Why am I seeking this office?.
Greetings, Sir Knights! I’m Art Hebbeler, candidate for Deputy Grand Master, and I want to share a few thoughts with you about my approach to this campaign for your vote at the August 2024 Triennial Conclave in Salt Lake City, Utah.
First and foremost, I want each of you to know that my decision to run for this office is not because I have a personal pique or quarrel with the incumbent. I think Jeff is a nice guy, and I promise that you will not hear me speaking ill of him or any other candidate. If you recall, I wrote an article for the Knight Templar magazine earlier this year about the Eighth Commandment and what the great Reformer of the Church, Martin Luther, taught about its meaning. I won’t repeat the whole article here, but the bottom line is this: When we are commanded by God to not bear false witness against our neighbor, that means that we should always pu! t the words and actions of our neighbor in the best positive light. If there is any possible interpretation of another’s comments that could be positive, that is what we are to take as the meaning. I have never approved of politics of personal destruction and believe that it is antithetical to our Masonic teachings to resort to personal attacks, innuendo, or disparaging remarks. So, if you hear someone say that I am attacking another candidate or brother, please know that is not accurate.
Second, back in September 2022, while attending the Northeast Department Conference, I sat down with Brian DiMatteo and Bill Kzrewick for over an hour to discuss the events at the start of the Triennium and the campaign for Grand Captain General. We all agreed to certain principles. First, we were not, and still are not, running against other Knights. Rather, we are running for an office. We each bring different skills and experiences to this endeavor, but one thing we all bring is our integrity, honor, and desire to do the best we can for the improvement of Knights Templar. Second, we agreed that none of us wanted to spend tens of thousand! s of dollars running for a volunteer office. What message does it send to spend thousands of dollars running around the globe in time when we can communicate with one another interactively from our homes. Is it good stewardship to fly or drive all over, and what expectations does it set for the future once in office? Will we still be traveling all over, but doing it on your money as part of the Grand Encampment budget, or will we work to be good stewards of your funds and be wise in how, when, and where we travel? Third, we agreed that when we traveled, if one of us was not able to attend an event or was not present, we would make sure to mention the other candidates and offer a few positive comments about them and their plans. Again, this is because we are running for an office, and not against an individual, and we believe that every member of the Grand Encampment has the right to have accurate information about all the candidates seeking to be a part of your leadership team.
Third, I believe it is important for you all to know what I think are some of the important issues facing the Grand Encampment from top to bottom. Membership is always an important factor, but it is not necessarily the top priority. To build our membership, we must be able to confer the Orders properly and at the highest possible level. I recently heard our Grand Master state that there are at least five Grand Commanderies which are unable to confer all three Orders at all. If we are not proficient in our Ritual, how in the world can we create Knights and offer candidates the exemplary experience of the premier Masonic organization we claim! to be? I know that I have not conferred an Order in over four years, and my Ritual is rusty, and in a few weeks my home commandery will be conferring the Order of the Temple and I, newly elected and installed as prelate, have a huge part to play. Guess where my nose is in my spare time? Yep, the black book, and I’m willing to bet that almost every one of us honestly needs to be spending some time every day brushing up on our work as well as learning a new part or two. Then, once we have our parts down, we need to get with our fellow Knights and have a practice or two or three to make sure we know what we are doing, how we are moving about the Asylum, and where all the paraphernalia is for the Order to be conferred. (Free tip: Take time to set everything up and then use that cool smartphone camera to take pictures of where everything goes. Print them out, put them in a notebook, and have it available for the Captain General and others to use in seeing the Asylum is properly prepar! ed. The photos will help ensure everything is in the proper place.) We didn’t lose our proficiency overnight, and we won’t recover it in one night, either. However, by taking a small bite every day, it won’t be long before we are smoothly delivering our lines and executing our tactics.
As we are studying our Ritual, we should be looking at the words and their meanings, as well as the lessons being taught. Refresh your memory on the vows of each Order, and challenge yourself—Are you practicing what you are asking the candidate to do? How did you come to the assistance of a distressed Knight recently? Which widow did you call and check on to see if she had any needs that you or your commandery could address? Are we living out daily our commitments made before the altar in the presence of God and our Fratres? If not, what can we do today to get back in the habit of doing so for these commitments to become second nature to ! us and part of our routine, and not something we have to make plans to do once a month or so just to say we have done it?
These simple things—recovering our Ritual proficiency and then living our what we are learning—are a great start to strengthening our order. I love being a Knight Templar, and I want to see it not simply survive, but thrive. As I said to the Knights present at the California Grand Conclave, what we have been doing for the last 40 years has obviously not been working, because we are nearly 2/3rds smaller than we were when I was knighted in 1985. We have a lot of work to do, my dear brothers, and we can’t do it all in just one day, week, or even year. However, we can do it if all 66,000 of us take on a small part of the work, gather in ! our Asylums at least once a month, and make one knightly act each day as we apply our vows to our lives. Imagine the impact that would make on our community and ourselves.
Thank you, my dear friends and brothers, for taking time for these few words today. I truly appreciate it, and I hope you found something useful here, no matter how small it might be. God bless you, and God bless Templar Masonry.