John W. Bizzack, Ph.D.

In the late 1960s, Earl Nightingale spoke every day for ten minutes on a radio show called, Our Changing World. I was a cadet in a military school at the time. My roommates and I listened to Nightingale’s calm, baritone voice, every morning for five years while preparing for class. Nightingale was on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor and was one of fifteen surviving Marines on board that day. Following the war, he pursued a career in into radio and within a decade, he became well-known commentator, writer, speaker, and author of his time – dealing mostly on the subjects of human character development, motivation,excellence, and meaningful existence. Since the 1960s, his books, translated into thirty different languages, have sold millions around the world. His program, Our Changing World was heard in over twenty-three countries and was the biggest syndicated radio program in the history of
broadcasting.

Recognizing there is a problem exists is the first step toward solving it. Problems, big and small, are all around us, if, that is, we choose to notice them. Interestingly, the big ones that one might think could not possibly go unnoticed and addressed, are the ones that have too often lingered for generations. But when we are more driven by how we think things are, or ought to be, and not by the facts or truth staring us in the face, that happens. In the study of organizational behavior, it is not uncommon to find old and new institutions that are quick to react to external influences affecting them in a negative or positive manner.

Among the few truly qualified to be called a Masonic Scholar in the first half of the 20th century, we find Joseph Fort Newton, who, a master craftsman of the written word, furthered the lexicon and the legacy of Freemasonry. An ordained Baptist minister, Newton’s deep interest in Freemasonry arose when he discovered a wealth of material in the Iowa Masonic Library where he started his study of Masonic history and philosophy. His first Masonic book in 1914, The Builders became the first adventure into the world of Masonic literature for generations of Masons. At the request of the Masonic Service Association he wrote a series of talks designed to be read at lodge meetings. They proved to be so popular that they were collected and published in book form in 1928 as Short Talks on Masonry.

If something is more exciting, pleasing, or ideal than seems reasonable, we usually hear it called too good to be true. We are told that the design of the Masonic Institution is to make its votaries wiser, better, and consequently happier. Who would not want to be wiser, better, and consequently happier? Is the design of the Masonic Institution too good to be true? Is every man admitted to membership wiser, better, and consequently happier? Hardly.

Imagine, for a moment, that membership in the Institution of American Freemasonry has finally fallen to its pre-Civil War level. That level is reported to have been somewhere between 55,000 and 66,000 members, depending on the source records. A little reflection or study would dissipate the belief that such a time and circumstance is unimaginable. But widespread reflection and study among Masons is not something that has, with any degree of steadiness, much less uniformity, achieved great heights. After all, it is commonplace in the American fraternity to simply accept that if a man is admitted into the ranks, it means that he must be a good man, and that he can be rushed through degrees and that he will easily grasp the profound lessons of the Craft.

There are multiple rabbit holes in which to tumble down and back again when studying Freemasonry. One topic, however, that has never come close to bringing order out of chaos is Masonic Landmarks. If there was ever a subject in Freemasonry worthy of a grand prize for wholly neglecting the use of scientific methods of research, Masonic Landmarks is the nominee on which to wager. Among masons, there is no term more common, and less understood, than that of “landmarks.” The importance of knowing they exist is acknowledged by all; a knowledge of them is held but by a few.” That statement was made by Masonic author, A.S. McBride in 1914, and it remains accurate today, although his assertion that “a knowledge of them is held but by a few” is questionable.

Tonight, I want to share with you some a few things about the season we are in. At its surface, the Christmas holidays have no intrinsic connection to the fraternity. What I mean by that is nowhere in our degrees do we find Freemasonry linking itself to any nationally or world-practiced holiday. Now, we all know Freemasonry is not a religion nor a substitute for religion. It requires of its members a belief in a Supreme Being but advocates no sectarian faith or practice. Masonic ceremonies include prayers of course – both traditional and impromptu – to reaffirm everyone’s dependence on the Supreme Bring and to seek divine guidance.

Counting the grains of sand on a beach may be easier than counting the number of conversations among Masons since the early 1960s about the relentless decline of membership in the fraternity. Perhaps equal to such a task would be counting the opinions expressed since then that offered explanations behind the spectacular steadiness of the drop. It may be argued that we can find specific times in the factual history of American Freemasonry when many of its members and leaders failed to take into account the importance of situational awareness (simply knowing what is going on around you). A close examination of the period from the 1940s through 1959, coupled with the actions (or lack thereof) and the consequences that followed over the next 60 years, wins hands down in the category called, Scarcity of Situational Awareness.

What makes you a Mason? That question should invoke the same answer from Masons, but it is one of those answers that is not explored in-depth, thus we find it meaning skewed. Comparable in slant is the phrase, it is the internal, not the external that Masonry regards, which so quickly becomes the refrain of those who defend and attempt to justify the range of casual to excessive-casual attire worn to Lodge. Frank was a forty-year veteran member of the fraternity and long-ago, past master. The two lapels of his coat, always adorned with colorful pins attesting his membership in numerous appendant bodies, he was well-known for his uninvited prompts during ritual and other ceremonies and for carrying a copy of the by-laws of his Lodge in the breast pocket of his lapel-laden coat.