Welcome to January 6, 2019 BCE! I hope the New Year brings each of you new opportunities to be living billboards for our gentle craft.
In January, at Mozart #121, we will be harkening back to our Entered Apprentice obligation, as we make ready to initiate the newest EA’s into our Lodge.
In the body of this obligation we swear, unequivocally, not to divulge any of our secrets; either written, or verbally to anyone uninitiated. This point is also restated in the closing charge at the end of every meeting; so one must believe it to be important. It certainly no longer carries the same financial penalty our ancient Operative brethren might have suffered, inclining them to meet on the highest hills and in the lowest valleys. Our earliest Speculative brothers also understood that preserving the sanctity of our secrets (grips, tokens, and words) meant relegating themselves to those first upper rooms, where was created the Lodge experience that we have come to recognize today. It is the belief that it is still okay to hold something close to your chest, something private, something treasured that separates us from the world at large. In Lodge there should be intimate and personal experiences that should only be shared with our brothers, if at all.
Fast forward to the present moment; from Twitter accounts filled with pictures pf what someone had for breakfast to Facebook scandals of ” who is doing what, with whom.” I think the world could use a splash of mystery with a healthy dose of temperance. Let us be different, because WE ARE! Our secrets are exactly that, ours and ours alone!
I do hope diligence, prudence, temperance, and justice continue to characterize your daily interactions and that the influence of our principles continue to form each one of us into a more perfect ashlar. Walk uprightly in your several stations, my brothers!
Fraternally,
W.M. Louis A. Benucci
Worshipful Master 2019