Was Albert Einstein talking about us?
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve shared some thoughts about why I am running for Deputy Grand Master and some things that are worth considering were you to elect me to that role. Today, I’d like to “rip off the bandage” and share more behind my decision to accept this opportunity after it was presented to me over a year ago.
The quotation above from Albert Einstein (not a Freemason) has been on my computer, desk, wall, monitor, or white board for decades. As a program manager, I have specialized in working with “problem” programs that have been overdue, overbudget, and “over-incompetenced” by previous managers. When faced with these kinds of projects, I tear into them to determine what the previous program managers (and inevitably there have been multiple “managers” and “leaders” overseeing these projects) to determine what they did and did not do, how they thought or didn’t think about problems and opportunities, what they did and did not communicate, and so on. In short, I want to know what was done before so that I did not do it again. I was appointed to a particular program to fix it, and that requires not thinking the same way or doing the same things that got the program into that place.
Today, Knights Templar, from the Grand Encampment down to the local Commandery, are in trouble. Our membership, attendance, income, and public awareness/presence has been shrinking every year for at least the last 40 years I have been a Freemason. We continue to hear the same things:
- We need a membership committee to do things!
- We need to lower the cost of membership by getting rid of uniforms, or at least changing them to something cheaper!
- We need to lower our dues and initiation fees!
- We need to get younger guys in line!
- We need to make it easier to become a member!
Those five statements have been spoken in virtually every jurisdiction, hall, dinner table, hospitality suite, conversation in the American Legion.
Yes, American Legion. I’m a member of my local post and have been an officer and executive board member. I could record the meetings there and take them into any Masonic gathering and play it. Same issues. Same suggestions, and the bar for membership in the Legion is lower than being a Knight Templar–have a DD214 (honorable military discharge with service since 7 Dec 1941) or be on active duty today. Both organizations are facing the same issues, and neither deals with them well (although the Legion does not count losses by death against new/restored members when determining membership “growth.”) In my post, every suggestion I made to address these issues not only fell on deaf ears, but were soundly rejected with comments from more “seasoned” members that “We’ve done that before and it doesn’t work” or more simply, “Why would we want to do that? Our older members would hate that change.”
I’d like to say I never hear those comments in a Masonic gathering, but I would be lying.
We have to change our way of thinking about these things, because we can no longer afford to think and act the same way as we address issues and opportunities standing before us today. We need to change the thinking, and that probably requires changing the people doing that thinking, too. It’s not a popular or easy thing to do, but clearly there hasn’t been much movement on changing of thinking. We have moved far beyond pithy quotations and cute avatars and the reiteration that “every Christian Mason should be a Knight Templar” and “It’s too expensive to be a Knight Templar.”
When I say we need to think and act differently, I mean we have to pull out the chain saws and not the jeweler’s saw. To change our situation, we need to take what may seem to be radical actions.
For example:
- Every DeMolay, upon reaching his 18th birthday (or 21st, depending on jurisdiction), should be handed a petition for lodge, chapter, council, and (if a Christian) commandery with the initiation fees for each paid in full. For the Blue Lodge, the DeMolay should be petitioning the lodge that has a real connection to him, which may not be the lodge sponsoring the DeMolay chapter. Perhaps that young man has a family member or mentor in another nearby lodge, or there are two or three lodges closer to his home. Get him involved there. This is not about building a specific body, but building the Fraternity.
- For those who say, “But he won’t be very involved, heading off to college, the military, or a job!” I have a simple response–So what? First, that assumes that he won’t choose to be involved, when he might be eager to do so, even if it is to visit the lodge in the city where he attends college (That’s what I did after I was raised, in fact, and also took a chair as chaplain pro tempore and gave the EA lecture). Second, he will be paying his dues to the bodies while away from home or involved with his studies. We have no problems with a 45-year-old man simply paying dues and not attending a meeting, so why should we be concerned about a 19-year-old doing the same thing? (That’s what I did for about 8 years before landing in a place where I established some roots) Third, his education and career path may take him to multiple states and communities, and he may choose to visit lodges there and seek to be involved as best he can, if only as a visitor supporting the lodge from the sidelines and sharing the stories of his travel and “how things are done” in different jurisdictions he has visited (That’s what I did while on active duty and traversing the continent on temporary duty. Visiting a lodge generally meant getting a very nice dinner and conversation, as well as meeting local men with common interests, rather than staring at a TV in my quarters or killing time at the hotel bar)
- Why not establish a tiered dues and initiation fee structure, instead of a “one-size-fits-all” approach? For example, suppose the annual dues are currently $50.00 per year (excluding per capita), and your body as 100 members divided into these age groups:
- 18-29: 5
- 30-54: 25
- 55-70: 40
- 71-up: 30
With a graduated dues structure, you might have something like this:
- 18-29: $35
- 30-54: $55
- 55-70: $65
- 71-up: $35
Your annual dues receipts would be $5235, or $235 more than a flat-rate $50 per man. You are also assessing dues based on fairly sound expected income levels by age groups, and you have actually reduced the dues for your senior, most-likely retired members.For initiation/Orders fees, you might consider:
- 18-29: $200
- 30-54: $250
- 55-70: $275
- 71-up: $150
Admittedly, fees for the Orders may be regulated by your Grand Commandery moreso than annual dues, and this may require changes at that level to allow this variance. For example, in Maryland, the combination of Chapter, Council, and Commandery degree/Orders fees equals the AASR Valleys initiation fee.
I’d love to tell you that I have been successful in implementing this example since I first wrote about doing this in 2008. Unfortunately, I have met with the same resistance to change time and time again. It’s frustrating, but I refuse to give up, and I know that we’re close to seeing this idea move forward. It took almost 10 years to get Maryland’s ritual proficiency requirement for election to a dais office removed (Vaught Decision 8 was the final step). I assure you that I bring this tenacity and perseverance with me to solve problems and develop solutions with you should you elect me to be your next Deputy Grand Master.
I offer these as an introduction to the type of new thinking we need to address issues facing our Order. We simply cannot continue on our current path and current thinking and expect different results. I promise to work closely with our Grand Master to make real, positive, and effective change a reality so that we can strengthen our Order and end the downward trajectory that will, if not halted, certainly change the look of our Grand Encampment and Grand Commanderies much sooner than later. I humbly ask for your support and your vote next August in Salt Lake City.