My brethren, I, like our ancient brother must exclaim
“Eureka!” I have found the Holy Grail, the lost Ark, the end of pie (3.14…not
mama’s pecan pie). If we as the modern Craft want the beloved and time-honored
tradition of the progressive line to work, it lays in one simple word…Secretary.
Buckle up and hold on folks this is going to get loose,
wild, and a bit crazy! Your lodge has this thing called the progressive line. It
like many other “theories” in life could work fantastically if properly applied.
But like most collegiately studied theories it was heard about, misquoted, and
fully applied in broken form. Hang with me a minute, if the Master of the Lodge
has a Ph.D., and the Senior Warden has a master’s degree, with the Junior
Warden a bachelor’s degree. Flip the Deacons and Stewards into a Community
College two-year transfer program heading to a university for that coveted
Bachelors. The Treasurer and Secretary being a Past Master (Ph.D.) with a
teaching license. Now add “in Masonry” behind each educational title. We then
have a functioning Lodge at the heights of universal knowledge progressing
towards perfection at each step. We have just created here a perfect Lodge with
a perfect progressive line.
Enter your Lodge and mine. We have a Worshipful Master with
a year in community college trying to figure out if he wants to go to a university
that his parents have told him is the best thing for him and his future. A
Senior Warden with a high school diploma. A Junior Warden who is still in high
school. Deacons and Wardens who are still in community college on year four of
a two-year transfer program or high school juniors who skip school and have
just gotten their first car and driver’s license and want to be on the road
listening to music cruising and enjoying a carefree no responsibility life. A
Secretary and Treasurer with and associates degree who fought in the Great War,
are hard noised, by the book of tradition and history (their own not always the
Grand Lodge’s or Constitution’s). This progressive line is in fact full of the
men who were initiated, passed, and raised and thrown into an officer’s chair. If
it was a “thriving Lodge” they may have been a Deacon year one. If it was a
“struggling Lodge,” they were thrown straight to a Wardens chair upon being
raised.
I am not throwing stones at those men who were any of the
above. There are some amazing authors, educators, and ritualists who hit the
fire and were better for it on the back side. They have given more to the
Craft, their Grand Bodies, and Lodge than most will ever know. However, they
are the 1%’s. “Varsity Patched” Masonic self-taught, well read, or properly
groomed outside of Lodge by an amazing mentor who saw something in them and
wanted to ensure they “made it.”
You ask where I am going with this theory or article and my
“Eureka moment.” Well brethren, here it is. Start all new brothers
wishing to enter your progressive line at the Secretary’s chair. Not a
typo, the Secretary’s chair. The brother who you look at to know your
Code and Constitutions, the bylaws, the opening and closing, occasionally a
word in the degree when a brother grid locks, the record keeper, communications
manager for the Lodge, and brother who has to speak with the Grand Lodge and
District officers to fix things. If we all started there, we then become
the Lodge given in example one with the Ph.D. by the time you hit Worshipful
Master. If we do this model, we stop breaking Masonic law, guard the west gate
at a better rate, manage our books better, and are forced to learn the business
of Masonry with that every loving sprinkle of the Ritual or learning a lecture
if you have free time.
I can hear brothers calling this crazy now “as there has to
be continuity within the Lodge and that starts with a good Secretary.”
Wait what?! The office who can single handily cost a Charter is the
Master, the most seasoned, well rounded, educated, frankly liked Mason should
be the CEO, and I do not know, MASTER of the Lodge. Think about the term
“Master.” One who is an expert, the teacher, the boss, the cream of the
Lodge. How can we expect the progressive line to work if we allow a brother to
run the line like he just hit a fast ball high in the zone and over the center
of the plate? Brothers that is a homerun and a fast trot around the bases
(chairs). We must honor the role of Master with men that are worthy. We must
educate men along the way to the East and show, teach, and mentor them for what
they will need. This article is to take nothing away from the role of Master
nor that of Secretary. I am after all a secretary of five years and I
constantly get asked how, what, why, and who by master’s and frankly Past
Masters. This should not be. Men with a 25-year pin and a term in the oriental
chair should not ask a Junior Steward turned Secretary (me and my Masonic
path) what the Code and Constitutions says. It happens in my Lodge; it
happens in your Lodge. It has become the norm of a Craft, and it saddens me. Look
at our history, more men can tell you who the Masters were who came together in
the 1717 and later 1813 mergers in England. Why can the average historians not
tell you who the Secretaries were? Why can we now tell you who all Grand
Secretaries, Lodge Secretaries are but not who was the Master three years ago
without looking at a board or wall of photos in the Temple? Because we devalue
the role of Master and how fast it has become normal to get there. Furthermore,
we have made it a death sentence for Lodge Secretary’s. Brothers are dying in
office after twenty- and thirty-year careers as such. We must use progressive
lines as they were intended. Uncle Ben told Peter Parker “With great power
comes great responsibility.” Why then are we allowing the East to be a
place to race to and race out of and not the guiding star to help journey to
that distant land of masonic knowledge and betterment? WBro. Ben Wallace
(Freemason in North Carolina) gave an oration at the Annual Communication of
the Grand Lodge of North Carolina and later released as a YouTube video with
permissions, titled “You Can’t Rush Enlightenment.” I challenge
you all to listen to it, as it is an amazing piece. One main take away from it
for me is that we must get the education to the brother on the backend if we
failed on the front end during their time between degrees. Brethren
that are for our general membership, we cannot afford to allow men to advance
to Wardens and Masters who do not know the basics of Masonic law, Roberts Rules
of Order, and the Ritual and teach them such while in the East. We must get men
that want to be here as officers, leaders, who have been properly educated. Versus
what we are doing in most every lodge, of having Masons who want to be leaders
(or not in most cases) and are not a Past Master and thus pushed to through the
chairs to the East. Install them and continue to groom them while they are
slowly educated in our Craft to properly lead the fraternity from the East. Learning
how to be a surgeon during surgery and teaching it the following day is not the
best time or idea, but we do it. Starting at the Secretary desk before being a
Steward forces one to read, learn, and study the business of Masonry all the
while learning who can best work and best agree in that Lodge. If you do not
already know this, the Secretary is the sounding board of the Lodge. You learn
more than the Code and Constitutions in that role. You learn a lot of valuable
steps and items that could benefit a Warden or Master down the road. If you
think this is crazy and a horrible idea, you can continue your fast track to
Master with new members and I will continue to watch good men leave and see
that as better than hanging around to hear about the parking lot adding spaces
to rent versus increasing the dues of the Lodge. Again, look at the
trend, when did we as a craft start re-electing Secretary’s year after year for
the excellent job they were doing and not the Master of the Lodge? But
the Master runs the Lodge, correct? The Master is the highest honor a Mason
could strive to receive; however, it is also the fastest chair a brother is
looking to vacate. I love being Secretary, I asked a lifer to teach me when he
announced mid-year, he wanted to step down at the end of the year to spend more
time with his grandchildren (he passed away about 12-months later). He was
happy to teach me. I in turn was happy to teach others across my District and
the eastern part of my State when we flipped from Mori to Grandview. Again,
with many hands there is light work, with many knowing systems the machine cannot
stop, we want more coaches, mentors, certified lecturers but we do not want a
back up to the back up for Secretary and Treasurer for that matter. Brethren if
the logic is crazy as you say by the time a brother learns it, he will be
moving out of the chair, what then is happening at the Masters chair. He has
more yelling a word at him during an opening or closing than helping groom him
along the way. Wardens, what are they doing in most jurisdictions? Serving on
committees that are not used, serving as an education officer (again it is
being used), and planning the meal calendar. What about that prepares a man for
the East? Making a budget, emailing the craft, spending time on the phone with
brothers about their problems paying dues, health, or planning and
disseminating logistics of the Lodge is a much better “training session” than
lining up a caterer for the next month’s meal on paper plates that allow a
faster clean up. Stewards are not being used and taught much except
preparing the candidate with the Junior Deacon (JD). However, “if you have a
good Tyler, he will have them prepared before the JD can get the Stewards and
step out.” Again, where is the grooming happening for the current
progressive line? Degree practices are not preparing an officer for his role in
the Lodge, they are preparing him for his role in the Degree. There is a
difference. Starting at Secretary will not really happen in any Lodge; however,
it is the correct application of the Progressive Theory if we want to miss
apply and miss quote a theory as mentioned earlier and have a positive result. Learn
your role and that of the next position and then you will know you are ready to
progress. When you are Master the Secretary is being guided and told what to do
by the Master like every other officer in the opening or closing of a Lodge
(listen to it at your next meeting). One can learn a lot when they watch and
listen, again allowed by being Secretary.
In closing my brethren this again is to not cast stones at
you, your path, or your Lodge. It is a thought, a theory on how to best work. I
will leave you with a parting thought about the speed of the line, or how you
vote for who is an officer, and one larger leap on guarding the west gate. The
next man you vote to bring into your Lodge or to be Warden, Master, etc. do you
trust him or know him enough to think him capable of being the Secretary of
your Lodge? Could he be interviewed by the I.R.S. during a tax audit as to the
records and receipts of the Lodge for your “non-profit?” Could he
maintain all required items per the Code or Constitution for your District
officer’s audit? Is he an upright and just man in his daily occupation? If the
answer is anything other than yes, should he be in the Craft much less the
Master or a simple Secretary. Again, vote for the good of Masonry.
~MW
Matthew Walters resides in North Carolina with his wife and two children. Raised a Master Mason in 2018, he is currently the Secretary of his Lodge and has been since 2020, as well as serving on the Lodge Education Committee. Other fraternal memberships include the York Rite where he has served as HP, IM, and EC (2023-present). He is also a member of the Allied Masonic Degrees, Knight Masons, and York Rite Sovereign College.
