speaker 2:They are, and we need to think about, as Mason's, how we're gonna handle that. We can be representatives of the government that we should have that's right, we can we can fight for the government that we should have. We must fight for the government that we should have and every legal means possible to us right but when it comes to taking up arms against our government or our fellow brothers, oh things get a little complicated that's.
Speaker 1:It does get complicated. I think that we, the first thing we need to do is is we need to live the life and be an example, first and foremost. So the first thing we should do is get our own political house and come on, let's everybody join politics. We need some mason's in here right, get get involved and and you know, I'm not talking about the Facebook armchair politician.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about get out, get elected and fix things yeah, and stand for the principles that our founders first brought, which is liberty and the pursuit of happiness life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, that your rights don't come from government. Government is commissioned to protect those rights that that were granted to you by God our rights.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, and, and you know it's I.
Speaker 1:I like what you said. We we don't take up arms against the government. Now the founding fathers left us a mechanism for protecting ourselves from yes, and out of control government.
Speaker 1:That's very different, yep, than actually being offensive. You're gonna lose. That's the first thing, because we've given them trillions of dollars to arm themselves, so you're not gonna prevail. That's the first problem. And the second problem is is once you go there, it's over. Once, a strong rebel we almost had in the Civil War, you know, once you have a strong, fortified, you know army that is fighting against another army of the same, you know, of the same country, it's over.
Speaker 1:It is only by the grace of God that the Civil War did not end up, yeah, as a, you know, as a, as a broken. We would end up like in Europe with, you know, 52 different countries, all factions and warring, and, and it would just be a broken system if we survived it at all. So that's not the point and that's not the way. The way is is that, first and foremost, you get your house in order. You get your own house in order, get out of debt, be a good man who's trying to make himself better, draw to yourself people of like mindedness and then get involved, go do something you know, and and, and, for goodness sakes, please, please, consider giving up the left versus right lie and go and embrace your neighbor, regardless of his political persuasion, and make friends and and and be friends and countrymen together, regardless of your differences, and and fortify your community and your neighborhood, man, because that's what, that's what matters that's the Masonic thing to do.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:The Uniparty wants us to continue to fight left versus right, but they're not left or right, they're about themselves and their money and their power. That's the Uniparty, what we need to do is give up the left. I say this all the time, I say this too much. Give up the left versus right. Lie and embrace your brother, because he's a fellow human being created in the image of God, and from there move forward. Okay, you ready.
Speaker 2:Well, imagine in Europe if you took all the countries and Overlaid like the size of the United States, how many countries in Europe would that take up? Oh, my gosh a lot yeah yeah, imagine ramming all those countries into one government now right. It's not gonna be pretty and ours isn't pretty. We have a big country. We have people With many different backgrounds. You know the coast Lifestyles very different from the middle and the upper parts of our country show enough.
Speaker 2:It's just different and we are very different, but we're not. We can't separate and have independent trade agreements. I mean we're one country. We have to figure out how to work with each other right. You don't have to like the lifestyle of the other person or even really understand it, you just have to respect it. That's right.
Speaker 1:Let them live it that, yeah, that's right, and and Everyone's individual beliefs and structures Are theirs. And and you know, I always go back to the. The marketplace of ideas, and this Imaginary marketplace that I've constructed in my crazy mind is a place where anyone can. Anyone is welcome, as long as you come with gentleness and respect, wanting to share your ideas with others. But the minute you try to force somebody in the marketplace of ideas Into your way of thinking, then then it's no longer a marketplace, it's no longer a place where I can go and shop and look and learn and and draw from the things that I need in my own life. And then the other thing I always say and you guys know what I'm gonna say you got to go into the marketplace of ideas knowing what you personally believe and why you believe it, otherwise you're gonna go in there and you're not gonna understand what's going on. So can we move on now? All right.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna read it, this one paragraph right here, and then we'll discuss it. I'm on page 63 in our little blue book, although your frequent appearance at our communications is earnestly Solicitated, yet it is not meant that masonry should interfere with your necessary vocations, for these are, these are on no account to be neglected. Neither Are you to suffer your zeal for the institution to lead you into arguments with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's pretty self-explanatory right on a lot of esoteric thought to that one. It's like hey, we are gonna ask you to come do a lot of things right don't feel like you have to be at all of them.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, don't be like us.
Speaker 2:You got things going on and you should have things going on in your life, but Masonry is gonna be here and we would appreciate it if you just showed up every once in a while.
Speaker 1:That's when you're able to, when you think about us, don't forget about us.
Speaker 1:right, absolutely, and you know your fair statement, right you're paying an annual, do you're paying your annual dues, which we we appreciate. So why not, when you can Come on into Lodge and sit down and, and you know, have dinner with the brothers and and and be a part of what you can, as you can If you're, if you're a young guy with, you know, three kids and a wife, I mean your ability to get down to the Lodge and do so. It's gonna be severely limited and everybody who is reasonable in the Lodge Understands that. Yes, totally understands that, you know.
Speaker 2:Everybody's in a different phase of their life and they have a lot of different things going on and Masonry fits in differently as you Go through your own life. There's times when you're gonna be more active, when you have more time, and then there's gonna be times Inevitably if you're in the fraternity long enough where it's not gonna be part of your life for a little while because you just have too much stuff going on. That's normal. It's normal for every Mason. We shouldn't be judging anybody else for their level of participation because it's probably the best they can do at this point. But anybody who gets Masonry gets that you get a lot out of going, even if you're not an officer, even if you're not yeah, that's right just being there, you get a lot out of it, and here's a good example.
Speaker 2:You're fairly new Mason, relatively speaking. I am when you've met a lot of new Masons now.
Speaker 1:I have not a normal new Mason.
Speaker 2:You're in a different situation than most people. You travel a lot right you get to meet a lot of people. Now, when you meet a new Mason for the first time and you're hugging that person like a brother, like a brother.
Speaker 2:You've never met him in his life. Are you thinking about who he's gonna go home and have sex with that night when you give him that hug? Are you thinking about who he voted for in the last election when you gave him that hug? Are you just thinking this is a brother, I want him to know that I love him and we're in this together? That those are the thoughts going through your head when you meet a new person. As a Mason, you think, oh, I want to show this person that I actually have a lot of love, that I'm open, that I trust him. Like those are the things that we think about when we need a brand new person off the street We've never met before. That's a Mason, me, that's for me.
Speaker 1:No, no, I completely agree with you, and that's the beauty of Masonry. It is it sets up in the lodge environment that anybody, from any background, it doesn't really matter what your personal life is we come together under, you know, under the precepts and concepts of Masonry, you know, we, under Brotherly love, relief and truth, we come together to better ourselves through knowing other people from different backgrounds, and I think that's the beauty of it. I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, in the founding of this country, masonry was so, so Intimately involved in it, because it was a place where people from all wildly different backgrounds and and and Situations could come together and craft out, you know this, this new idea For self-government. That had to be done, you know, and, yes, most of them were Christians, I get that, but it was done outside of the church, even though, I mean, at the founding of our country, most of the states had a state church, believe it or not, that's actually true.
Speaker 1:The Presbyterian church was the official church of Virginia, of the state of Virginia, at the founding of this country. But notice, they didn't use the church as the place to develop the concept Right, of a free, of a constitutional Republic. They used a different place, a medium where all the different faiths could come together and craft this thing out, based on Individual liberty and freedom and the pursuit of happiness for each individual. You know, like we said, you know the the rights granted by God to man, not by government. This could not have happened within the context of different denominations and and and different, different religions and.
Speaker 2:Familiar background. It couldn't have happened without Freemasonry. It couldn't.
Speaker 1:I don't think it could have happened.
Speaker 2:Country couldn't exist without. I I fraternity guiding our founders.
Speaker 1:I think so, because the lodge it was like it's the pub in Europe. A lot of change happened in the pubs in Europe because that's a way of life for them there, but here it was in the, it was in the lodges and that's where they met and that's where a lot of it and they met at pubs.
Speaker 2:The lodges were both worlds.
Speaker 1:I Think back then they were able to have a grog or two while they were in lodge, but today we don't, because of.
Speaker 2:Well, this is America and gotta subdue our passions, and that doesn't help.
Speaker 1:We like to create laws that we end up having to live under. So yeah, but.
Speaker 2:I mean, imagine that you could take that lesson of Freemasonry into your life. Yeah when you meet your neighbor who you never met right just give them a hug like that and you're not thinking about oh, what is it? You know, you're just looking at him as a human being.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That's reading them into your life, yeah if you could take that into your life, we would have a lot less problems. That's right.
Speaker 1:If my, if my neighbor happens to be of a different religious persuasion than mine, but his roof is leaking and I have the ability to repair his roof because he can't afford to do so and the water is dripping down on his children's head, then what does it matter? What background, what, what anything about his life or his belief structures. I have the ability to help this man, this person created in God's image, and I should do so with all haste.
Speaker 2:And with joy in my heart. That's right hearts in mind. That's right way to have them think differently about you.
Speaker 1:That you just Didn't even ask, yeah and, and I just would encourage every brother to adopt that attitude you know, and and to employ it into your life. Now listen to this, mm-hmm. Neither are you to suffer your zeal for for the institution to lead you into arguments with those who, through ignorance, may ridicule it.
Speaker 2:Well, this is really important for entered apprentices.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you are going to be very passionate about the fraternity you just joined and you are full of energy for the fraternity. And you, when you become a mason, guarantee you, when you start telling people, people you wouldn't suspect are gonna tell you that you just joined a cult. Yep, you're now an evil lizard, pedophile, worshiping whatever right. I don't even know what the latest conspiracies are, but you will get that. And here's the thing Don't engage them.
Speaker 1:Do not engage.
Speaker 2:No, it's not gonna be worth your time. You're not gonna do anything but feed into their need To talk about this theory that they have. They don't care what you have to say and you are gonna be zealous. This is right. It's so right. You've been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah anybody that's an entered apprentice can attest. This is gonna happen to you, so do remember not to engage, and this is something that people really lament about our fraternity that there's so much negative Information and nobody goes out and tries to correct them. I have a feeling they've tried that, guys. Yeah and they realize it's not gonna get you anywhere.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's a waste of time, because Anybody who would first of all, anybody who would approach you to tell you that what you, you just joined an organization and you shouldn't have and you're wrong in doing it, please quit immediately Anybody who would say that to you, who knows you is, is acting out of ignorance. Anyways, why bother? They're not, you're not gonna change their mind standing there in front of them, that's the first thing. Secondly, you, if you're an EA and you're listening to this and you're zealous about what you just got into and you're pumped, and you come across somebody who wants to tell you that you just joined a cult and eventually they're going to have you riding a goat wearing women's underwear, whatever it is, that's out there lately, don't engage them.
Speaker 1:But if it sparks questions in your mind or if you have a doubt or problems, come talk to one of our elder statesmen. Come talk to, you know, doug Dobbs or Wright Warshfield, hard or Warshfield.
Speaker 2:Burns.
Speaker 1:Every district has people like that, every district has a guy in there that you can sit down and say this is what they said about this and you know, and it really bothered me. Well, go talk to somebody in the lodge, get some information. Don't believe everything you hear right away, but do your research, do your homework, be diligent to understand what it is that you've gotten yourself into. Look, I can tell you right now, and I'll share a story about it here, what happened to me the other day. But, as you know, as an ordained chaplain in the Christian faith, I get a lot of. I was just up in North Carolina with my family and you know they at this point they won't even bring up masonry at all, but my brother-in-law did make a little side comment about it. But anyway, don't forget it rabbit hole, don't get involved, brother. Don't get involved, don't get discouraged. Don't feel like you have to defend masonry as an EA. You know, with all of your zeal and gusto, just hey, thanks man you know I'm new at it.
Speaker 1:I'll let you know how it goes If any of those things that you say are true. Well, you know me, I'm not going to continue to do something like that.
Speaker 2:That should be the best way to deal with it as an interdependence, because you don't know much.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you really don't.
Speaker 2:you're not in a position to argue for free masonry at this point. I mean, you know enough, I'm sure, to deal with the person you're talking to, but really you have a lot left to learn a lot, so don't it's not a good point in your masonic career to become the warrior for free masonry with the non-mesons.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:The thing is, once you become a master mason, you're going to have so much opportunity to learn where this hateful thought came from in the first place. We were at Hillsborough Lodge for the Masonic symposium. Oh, last year yeah, that we were asked to speak at. Thank you so much, by the way, we're for Carol.
Speaker 1:We're for Carol, shout out. We got to get up there, sorry.
Speaker 2:But we had an opportunity to go and spend a day learning about free masonry, and one of the speakers named Daniel Molina gave a speech about the taxal hoax.
Speaker 1:Oh, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Had you heard about that before then?
Speaker 1:I had not. No, no, that was quite informative. Yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 2:You got some new information and you learned a little a lot actually about where some of these thinking about free masonry came from and how silly it all is originally. Now you're in a position to do, when it comes up, say, let me explain to you where you got that from.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You can with confidence, because when brother Molina gives a speech, he cites all of his references and fact checks everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very nice.
Speaker 2:It's very nice to have speakers like that in free masonry. We need more of that. We need more education, and we are committed to trying to help with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:As much as we can in our little corner of the world here. Look for more of that from us, but go when you see those, because it's an opportunity for you to get really helpful information. There was other speakers too that gave really interesting speeches, but that one applies to what we're talking about, which is where these thoughts of mason's drink blood and they do all these dark rituals because they're trying to get powers. And you know and learn Go research the taxal hoax for yourself, or come and watch Daniel Molina if you ever seen him speaking in the state about that particular one and you're going to learn where a lot of that stuff comes from and how silly it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you'll be in a better position to argue for the fraternity if you ever have to. But as an enterant apprentice, don't put yourself in that place. Shouldn't be something you've got to worry about. You don't need to be defending free masonry to anybody. You're still learning, so just laugh it off. That's the best thing you can do. Ha, ha, yeah, goats, you're funny that's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as soon as they bring a goat in, I'm going to leave.
Speaker 2:Change the subject. Yeah, don't engage, don't let them pull you it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Okay, at your leisure hours that you may improve in masonic knowledge, you are to converse with well-informed brethren who will always, be always as ready to give as you will be to receive instruction. Well, there it is right, there right.
Speaker 2:This is important. I just got a new EA class that I was doing catechism with last night. I have like six people now in my group. Wow, that is awesome.
Speaker 1:I saw them all in there in the stands there last night. When I walked in I was like dang, he's got a big crowd.
Speaker 2:I just love doing catechism classes. You're good at it, you get them involved.
Speaker 1:You can see they're all like really involved. They want to be involved and it's fun. You make it fun, so that's when you learn it should be fun, right it should be fun.
Speaker 2:Where's that going with that?
Speaker 1:You were. You did it too, didn't you? You zoned. I zoned once, maybe twice, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is the thing that always comes up. People are like oh, I can call somebody, I'm not going to. I'm like no, they want you to call.
Speaker 1:They want you to call.
Speaker 2:I'm your instructor, but I'm not the only guy in frame, masonry. Look, here's Fred's cell phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, call. Here's Alberto cell phone number. Here is Kevin Smith's phone number especially with catechism, because it only sharpens you. You get a brother, call hey man, can you? And hopefully everybody's got their little red book with them.
Speaker 2:Master mason out there, please have it with you all the time, or, even better, keep it in your head and it'll go in your head the more you do it.
Speaker 1:But that's what I was saying.
Speaker 2:If somebody calls me, well, you know, and says, and says hey can you go over you know this with me.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, man, I definitely can. I'll take a minute to do that. Pull the book out and go through it with a brother.
Speaker 2:It only strengthens you. There's a fear for an inner apprentice that they don't. They don't even know if they can. They don't know who to call.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Feel bad if they're calling somebody. Don't, this is, this is we're giving you a charge. It's like hey, when you're ready to learn you call because yeah, that's right, they're always going to be ready to teach always yeah, that's right, man, maybe. I'm busy personally. Maybe I'm going to meeting or whatever call the next guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right, somebody ready. If you want it. Right, If you want it, you will find it. It's there.
Speaker 2:If you're an interdeprentice in the lodge right now, we would encourage you you have your instructor's number to ask him for two or three other names of people that you can call.
Speaker 1:That's right, he's busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he'll give you those numbers and you'll have plenty of people to help you.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, for me when I was going through doing proficiency, I would work on it every day and I hope, if you're an EA and a and a fellowcraft, or even getting your getting making your way to Master Mason, that you're working on it every day in some small or big way 10 minutes a day.
Speaker 1:So he really mean right I had a shout out to my brother, Wade Botkin and I would call each other every day and we'd go back and forth, you know, with the catechism, just teaching ourselves. With or without the book depends on how we felt and don't you look back on those?
Speaker 2:I loved it Good time.
Speaker 1:I miss it. I miss my brother Wade Botkin man. We need to get him in here and interview him.
Speaker 2:We do. He's a very entertaining individual.
Speaker 1:He's entertaining. He's got a bit of a Southern draw too, which I definitely appreciate.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and a super intelligent, maybe brilliant guy with just an emotional steadiness like I've never seen. Yeah, yeah, so kind of person that just makes you feel calm when you're around him.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and we are at a point now in the show where we will be. We will be putting together a bunch of interviews so that we can we can start pumping those out again. Not sure what happened here. We kind of went through a little bit of a I don't know, maybe an attack from the outside man. Our jobs just went nuts. So yeah, and we had to focus on that. Believe it or not, we do this part time I don't know if you guys know that or not and we don't get paid a dime to do this. We actually pay to do this. But anyways, that's a different story.
Speaker 2:We pay in many ways. Yeah, we started this morning at 6am here recording. Yes, so that we can get to our jobs, having left the lodge at 10am, 10pm last night 10.30 for me, yeah, so I was in bed by midnight, got about five and a half hours.
Speaker 1:I can hear the violins going. Now, the tiny little violins are going. Everyone really cares. Yes, yes, sacrifices, no, no, but I mean, that's what you do for something you love, you find time for it.
Speaker 2:The people that say, uh, my cable to, I don't have time, okay, okay, but I know for me if something's important to me, I make time.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you this If you, if you take the time to do some of the work and then you get an opportunity to use it in the lodge, it's a great feeling, man, it's a great feeling of accomplishment, of brotherhood doing. That's the thing that I always say. You know about masonry is, the cure for masonry is to do masonry. Yeah, because that's the ritual work that we do. And it says it, it says it in the, in the monitor and and elsewhere that it seems frivolous, it might seem like you know a play or some kind of you know activity that is, that carries no weight. I assure you, brother, that is not the case, because it, it, it does transform us into a unit. We become a band of brothers by doing this stuff together.
Speaker 1:I'm on the, the competition degree team. I don't know how I ended up there. I'm certainly the weakest link of the group, but but I find this band of brotherhood happening where we're all just doing this together and we're supporting each other, and it's a a common goal that we have, you know, to go to this competition and to to bring home the, bring home the gold baby, you know, and we're all just supporting each other. That's a big part of masonry, and if you're out there listening, if you're not a mason and you're out there listening, that's that's one of the great things about masonry is the fellowship and the you know, working on things together as a group of men to better ourselves, our, our communities, our families, you know, I just I find that part to be absolutely exciting, you know.
Speaker 2:Me too. Yeah, yeah, and you know you get clear direction, which is why we're going over this charge together in such detail, because it deserves thinking about it. If you break it apart, it's a roadmap for how to behave and how to go through these degrees.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're not going to argue with the outside world now. We don't have to show up to every meeting that they're going to ask us to. No, it's an okay word to say and look when you're ready to learn. There's going to be people, don't stress about it. Don't worry, don't feel bad about it. We want the call. Yeah, that's right. We spent so much time learning this ritual work and you go out in the world, in your life and you can't talk about it.
Speaker 2:You can't do it, it's, it's, it's like you're a ritualist wants an opportunity to do ritual. Right, right and you don't get to make those, you've got to wait for those, and so when somebody can call you and ask you about the ritual, trust me, the brothers want to talk to you. They want to talk about this stuff. You're doing them a favor by calling them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and, and. If you don't get, if you don't get brother one, call brother two. If you don't get brother two, call brother three. Let let your zeal for Masonic knowledge go go down that road, brother, you won't regret it.
Speaker 1:Finally, keep sacred and invaluable, invaluable the mysteries of the order, as these are to distinguish you from the rest of the community and mark your conscience among masons. If, in the circle of your acquaintances, you find a person desirous of being initiated into the fraternity, be particularly careful not to recommend him unless you are convinced that he will conform to our rules, that the honor, glory and reputation of the institution may be firmly established and the world at large convinced of its good effect.
Speaker 2:the end there's a couple of important points very important points One invaluable invaluable invaluable, as I'm looking at how to pronounce it yeah, invite invaluable right. It just means never to be broken, infringed or dishonored.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it means keep sacred and don't ever give up or break your vow. The mysteries of the order.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Mysteries are the things that we don't tell the outside world. The secrets now and it's also saying in here that that's what separates us from everybody else is that we share the same secrets. That's right, and we agree to keep them just between us, and that makes us different than everybody else somehow Now you know and I know, and all masons know, that the secrets we keep to the average person would seem silly. We're talking about a grip, a word things that seem silly to the outside world.
Speaker 2:If they actually got the secrets, they'd be very disappointed because they think our secrets are more like. This is how you turn copper into gold. Right, those are the kind of secrets for keeping. Right Unfortunately we're keeping secrets much sillier than that, but it's not silly because they have historical reference and they have important like ties to our past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And also it's just a general test of fraternal brotherhood is that we all agree, no matter how silly the secret is, it's our secret and that's what we do as brothers. That's what makes us different. We agree to keep certain things to ourselves. That doesn't mean that there's anything nefarious in the secrets. So if you're a Mason, keep those secrets you. We really really make that. A prominent part of being a Mason is keeping our traditional secret secret to the outside people that are worried that our secrets are nefarious. I assure you they're not. They're not. They're not. We are, we are attempting.
Speaker 1:We are attempting to make good men better.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And in the end it is a benefit to man and community. Listen to this, as these are to distinguish you from the rest of the community and mark your conscience among Masons. You know that's one of the things that a lot of people say about.
Speaker 1:You know, my uncle was a Mason and he was just such a good man, or I met this one guy and he was just, you know, he's the coach or whatever he was, and he was just such a decent human being and all the time. And I found out later that he was a Mason. That's what that's talking about right here, that he's being distinguished from the rest of the community. You know a guy, a guy that's posting all kinds of garbage online about other people's political views or other people's lifestyle, whatever it is. That's not the mark in the community that you, as a Mason, want to form formulate. That is an incorrect understanding of what Masonry is.
Speaker 1:We're supposed to be marked by humility, knowledge, strength, kindness, a willingness to help, a willingness to be, you know, to be part of the solution. You know, that's what it's. And there's there seems to be a reserveness to a Mason who understands Masonry that we are reserved. We don't just throw it out there. We're reserved with what we have and what we share together, and we try our best to. If somebody's interested in it, we want to test them, so to speak, a little bit to see just how interested they are before we give up everything. And that's what it's talking about here. Be particularly careful.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is a part that really stood out to me. Right and I was at the end of like. I legitimately remember feeling impressed when I heard that line, because in my mind I was like oh, here it comes, here comes the hard sell.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you're gonna tell me If you find the person that wants to join.
Speaker 2:Here's a petition.
Speaker 1:Tell them to join. I was like here we go.
Speaker 2:They're gonna sell me and they'd like more money, more money. But no, they said, be particularly careful, and I emphasize this, if I ever do the charge, and you hear me.
Speaker 1:I know, yeah, it sticks to my head, right?
Speaker 2:Be particularly careful not to recommend them unless you are convinced that they will conform to our rules. So don't recommend somebody that you don't think is gonna be a good fit, for not everybody's ready to be a Freemason at this point in their life. I know I wasn't. We've talked about this. When I tried to join the first time, I was right to be excluded. I wasn't ready in my 20s. It could have helped me greatly but I wasn't ready, to you know, to contribute or commit to it at that point. I mean.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there were times in your life you weren't ready to be. You wouldn't have been a good representative of yourself to the fraternity at that point in your life and not everybody is, so be particularly careful not to recommend people that aren't ready for this at this point in their life and, like you just said, there are a lot of mechanisms to make sure people really want this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:We make you spend some time slow it down, work a little bit proves that this is something you want in your life, right, and I think that's a good thing. You know we're not being exclusive. There's nothing about a person that would make them not ready for Freemasonry, other than what's in their heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Not your station in life, not how much money you make, not the job you have no color of your skin, none of that's going to matter. If you don't have it in your heart, then you shouldn't. You shouldn't join.
Speaker 1:You shouldn't recommend that person to. Even if your grandpa was in the Illuminati, it won't get you anywhere with us, bro it won't. So the question is I like that. It's a question answer right Unless you are convinced that he will conform to our rules why that the honor, glory and reputation of the institution may be firmly established and the world at large convinced of its good effect. Listen when you, when you, when you do things that are contrary to Masonic principles out in the public, you are not honoring, you're not honoring the fraternity.
Speaker 1:No, you're embarrassing, You're embarrassing the fraternity and you're embarrassing yourself. And and I said it last night, I brought this up at the beginning of the show I told everybody at our meeting last night if, if, if, you're posting, speaking, writing about another brother in a negative way, it's never right, it's never a good idea, it's, it's not a Masonic thing. You are violating Masonic laws and principles. Is what you're doing? Even if what you're saying is true, even if what you're saying you think is true or might even be factually true, it doesn't matter. You're still violating your obligation because you're bringing dishonor, and and and and and and dishonor, and and, ruining the reputation I don't know why I'm having a hard time with this ruining the reputation of the institution.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing Fred has been very clear about what not to do. Yes you've been listening to this episode. He said it multiple times throughout what not to do what not to do.
Speaker 1:Here's what you should do. Yes, let's hear that part.
Speaker 2:What you should do if you have any concerns or issues with the brother is go to that brother, look him in the eyes and tell him what you have on your heart and try to do it in a way that's not insulting or right, gentleness and respect.
Speaker 2:But definitely tell him as clear as you can what your issue is. Now. What he does with that is going to dictate your next actions. Right, okay, you did your job as a mason. That's the first step. Always Go to the person and talk to them. That can be hard to do because it's not something we do in our regular life. We don't usually have honest and open, difficult conversations with people that we are acquaintance with, and it's really hard if we love them because you don't want to hurt their feelings, you don't want them to have bad feelings about you. You don't want them to go around telling everybody you're the guy that complains. Whatever the thing is, you have an obligation to your brother. You need to fulfill the obligation. Talk to your brother, even if he's not being Masonic, especially if he's not being Masonic. That's where you need to talk to him. Talk to your brother. If that gets you nowhere, if the behavior or whatever the issue is seems to continue, then you keep it within the fraternity and you go to your junior warden of your lodge.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned earlier, the person that you need to go to because he is the chairman of the vigilance committee.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And their job is to make sure that all members of the lodge are being harmonious and respectful and Masonic Right.
Speaker 2:So if you've tried to deal with it man to man and you're not getting anywhere, you go to your junior warden, you explain to him the situation and if he's doing a good job he may ask a couple questions of other people involved. But he's going to wind up having a meeting with the three of you and try to mediate the situation and see if he can help you talk to the brother and help you get him to change his behavior. Sometimes it takes two people, it just does. Sometimes people think one guy's complaining, but when you sit in a room for the purpose of talking about what's happening, it takes on a different level and raises your awareness of the issue and hopefully that will resolve whatever the problem is. If it doesn't resolve the issue, the junior warden is the one that should kick it up the line and if he doesn't, then it's your prerogative to kick it up the line and file Masonic charges If you feel like it's that bad and it's not changing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Or if your junior warden doesn't resolve it and you don't feel like it raises to the level of bringing Masonic charges against someone, you can go to your district deputy grandmaster, who's the representative of the grandmaster in your district and has the ability to act and fix the situation.
Speaker 2:I recommend that you ask the junior warden to help you go to the district deputy Right and you need to follow these steps. These are the ways that you do it in a respectful, masonic way, because you're doing it with the intention of helping the brother. He needs to change his behavior. He's hurting himself or he's hurting the fraternity.
Speaker 1:This isn't about winning an argument. This is about helping a brother and bettering a situation, and protecting the fraternity.
Speaker 2:And protecting the fraternity we need to make sure that our integrity in the community stays impeccable, and we can't. You also said in the beginning that we self police. This is what self police is.
Speaker 1:That's right. We have a self government. It looks like Is the Masonry is a form of self government.
Speaker 2:Self government doesn't mean you go online and start yelling about stuff that you don't like.
Speaker 1:Nope, you've stepped outside of Masonry. As soon as you do it, first letter you've typed.
Speaker 2:This is how you do it Talk to the brother. Talk to the junior warden.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Get the junior warden to help you talk to the district deputy. If you've done all those steps, things still aren't changing and it's hurting the fraternity. You, my brother, are obligated to bring charges If you can't get it fixed. If nothing is happening, then you need to do that because we each, as individuals, are representatives of the fraternity and we each are the protectors of the fraternity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:But it starts with the notion that you want to help somebody that you care about, not that you want to see them, you know, brought to justice, or you want to see them burn up and you want to see them lose with something you want to hurt them like they hurt you. That's a human tendency, that's a human tendency.
Speaker 1:That's vengeance and you're not good at it. Alls you can do is hurt them back. That's all you can do. But true divine, from a divine standpoint, is to bring healing and betterment to all parties, because it's always wrong.
Speaker 1:It is not good when brothers do not dwell in harmony Right. How good and how pleasing it is when brothers dwell in harmony Right. That's a scripture that we use in Masonry a lot and that's what it is. God wants us to dwell in harmony. He created us originally to be in perfect harmony with each other under him. And when we break that and we ignore the remedy for it, which is humility and the systems that we have in place, then we've completely stepped outside of not only Masonry but really just the community of man. And I know it's our tendency, I know we're broken, we're broken men and it's our tendency, but the intention originally was for harmony.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Masonry seeks to bring about harmony amongst flawed and broken men.
Speaker 2:And to make good men better. And to make good men better. And how do we do that? We do it, we help them, we help them. We tell them to their face hey, what you're doing isn't right, it's not Masonic. It's not Masonic brother, here's the thing that you could do better or different, like teach them, if you can, a better way to do it. Give them other, alternative ways to handle whatever the situation is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you'll win your brother. You'll win his heart. Done correctly If you bring, if you bring correction with gentleness and respect to a brother and he listens to you, you have won him.
Speaker 1:You have won him to a better place in his life and in yours and you will be that much closer and the reward for that is self-evident. I mean having close brothers. Before I came to Masonry I was. I was a lone wolf man. I didn't have any friends, and my wife is the one who just kind of made that comment to me one day. You know you don't have any friends. It's like yeah, I do, wait, no, I don't.
Speaker 2:You're my friend. Yeah, right, yeah, aren't you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're my friend, she's like no, I'm your wife, Not your friend, I could be your friend, but right now I'm your wife, but and and what you gain is something that's fundamental to every man, and that's a brother, and there's somebody who can go through the good times and the bad times and understands you and has your back and has a common purpose with you. And in Masonry I have found that and for that I'm grateful, and I know a lot of brothers are shaking their head, yes, right now out there who have also found it, and we need to protect it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and if there's a our responsibility, our responsibility at vigilance is the price that we pay. That's right. We are the fraternity right now, all of us alive on this planet that are Mason's.
Speaker 1:So it's our job, that's right. Protect it, that's right.
Speaker 2:And grow it and use it to become better people, more useful citizens.
Speaker 1:Well, brother, once again, another, another epic episode, and sorry about the lost episode. This is the replacement for the lost episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very similar to this so don't.
Speaker 1:it was very similar, that's right.
Speaker 2:You got the information that we wanted to go over and we encourage you please do this in your lodge. If you do education in your lodge, it's not too hard to pick something out of, like we just did right. We covered half of the charge in an hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could pick a paragraph in the charge and cover it in 10, 15 minutes right, yeah talk about your thoughts on it and then open it up and see what the rest of the lodge has to say about it. You're getting education. You're engaging people, everybody's learning. It's a positive thing. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:And as a and you would be facilitating a moment of Masonic education in the lodge together with your brothers, and it just it. That can't be a bad thing, man, because we do it all the time, chris and I do it all the time. We go to the esoteric discussion group and we throw a concept out there to our brothers and really, from that point on we just facilitate conversation and it just grows on itself and it just builds on itself and it becomes just a wonderful time of brotherhood and learning that you can't get anywhere else, man. You're not going to get that anywhere else. It's practical understandings for living your life in a way that is pleasing to God and beneficial to your brothers and sisters out there.
Speaker 2:When I'm, when I'm like this Saturday we're going to have a campfire not a campfire, but we'll have a fire in the backyard and we'll all sit around it in our chairs and we're all going to. Many of us will be smoking a stogie and all have a whiskey in my hand.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 2:I'm not an over drinker, but it's a social setting. It's my house, I'm relaxed, I'm not driving anywhere, I'll probably sip on a whiskey and we're going to sit and talk about this fraternity that I love and I've realized while it's happening that these are moments in my life I'm going to look back fondly on.
Speaker 2:I'm weird like that Like actually having the thought while I'm doing it, like, wow, I need to be present because this is something I'm I know when I'm an old man. If I make it there, I'm going to look back at these were the good times in my life and it makes me enjoy that moment even more with my brothers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, you'll see me at some point sit back in my chair and just have a big smile on my face, and that's what's going through my mind is I'm appreciating this for what it is. These kinds of moments are moments that you're going to make that will be very impactful for the rest of your life if it's done properly and you, you, you can do it.
Speaker 2:All you need is a couple guys to say, yeah, we'll try it out, and if you go with a topic in mind, doesn't need to be a big topic.
Speaker 1:No, no, conversation will flow Right, yeah, people will engage. Yeah, they'll open up, especially in the lodge setting, when they're all sitting on the sidelines and you're standing in front of them bringing some kind of you know small little truth, a paragraph like, like Chris said, open up that blue book, grab a paragraph, read it first and then read it out loud and just begin, just begin to open people up.
Speaker 2:What does it mean? Yeah, how do you take that? How do you take that? Do you want to have a different take on this? Yeah, watch what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's absolutely amazing and you won't regret it. And if you do that, please send us an email and let us know how it went and if there's anything we can do to help Fred at on the level with Fred and Chris dot com or Chris at on the level with Fred and Chris dot com. The longest email address on the internet. For a reason, I haven't said that in a while.
Speaker 2:We should like live stream one of these things. I don't know, do you think that would inhibit people from sharing if we, if we made it like live on the internet?
Speaker 1:I think we should. I think we should get there.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it looks fun yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think we should do it every week.
Speaker 2:We do it once a month.
Speaker 1:Maybe once a month We'll start advertising it. Guys Listen up and and then maybe you guys can log in while we do a live stream, and yeah, we'll set that up and give it a try, but maybe like once a quarter, maybe we open one up to the public. Yeah, yeah, just maybe we'll get Alex Jones to call in and see what he's got to say.
Speaker 2:Oh boy, here we go. Alex Jones again.
Speaker 1:Sorry, brother, I did it anyway.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that'd be great if he called in, because that brother, you know, could probably use a little Masonic light in his life.
Speaker 1:I had another situation. I listened to a lot of podcasts and when I when I get into a thing where I want to, I want to learn and do some be taught some things. I use the internet, especially YouTube, to educate myself in different ways and I have just a plethora of teachers out there that I go to in certain situations.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, the.
Speaker 1:Illuminati and I study the scriptures a lot like every morning, and I've been on this track of study lately, which is just exciting man. I'm a geek, so it's really exciting to me and maybe someday I'll actually use it to the benefit of others, but right now it's completely benefiting me. But I tuned in to a pastor that I've listened to for years and he was doing a teaching on the subject that I've been studying and all of a sudden, out of nowhere is he blurts out and Masonry is a cult, and it just like I'm driving along listening to it, trying to, you know, get the information I need, and this just jumps out at me like I'm pulling over to hear this, and so it sparked me to take I'm leaving the track, the study track I'm on, and the study track that I'm picking up is is Masonry a cult? And how can I formulate and articulate to a person in very clear and simple ways that it is not? So this is where I'm going with my studies and you can go to my substack, which is the compass and the cross on substack, and I'll be, I'll be throwing out some of my ideas and thoughts there. Feel free to comment or to help out in any way you want on that, on that, on that it's the compass and the cross on sub substackcom. But yeah, so that's that's where I'm headed now with my insane deep dive study.
Speaker 1:Is it a cult? And if not, this is my premise. And if not which I don't think it is then how do I clearly and succinctly articulate that to somebody who thinks it is? Now, I know we talked about don't argue with people. I'm not talking about arguing and fighting with people over stuff. But if you got a guy who's asking questions about Masonry and they think it's a cult, how, how can you articulate to another person that it isn't, and in a way that is truthful and informational? So that's where I'm headed with that.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to ask yourself how do you define a cult? Well because they cult is like a very broad term. Are we talking really what the term cult means?
Speaker 1:Well, what he meant. What what pastor Mark Driscoll?
Speaker 2:meant, just meant, it is a derogatory term.
Speaker 1:No, no, no no, what he specifically means is the. The original definition of a cult is any religious organization, any organization that calls itself religious but does not hold to the traditional tenets of the Christian faith.
Speaker 2:So any other faith other than Christianity correct, so that was originally kind of a derogatory term for someone that's not of your faith.
Speaker 1:So now it means a cult, or a cult means just anybody who's into something I don't agree with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's too broad and the term cult definitely has a derogatory meaning today to it, because I mean, I watch a lot of documentaries on cults. I'm fascinated by it.
Speaker 1:Right, but they've reinterpreted that word correct.
Speaker 2:Well, today in academia there are some litmus tests for is something a cult or not? One of them is a single charismatic leader that everyone has unwavering devotion to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be like a Guyana. What's it called Jim Jones?
Speaker 2:Like Jesus, for example. He's not a live person, so can you call it a cult? I don't think so. A cult is like you said, jim Jones. This is a man who's alive and living today, who's telling you. He's the only way. He has all the answers. He needs to be listened to. Without question. Freemasonry doesn't have a person like that.
Speaker 1:No, no. But I do need to just remind you that Christianity believes that Christ is alive, Just gotta say that yes, that he is alive.
Speaker 2:So it's a little more cult-like.
Speaker 1:Well you, know the Christmas and Easter story, you know those From the Christian standpoint. I mean Right, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:About Christmas being the birth of Jesus. And then the death and resurrection, oh, from the dead, I thought resurrection meant he was raised, like you know, raised up, and he had a physical presence, only to show himself to certain people, to Nope, to bolster their faith. He showed himself to like a couple people. Right, I don't know how we got here but from a Christian perspective he was born a human being through a human being, but divine.
Speaker 1:So that's the hypostatic union. And then he lived the life that we could not live. He ticked off the church and the church had the government murder him, which was part of God's divine plan. But he, being God, could not be held by death, therefore was raised and is now seated and will return again from the place where he is seated.
Speaker 2:So you consider him alive, like flesh and blood alive.
Speaker 1:Well, no, he is, here we go. No, you said he is alive, and so on. Because in my mind Jesus, his body, christianity, was risen up into heaven when he was His physical body has been transformed into a heavenly body, as will all those in the end be raised to the same.
Speaker 2:So not a physical flesh and blood person. Currently no, Like Jim Jones was when he was.
Speaker 1:Jim Jones was Right. That's how we got here, but I just wanted to make the comment that, anyway, let's move on.
Speaker 2:So another litmus test for cult is they are going to separate you from people that aren't member of that group.
Speaker 1:Right, they have to, they have to, they have to do that Because if you are around people who are not part of the cult, then you could find out the truth. You could be brought the truth from the outside could be brought in, Like the Hale Bob Remember the Hale Bob start comet cult and they all believed that there was a spaceship on the backside of the Hale Bob comet and they all committed suicide together. After they castrated themselves After they castrated themselves. That would be a modern day explanation of a cult.
Speaker 2:It is because it had a single leader that they all followed and they literally killed themselves on his word.
Speaker 1:On his word right.
Speaker 2:They had to cut themselves off from their family and loved ones. Absolutely yeah, Because they didn't think the way they thought.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:These are all the litmus tests where you say cult, cult, cult cult.
Speaker 1:Right, because there's always, like you say, there's always a cult leader.
Speaker 2:But in Masonry, a very charismatic one, usually In.
Speaker 1:Masonry. We have a form of representative government from the bottom up. Right we have a grandmaster.
Speaker 2:Most worshipful Glenn Bishop. He's only in our state. He only runs our state.
Speaker 1:Correct. So the country doesn't answer to our grandmaster and he does not have the authority to dictate to the individual Mason how they're supposed to, what they're supposed to do and think and say.
Speaker 2:No, we have to approve those changes.
Speaker 1:Everything is approved by our leadership and it's a beautiful system. It's very familiar system. We say this all the time. It's a constitutional republic-like system of government and when it works, it's really great to see our Masonic government at work. It really is, and I'm so grateful to the most worshipful bishop for some of the moves he's made to really put us back in an attitude of using Masonic law, using the Masonic traditions to benefit Masonry, and I really do appreciate it. I look forward to interviewing him.
Speaker 2:I did leave. Oh, me too I did leave.
Speaker 1:I left him a message the other day. Oh good, no pressure, most worshipful.
Speaker 2:And Everyone petition him to be on our show. We're petitioning. Yes, please, sir, brace your district deputies and tell them. And he's, we're in so much trouble now.
Speaker 1:But yeah, hopefully it's not too late. He did mention that he'd be willing to do an interview when he's down in St Pete at the Masonic Lodge and he's At the.
Speaker 2:Masonic home.
Speaker 1:At the Masonic home and, of course, the first lady who's very passionate about the people who live in the Masonic home as well, being interviewed. So that's something we're really looking forward to. I hope we can put that together and share that with you guys going forward, anyways my cheap shout out to the most worshipful we want it to happen.
Speaker 2:It's going to happen. Odessa and Glenn Bishop will be on the show.
Speaker 1:Yes, it will happen, that's right.
Speaker 2:But what I was saying is you can argue with that person that we don't exhibit any of the traits of the cult.
Speaker 1:No, we don't have a single dynamic leader.
Speaker 2:Nobody's gonna jump off a bridge if their district deputy tells them to.
Speaker 1:No, that's right as a matter of fact, quite the opposite.
Speaker 2:Probably not. It could be like bye.
Speaker 1:The district deputy would be thrown off the bridge.
Speaker 2:No one's gonna do that. Not only do we not cut you off from your family and non-believers, we invite you to bring them to our events to see who we are and what we're about.
Speaker 1:And we invite you to make yourself a better man, that you would benefit your family and that you would be a better husband, be a better father, be a better community person overall in your life, regardless of your background or where you come from, how much money you have, what you do for a living, it doesn't matter. We wanna make good men, better men and preserve the honor and dignity of our ancient fraternity.
Speaker 2:And the final litmus test for a cult is it has a differing alternative for salvation than traditional religions do, and Freemasonry doesn't have that.
Speaker 1:No Freemasonry, we're not a religion.
Speaker 2:Don't wait to your salvation.
Speaker 1:Freemasonry is not a religion. It is not a religion. It says it in our documents very clearly.
Speaker 2:You've already got that when you came to the doors. We don't even let you in unless you got that figured out already.
Speaker 1:You can't be an atheist. Right, and it's funny. In our tradition the atheist is in the same category as the fool and the libertine. So, we don't want people who are not open to what we would consider the obvious fact of a grand architect, because it's really tough to look at this world.
Speaker 2:It's a core part of Freemasonry.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely the core part. You believe in the higher power. That's correct. You believe in God, let's say you believe in God is the way it's worded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can say that, because we say it throughout all of our ritual.
Speaker 1:That's right. Somewhere in one of the writings it's that we hold to the fatherhood of God. It says that as part of Masonry, and that being just that, god, the great architect, is the ultimate authority. He is sustainer creator and ultimate authority over the lives of a Mason. That's what you're committing to when you come here.
Speaker 2:We refer to God as a parent many times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:That we are all brothers and sisters of the same almighty parent. Essentially, Correct. And you can call whatever you want, you can worship however you want, that's totally fine. But you do need to have, like you said, some basis of where you think your view on this needs to be firmly established before you come, or at least loosely established before you come.
Speaker 1:I always look at it like it's kind of like. It's not that you must affirm a belief in God. That's the positive. The negative is, you cannot be an atheist, and I think it's more about that. This would be a great discussion, but I think it's more about that you can't come to Masonry, believing in your heart that all of this is an accident and that there is no divine, because that's what atheists believe. They believe in natural selection through random variation, which is the Darwinian process.
Speaker 2:And you can't be a Mason. That doesn't preclude God. You can observe that in nature. The book of nature teaches you that evolution is real and happens all the time.
Speaker 1:Well, not Darwinian evolution.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I guess you could. The tree of life, the tree of life.
Speaker 1:The tree of life has been completely debunked by the discovery of DNA.
Speaker 2:The tree of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Darwin's tree of life.
Speaker 2:I don't know about Darwin's tree of life. Look it up. I know everyone knows of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Speaker 1:Well, the basis of it is the tree of life, is that concept? He drew a tree and it shows all these things. But over time, in an age of scientific enlightenment, we get more and more information into the creation, that's my word, into the creation that's all around us. And as time went on, we just found it just became untenable to believe that things are getting things started from a single cell and then, from there, got better and better and stronger and smarter and better and better and better, and all things are as one through random variation and chance. That's not possible based on the actual science. It's just simply not possible.
Speaker 1:So I would encourage everybody to look up intelligent design, the Discovery Institute. If you go to a Google search Discovery Institute and look into the concept of intelligent design, it fits very well with the concept in masonry and it's absolutely brilliant. These scientists, these well accomplished scientists and biologists and archaeologists, and all of these brilliant men and women who are looking into. Ok, there's clearly a mind, there's clearly a design and a mind behind all of this. Let's just, as scientists, go from one hypothesis to the other, to the other and find out where it leads.
Speaker 2:And it's fascinating where they've ended up. This is one of my favorite things about that Freemasonry gave me is it open my eyes up to the there's the book of revelations and the book of nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:The book of revelations isn't everything OK. It's not Because there are many books of revelation, but the book of nature is a commonality that we all share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, general revelation.
Speaker 2:The more we look at nature through scientific means, the better we understand our creator. It's odd to me that people put those things at odds like that. By looking at you know, they come up with theories which are just working theories, because some of these things are, in my opinion, never going to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Many things like creation We've talked about this on the car, on the way to an esoteric discussion.
Speaker 2:Right, we were like where did it all come from? And you got a scientist in the car talking about the Big Bang theory, and you got you talking about the book of Genesis and really neither one of you can be proven wrong.
Speaker 1:And neither one of you can be proven right. Well, that's right. Everyone in the car could be wrong, but not everyone in the car could be right.
Speaker 2:So, but in there is the conversation. You're not hurting anyone by believing what you believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just side note, I am not a young Earth creationist, just so everybody understands it. All right, we can go on.
Speaker 2:That is an important thing, because that's a tough one to get past.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my brothers and sisters in the church who still hold on to a young Earth creationism. I mean, I think they do so out of tradition, which it's not a test for Christianity. You can still be a believer and hold to a young Earth or a not young Earth paradigm. The only reason being is the first two chapters of the book of Genesis were not written to give us a date of the Earth. That's not what it's for. It uses the concept of days for its purpose, but not for the purpose of telling us how old the Earth is, Because we can prove scientifically I've said this on the show before there is SN 185 is a supernova that we've been tracking for a lot of years, and the light signatures from that supernova that hit the Earth are 275,000 years old. So that's empirical proof, that's mathematical proof that that light signature.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of other caveats to that statement, but that light signature is in fact 275,000 years old. That's tough to explain.
Speaker 2:There's much, much older light signatures being detected with the web telescope.
Speaker 1:now Correct.
Speaker 2:But there's two things that I want to make a point of. Science helps us uncover the truth of things. I don't think that anyone can argue that it doesn't help to uncover the truth.
Speaker 1:The true scientific process can Correct.
Speaker 2:It doesn't always, but it can help uncover the truth of things. And what is the truth if it's not the death of a previous truth? When something becomes true, you're killing the truth of something that existed before that truth.
Speaker 1:I don't have to think about that for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's deep when you think about that. Every truth kills a previous truth, so you have to be careful of clinging to things so tightly that you can't see a different truth than the one you've decided on. And science uncovering things that are new, it shouldn't worry you about losing your faith. It should get you excited about becoming closer to discovering the truth of God.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, all of these scientific discoveries in my mind are awakening me to the greater, bigger picture of this creation and making it more undeniable that there's order to it all.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that and that's absolutely true.
Speaker 2:Don't fear that the science, because it's just helping uncover truths that are going to bring the real truth out, which is, you can't deny there's really intelligent design behind all of this. No, you can't, that's right.
Speaker 1:It's there, from the smallest pre-atomic molecule to the vastness of the universe. There's absolutely no way that this fireball, surrounded by water that's traveling 27,000 miles per second around the sun at the same 23.78 pitch to the sun, move at one degree and everyone dies. There's no possible way. This happened by accident, that's just simply not possible.
Speaker 2:Blow it up and at the scale that we're now looking at. We're so microscopic and fantastically small.
Speaker 1:Or very special.
Speaker 2:Or extremely special.
Speaker 1:I'm down with that. And even more reason to protect what we have Absolutely and even more reason if that's what you think.
Speaker 2:We're unique in the only life in the universe.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't think we're the only life in the universe, but we certainly are unique in our universe.
Speaker 2:Protect it then.
Speaker 1:Absolutely this is really important.
Speaker 2:Imagine if we snuffed ourselves out of the universe and the only special thing like ourselves went out and we did it to ourselves. Come on that's a shame.
Speaker 1:Well, if we believe in a sovereign divine being, I don't think he's going to let that happen. I think you're right. I hope you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we certainly are trying to destroy ourselves in many different ways and if we keep it up, if we, it's in our genes.
Speaker 1:We've never been closer, We've never been closer to absolutely destroying ourselves. And it's all for what? Greed for money, greed and power. And it's always that way. But I do believe that there is divine intervention and, in the end, if God is who he says he is and the universe is as big as we know it is, then he's already got a plan. He has to. He's way more advanced than we are. He already has a plan, and we're not thwarting that plan. We're not upsetting the plan of a being that has to be that powerful. We're not.
Speaker 2:Here's the risk in my mind, of letting yourself go too far down that thinking is, if you think that the almighty creator is going to take care of you, you might not act in a way that you need to make that happen in reality, Because I think all books of Revelation say that God works through us.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like we have to act while we're here to protect ourselves, and we have to act justly.
Speaker 1:And we have to pursue truth. It doesn't come natural to us right. Our natural proclivity is to grab everything for ourselves and hold on to everything for ourselves and step over you to get to what I need, even if it's a noble purpose. But what we're told in Revelation is that we are to learn how to be good, kind, gentle, generous, self-controlled, to protect the innocent, to provide for others. That's what we have to learn to do.
Speaker 2:Then you're a vessel of God. Then you're a vessel of God, you're exerting God's will on the certain, not only that you are exerting his tendencies, his personality.
Speaker 1:You're living the personality. He is gracious, he is generous, he is kind, forgiving, he is forgiving. When you do these things in your life, you are very close to walking in a way that he walked, and that's the highest calling of man, in my opinion. All right brother. We are at an hour and 35 minutes.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Right, I think this has been a really great show.
Speaker 2:Got deep on there. We did Thanks for your apprentice charge, right? Yeah, look at where you can go when you talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1:I know right, yeah, get out there and do it. Get out there and do it. Brothers, I don't know where we're going next. We'll think that through We'll have something.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there are two more charges we could de-hand to. There are two more charges.
Speaker 1:And again, if you're an EA and you find out that the show is about the master mason charge, it's up to you. You could go on to the Grand Lodge website and read it for yourself, if you choose not to, because you want to experience it for the first time in Lodge. There's nothing wrong with that, brother, I applaud you for it, but it's not mandatory. Some people want to know to enhance what they're experiencing, some people don't. To enhance what they're experiencing.
Speaker 2:That's the beauty of Freemasonry, rocket the way you want to rock it. We're not going to give away any of the secrets of the ritual.
Speaker 1:No sir.
Speaker 2:You're still going to be surprised.
Speaker 1:Never have, never will, that's right.
Speaker 2:But the charges are more about the way we're supposed to behave in our different phases of masonry.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, here comes the OK. It's like when the guy's giving a speech on the Oscar stage and the music comes on, yeah except I don't know if the music's coming on, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:If not, we'll have to edit it in, which is not a problem. Chris has done that many times.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you taking time. I know you're busy and I'm busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're busy, but.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1:Me too, brother.
Speaker 2:Going back over this. It's always a great time, Always worth every minute of my time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. I love doing this. We will always do this. Next year, when you are no longer the worst full master of our lodge, we are going to blow this thing up, man. We are going to take it to the next level. I am very much looking forward to that Me too.
Speaker 1:And I'm very much looking forward to talking to and with you guys on the next broadcast, and I don't know what we're going to do, but it's going to be great, because it always is, and if you've listened to the end, you're our hero, man. We really appreciate you. Send us an email, man, let us know what you think, let us know what direction we got to go in.
Speaker 2:If you have a great. Masonic lecture or idea that you want to present. Get in touch with us. We're looking for people that have something interesting to share in Masonry and are willing to come to an education in person and present it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Let us know Absolutely. You got it All right, brother. Until next time I will talk to you, thank you.