Civility: Can We Talk?

 by The Midnight Freemason

Todd E. Creason, 33°

Can we talk?  Too often in our society today, the answer is no.  Scroll through your social media feed for five minutes. Read the comments on any news article. We even struggle to talk around the table during family gatherings. What you will find, more often than not, is not a conversation—it is a collision. 

I’ve never seen it this bad in my lifetime.  And I can almost hear people reading this assigning blame to one person or another, or this political party or the other, or this news media source or another.  And that’s the problem.  And unfortunately, the world has seeped into some of our Lodges creating debate and dissention amongst the Brethren—in fact it’s a big part of the reason I took a step back for a few years. 

I’m sure it’s not the same everywhere, but in general, I think a step back is what the Fraternity itself needs.  There’s a reason we’ve been around as long as we have.  We have a vital mission.

Freemasonry, and I’m talking traditional Freemasonry, could actually do a great deal of good in promoting the ideas of civility in the world.  Our history and our traditions would certainly show that civility has been important to us going back centuries.  That’s because our primary goal, our main purpose, has been character development.  To encourage and build men of strong character, principles and values.

But we seem to have shifted our focus.  If we want to continue being relevant, we have to get back to building men of good character.  We spend so much time being a charity these days we’ve drift away from our primary purpose, which is being an institution of learning.  In the beginning the charitable side of Freemasonry was the natural result from building men of character.  Now it’s all fund-raising and very little enlightenment or personal development. 

The world has plenty of charities.  What the world lacks is morality, decency, virtue, and character—which would include civility.  What the world needs is what we used to focus on a lot more.

Let’s get back to building.

~TEC

Todd E. Creason, 33° is the Founder of the Midnight Freemasons blog and is a regular contributor. He is the award-winning author of the Famous American Freemasons series.  He is a Past Master of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL) and Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL). He is also a member of St. Joseph-Ogden Lodge No. 970 (IL).  He is a Past Sovereign Master of the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. He is a Fellow at the Missouri Lodge of Research. (FMLR). He is a charter member of Admiration Chapter No. 282 and a Past EHP.  You can contact him at webmaster@toddcreason.org