Thursday, February 21, 2019

Lodge member admits that he gets more out of Masonic Facebook groups than going to lodge.

Klamath Falls, OR -- Brother Todd Greason, a year old Master Mason at a lodge in this small city in Oregon, is sitting on a futon at his apartment. There is a blue Chromebook on his lap, an open bottle of Skyline IPA at hand, and a Spotify playlist lightly coming through the Bluetooth speaker on the other side of the room. It’s just after eight pm on a Tuesday night.

Tuesday is Lodge night.

Like a growing number of young men who joined Freemasonry for the camaraderie of being with like minded freethinkers, Todd found a difficult time fitting in with the other men at his lodge.

“Oh, it’s definitely not an age thing,” he told The Past Bastard in a WhatsApp interview. “I’m 28, and while most of the guys are in their 50s and 60s, there’s a good number in their 30s and 40s. I game with a few of them once in a while, we’ve met for tapas at that place over near the hospital, they’re cool. No, I like the guys, it’s the lodge, itself, that I’m having a hard time with.”

Brother Todd told us that a typical meeting is still 80% talking about bills and planning the next pancake dinner, and that for the past few months, every meeting has been pretty much the same. He loves the idea of Freemasonry, though, and so instead of abandoning it, he’s looking at other alternatives.

“For the last month, I’ve stopped going to lodge meetings, and have committed to spending at least two or three nights a week in online masonic discussion on various forums on Facebook, Reddit, and a few older web boards. It’s made an amazing impact on my life,” he told us. “I mean, for the last couple of days, a bunch of us have been discussing whether atheists have the moral and ethical underpinnings to belong in a lodge. Last week there was a stupid post about a ring, which turned into a really good lesson on why English Masons tend to hide their insignia. And on Reddit, there’s a thread going on about whether or not Le Droit Humain in France has a legitimate line of… I can’t remember. Is ‘pedigree’ the right word? Whatever, but this is the kind of stuff that we never talk about in lodge.”
The former site of Klamath Lodge. 

The Past Bastard asked Todd if he missed the company and hanging around with his lodge brothers.

“Yeah, I sort of miss a few things about that,” he told us. “I mean, the Stewards usually had a meal going, so it was nice to walk into the building and get a taco or whatever they had on. And I did like just bee-essing with the guys for a few minutes before the meetings. And every meeting I’d think, ‘Yeah, this time it’s going to be different.’ But it always ended up being a disappointment, and I’d come home wondering what else I could have been doing for the last three hours.”

Brother Todd said that while there is a lot of noise and stupid things on those forums, he chooses not to get involved with the petty arguments, and to continue to seek out the more rational brothers, and has come to enjoy the online conversations.

“The only thing that makes me sad,” he told us, “is that the really smart and cool guys seem so few and far between, and that none of them are in my area. I’d love to meet some of them in person and have these discussions over beers and nachos, you know what I mean?”


2 comments:

  1. I can't believe you guys haven't done a bit involving the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Have it - I relinquish all right to this intellectual property.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So what is the answer? What does work in any lodge anywhere around the world?

    ReplyDelete