‘Wear your apron on the inside’

    

“Finally, Brethren, be ye all of one mind; live in peace, and may the God of love and peace delight to dwell with and bless you!”

 

The Harris Charge, delivered at the close of the lodge

Congratulations to Columbia Lodge 1190 on hosting this morning’s enlightening and energizing Zoom meeting for a discussion of the meaning of “egregore.” Worshipful Master Les Joynes welcomed RW Bro. Christophe Lobry-Boulanger, Grand Sword Bearer of our Grand Lodge and a Past Master of France La Clémente Amitié Cosmopolite Lodge 410 in the Tenth Manhattan District, who discussed “Unveiling the Egregore: Exploring the Collective Consciousness in Freemasonry.” Columbia 1190 meets on Saturdays, so the timing of these monthly sessions isn’t odd.

This term “egregore” Christophe described is “a mostly Western European concept.” And, yes, I hear it seldomly in our Anglo-American Masonic tradition. When it is employed, it’s not used effectively—is meant synonymously with ambiance or character of a lodge. I think to the minds of most Masons here, egregore is a term that rightly belongs to other paths, such as Theosophy and Martinism, and yet we speak of it incessantly, albeit indirectly, in our lodges. What makes you a Mason? Your obligations. The oaths are what you promise the GAOTU, but those obligations are vows to your brethren.

Christophe Lobry-Boulanger

Christophe led us to a deeper meaning. Egregore has a “mystic sense,” he explained, because it is a non-physical entity, a “group mind” as like Rousseau’s political thought of the “general will” or “collective will” among people. (My ears perked up when he spoke of ways to achieve it, saying education is a “binding and bonding element.”)

Egregore is a French word, but it originates in the Greek egrḗgoros, meaning to be awake or to be a watcher. Christophe referred us to the Book of Enoch for further understanding, but I leave that to you.

The point is, the Masonic egregore is born in our shared virtue and morality. When he says “wear your apron on the inside,” he means the ritual garment we wear outside the suit jacket is just a symbol, and that it should point to what’s in your heart. When we all are of one mind that way, we have the Masonic egregore.

The brethren’s comments at the end of the 75-minute meeting were fitting and stimulating. If your lodge isn’t having conversations like this, speak up. Do something. Even reach out to brethren from other lodges, if necessary, who can discuss the meaning of Masonry.

     

‘Ukraine grand master to be feted’

    

Click to enlarge.

Columbia Lodge 1190 will honor Steven Rubin, Ted Harrison, and the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ukraine at its fall festive board/brunch next month.

Our Deputy Grand Master needs no introduction. Ted, of course, is the ubiquitous presence in New York Freemasonry who, among many other things, quarterbacked Grand Lodge’s Fraternity on Campus Committee, thereby seeing Columbia 1190 set to labor. Anatoliy Dymchuk will visit via Zoom. And brunch? Well, that’s the most important meal between breakfast and lunch.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Tuxedo at…at noon?!” If you don’t have a morning suit, just do it.

     

‘The very cement and support of society’

    

It’s not often a lodge thinks to tender a formal statement of contemporary social importance. Of course that’s not easy to do. Government intrudes into our lives so often and so directly, it’s nearly impossible to form a civic-minded opinion that doesn’t trespass into partisan politics. Like sectarian religious views, political opinions are forbidden in our lodges. That is a key ingredient that makes our essential harmony possible, but it also has stifled much potential discussion of ideas. We seem to have filled the silence with less provocative conversations, and the fraternity expects its lodges and their members to act, and make Masonic charity evident in their activities.

Late last year, one of the cofounders of Columbia Lodge 1190, part of Grand Lodge’s academic lodge program, contacted me for an opinion on a statement the lodge crafted. Columbia Lodge should be commended simply for thinking and speaking on what’s happening outside the Temple today. And, since today is World Day of Social Justice, I hereby share with you Columbia Lodge’s recent proclamation:

Freemasonry, at its core and throughout its ritual, promotes the principles of Social Justice. By meeting “on the level,” we are summoned to recognize all with whom we stand as Brothers without regard for any differences that may, in the profane world, serve as pretexts for exclusion, prejudice, intolerance, or hatred. Columbia Lodge 1190 affirms and embraces the principles of Social Justice so eloquently expressed within our ritual, and strives to become a beacon of inclusion and Brotherhood within the Craft.

Columbia Lodge was constituted for Masons with a connection to the Ivy League university uptown in Morningside Heights: alumni, students, faculty, etc. The lodge has no affiliation with the university.

I am flattered my opinion was sought. I am neither a member of the lodge nor connected to the university. (I graduated from the downtown behemoth private university.)

What first comes to mind is Freemasonry’s teaching of Justice. It is a Cardinal Virtue in Freemasonry, just as it was to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. As we reveal in the Entered Apprentice Degree:

Justice is that standard which enables us to render to every man his due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with Divine and human law, but is the very cement and support of society; and, as justice, in a great measure, distinguishes the good man, so should it be your practice to be just.

Unlike Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, which are inner qualities, this fourth Cardinal Virtue is exhibited outward. Justice is social, so, to my mind, “Social Justice” is a redundancy.

More problematic is a modifier prefixed to Justice. Any qualification limits the meaning of the subject. For instance, today also is International Pipe Smoking Day. Without that second word, we have a general image of stressed addicts huffing their drug and littering the world with discarded butts, but with the modifier “Pipe” in place, we may envision serene hobbyists sweetening the air with gentle Cavendish in hand-carved briars, perhaps whilst reading Tolkien or playing chess in the study.

Words matter, and prefixing “Social” to “Justice” crimps the universality of justice. Lesson in Grammar and Rhetoric.

Then of course there is the politically combustible usage of the term in today’s hyper-partisan society. “Social Justice” is the all-inclusive excuse for everything from the “decarceration” that makes public spaces dangerous to the spectacle of grown men putting their hair in pigtails to steal the championships and scholarships of women’s sports. Most of the people outside who would use the term probably would have no love for Freemasonry. Read Columbia University’s thoughts.

About a year and a half ago, I reproduced the then current message from the then president of the Masonic Society, which dubs Freemasons the “Enlightenment Social Justice Warriors” but invokes the Cardinal Virtues because all we have to do is uphold the meaning of Masonry with its familiar anodyne language.