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The Masonic Roundtable - 0562 - Is "Going Dark" Still Relevant? · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:21
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Round Table, a weekly
• 0:24
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:27
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:30
  Speaker: As a reminder, the opinions
• 0:33
  Speaker: expressed here are solely the
• 0:34
  Speaker: opinions of the participants and
• 0:36
  Speaker: do not represent any Grand Lodge
• 0:37
  Speaker: positions.
• 0:39
  Speaker: So make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:40
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:43
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• 0:44
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• 0:45
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• 0:46
  Speaker: So hello and good evening.
• 0:47
  Speaker: And remember, your chats may show up in the show and if you
• 0:50
  Speaker: can't catch us live, you can always catch the replay or watch
• 0:55
  Speaker: and listen to us in your favorite podcast app.
• 0:57
  Speaker: You know me, John Ruark, past
• 0:59
  Speaker: master of the Patriot Lodge,
• 1:00
  Speaker: nineteen fifty seven in Fairfax,
• 1:02
  Speaker: Virginia, and looking rather
• 1:05
  Speaker: festive tonight.
• 1:06
  Speaker: We also have Robert Johnson.
• 1:09
  Speaker: Hello.
• 1:10
  Speaker: You got the memo?
• 1:11
  Speaker: I got the memo.
• 1:13
  Speaker: Got the Hawaiian shirts on.
• 1:15
  Speaker: Uh, Robert Johnson, past Master Waukegan seventy eight and
• 1:19
  Speaker: SpaceX Novum, secretary of a bunch of stuff.
• 1:22
  Speaker: Host of the Whence Came You podcast.
• 1:24
  Speaker: And as always, extremely excited to be here with you gents.
• 1:29
  Speaker: Woo!
• 1:30
  Speaker: And remember, Friday is Hawaiian Shirt Day.
• 1:34
  Speaker: So you can wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans if you'd like.
• 1:41
  Speaker: With cats.
• 1:42
  Speaker: With cats.
• 1:43
  Speaker: Hey, Jason.
• 1:45
  Speaker: Hey, everybody.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Jason Richards, past master of
• 1:47
  Speaker: Acacia Lodge, number sixteen in
• 1:49
  Speaker: Clifton, Virginia.
• 1:50
  Speaker: Glad to be here.
• 1:53
  Speaker: Glad to be had.
• 1:54
  Speaker: All right.
• 1:55
  Speaker: Better to be had than viewed.
• 1:57
  Speaker: Yes, that is true.
• 2:01
  Speaker: All right, let's give a special shout out to the patrons who
• 2:04
  Speaker: support the show.
• 2:04
  Speaker: You guys are amazing.
• 2:05
  Speaker: Thank you for keeping the show
• 2:06
  Speaker: going for many, many years to
• 2:08
  Speaker: come, or twenty forty, whichever
• 2:10
  Speaker: comes first.
• 2:11
  Speaker: But that's quite a ways away.
• 2:13
  Speaker: So, um, again, thank you for all
• 2:15
  Speaker: your support helping us keep the
• 2:16
  Speaker: tech and hosting fees top of the
• 2:19
  Speaker: line.
• 2:20
  Speaker: So that's what we're going to do.
• 2:22
  Speaker: Um, yeah, you guys are great.
• 2:24
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 2:24
  Speaker: If you want to head over and
• 2:25
  Speaker: support the show, go to patreon
• 2:27
  Speaker: dot com slash the Masonic
• 2:29
  Speaker: Roundtable.
• 2:31
  Speaker: And next up for our topic, even though Joe's not here yet, he's
• 2:37
  Speaker: racing home from Lodge.
• 2:39
  Speaker: It is his favorite show.
• 2:40
  Speaker: His favorite part of the show, which is, you guessed it, tarot
• 2:44
  Speaker: card of the week.
• 2:50
  Speaker: That's right.
• 2:53
  Speaker: Tarot card of the week.
• 3:03
  Speaker: I love it never gets old.
• 3:06
  Speaker: Really got to trim that audio.
• 3:10
  Speaker: There's like an awkward, like six, seven, six second.
• 3:14
  Speaker: Wait.
• 3:15
  Speaker: No dead air.
• 3:16
  Speaker: That's the number one rule of radio, right?
• 3:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:20
  Speaker: All right.
• 3:20
  Speaker: Tonight we have the, um, Illuminated Visions tarot.
• 3:25
  Speaker: It is, um, a special edition of the Prisma Visions Tarot and,
• 3:31
  Speaker: uh, really fun deck.
• 3:32
  Speaker: It is my second favorite.
• 3:36
  Speaker: MM. Apart from my daily driver.
• 3:39
  Speaker: And so tonight.
• 3:42
  Speaker: Ha ha ha ha ha.
• 3:45
  Speaker: Tonight we have manifestation.
• 3:50
  Speaker: Ooh!
• 3:50
  Speaker: Ace of wands.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Ace of wands.
• 3:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 3:55
  Speaker: That's a very, uh, potent card.
• 3:59
  Speaker: Mas potencia.
• 4:01
  Speaker: Right.
• 4:02
  Speaker: Um, Juan's being the suit of
• 4:06
  Speaker: spirituality and project
• 4:08
  Speaker: management and creation and
• 4:11
  Speaker: chutzpah.
• 4:12
  Speaker: Right?
• 4:13
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 4:14
  Speaker: And.
• 4:15
  Speaker: And sometimes great first dates.
• 4:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker: That's true.
• 4:18
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 4:19
  Speaker: Mas potencia growth potential, all the stuff.
• 4:27
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 4:28
  Speaker: It's like the secret, but a card.
• 4:31
  Speaker: MM. The secret were a card.
• 4:35
  Speaker: Oh. So do you.
• 4:37
  Speaker: Do you, uh, subscribe to the secret, Robert?
• 4:40
  Speaker: Yeah, I'm a new ager, so.
• 4:42
  Speaker: Of course.
• 4:42
  Speaker: Oh. That's true.
• 4:44
  Speaker: Doesn't surprise me, but yes.
• 4:46
  Speaker: Hocus pocus crystals.
• 4:47
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 4:51
  Speaker: Love it.
• 4:52
  Speaker: It doesn't surprise me at this point.
• 4:55
  Speaker: Well, great.
• 4:55
  Speaker: Let's talk about all the potential we have about
• 4:59
  Speaker: tonight's topic, which inspired by our Hawaiian shirts.
• 5:04
  Speaker: Uh, the summertime.
• 5:06
  Speaker: There is this outstanding tradition, mostly in America,
• 5:11
  Speaker: where not only does it happen more than occasionally it
• 5:17
  Speaker: becomes written into bylaws and even Grand Lodge, um, rules to
• 5:24
  Speaker: go dark over the summer.
• 5:26
  Speaker: So we'll explore what going dark means, um, how it's implemented,
• 5:31
  Speaker: how is it communicated, and is it still relevant in the year of
• 5:38
  Speaker: twenty twenty six?
• 5:39
  Speaker: So let's go into it.
• 5:41
  Speaker: Um, Jason, what is what is going dark mean in Masonic lodges?
• 5:46
  Speaker: I thought we were supposed to be like spreading light.
• 5:49
  Speaker: Uh, yes, but some lodges elect
• 5:54
  Speaker: not to meet on, um, on certain
• 6:00
  Speaker: months.
• 6:02
  Speaker: So they're choosing not to spread light.
• 6:05
  Speaker: Yes.
• 6:06
  Speaker: Okay.
• 6:07
  Speaker: All right.
• 6:09
  Speaker: Is there a rationale why they would want to do that?
• 6:12
  Speaker: Hey, brother Joe just showed up.
• 6:14
  Speaker: Hello?
• 6:16
  Speaker: It's Hawaiian shirt night.
• 6:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker: It is.
• 6:18
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 6:20
  Speaker: Summer solstice.
• 6:21
  Speaker: I figured, you know, it's just.
• 6:24
  Speaker: We're so festive today.
• 6:26
  Speaker: You and and you you, uh, set it off, Joe.
• 6:30
  Speaker: Yes, I did not.
• 6:31
  Speaker: I have no one to thank, but Jason's Lodge.
• 6:36
  Speaker: Acacia lodge?
• 6:37
  Speaker: I did not attend.
• 6:39
  Speaker: You were not there.
• 6:39
  Speaker: It was Hawaiian shirt night.
• 6:41
  Speaker: So.
• 6:42
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:43
  Speaker: Themes.
• 6:44
  Speaker: Instead of going dark, they have Hawaiian shirt night.
• 6:47
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:48
  Speaker: I mean, in case you needed
• 6:51
  Speaker: further proof of the relevancy
• 6:56
  Speaker: of Freemasonry to the twenty
• 6:57
  Speaker: first century.
• 6:59
  Speaker: Indeed.
• 7:00
  Speaker: Certainly.
• 7:02
  Speaker: No. Um, so yeah, we were just
• 7:04
  Speaker: kicking it off, Joe, and talking
• 7:05
  Speaker: about what?
• 7:06
  Speaker: What is going dark?
• 7:08
  Speaker: Why do lodges do it?
• 7:10
  Speaker: Um, so yeah, lodges choose not to meet, but why?
• 7:15
  Speaker: What are some good reasons for going dark, at least the way it
• 7:19
  Speaker: was originally intended?
• 7:23
  Speaker: Was everybody waiting for me to start talking?
• 7:25
  Speaker: Yes.
• 7:26
  Speaker: Oh, okay.
• 7:26
  Speaker: Waiting for the show to start.
• 7:27
  Speaker: So thank you.
• 7:28
  Speaker: Yes, yes.
• 7:29
  Speaker: Um, I guess traditionally, there were a lot of reasons back in
• 7:32
  Speaker: the day, in the, um, during the birth of speculative
• 7:36
  Speaker: Freemasonry, uh, especially here in the States, um, there was no
• 7:40
  Speaker: such thing as air conditioning until the twentieth century.
• 7:43
  Speaker: So you had multi-floor buildings.
• 7:46
  Speaker: They got super toasty and super
• 7:48
  Speaker: hot, uh, especially in the
• 7:50
  Speaker: summer months.
• 7:51
  Speaker: So, you know, um, and I don't
• 7:54
  Speaker: think Freemasonry was exclusive
• 7:56
  Speaker: to that.
• 7:56
  Speaker: Lots of organizations that met would take the summer off, um,
• 8:01
  Speaker: you know, in order to do that.
• 8:02
  Speaker: But again, that was a very archaic reason.
• 8:05
  Speaker: Um, that's one I can think of.
• 8:07
  Speaker: We have a different one in the Midwest.
• 8:10
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 8:11
  Speaker: Say more.
• 8:12
  Speaker: It's farming.
• 8:14
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 8:15
  Speaker: It's harvest and planting season.
• 8:18
  Speaker: So yeah, they take it off all hands on deck.
• 8:23
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 8:25
  Speaker: It's, uh, you know, that's just
• 8:29
  Speaker: kind of how it rolls out out in
• 8:31
  Speaker: the Midwest.
• 8:32
  Speaker: You know, although there are
• 8:33
  Speaker: some really interesting
• 8:34
  Speaker: organizations.
• 8:35
  Speaker: Um, Alex Powers had one by his
• 8:39
  Speaker: house or by his, uh, by Gardener
• 8:41
  Speaker: Lodge, uh, that met it's like a
• 8:45
  Speaker: like society of farmers or
• 8:47
  Speaker: something, but it's kind of
• 8:48
  Speaker: interesting.
• 8:49
  Speaker: Anyway, uh, yeah, farming is a big one out here.
• 8:54
  Speaker: Sure.
• 8:56
  Speaker: So those are probably the two
• 8:58
  Speaker: largest reasons why this
• 8:59
  Speaker: tradition began.
• 9:01
  Speaker: And, um.
• 9:03
  Speaker: Yeah, just sparked a thought with me, Joe, too, when you
• 9:06
  Speaker: talked about these buildings, because we, we Revere a lot of
• 9:09
  Speaker: these buildings that have been around one hundred plus years.
• 9:13
  Speaker: And we forget that when they were built, there probably was
• 9:16
  Speaker: no air conditioning.
• 9:17
  Speaker: They're beautiful.
• 9:17
  Speaker: Buildings have been retrofitted
• 9:19
  Speaker: for air conditioning, but when
• 9:20
  Speaker: they first were built, um,
• 9:23
  Speaker: probably a less comfortable
• 9:25
  Speaker: experience than, than you get
• 9:26
  Speaker: today.
• 9:27
  Speaker: Right.
• 9:28
  Speaker: Well, and you know, if that
• 9:29
  Speaker: sounds bougie to folks, um, they
• 9:31
  Speaker: didn't have, they didn't have
• 9:33
  Speaker: ceiling fans either or
• 9:34
  Speaker: electricity, you know what I
• 9:35
  Speaker: mean?
• 9:36
  Speaker: So, you know, it wasn't the only
• 9:37
  Speaker: thing going for it was that it
• 9:39
  Speaker: did not have, you know, modern
• 9:40
  Speaker: air conditioning, uh, like our,
• 9:42
  Speaker: our brothers and sisters in
• 9:43
  Speaker: Europe are struggling with right
• 9:44
  Speaker: now.
• 9:45
  Speaker: Um, yes, you know, beating each
• 9:47
  Speaker: other up over air conditioning
• 9:49
  Speaker: units?
• 9:51
  Speaker: Yes.
• 9:51
  Speaker: We don't do that now.
• 9:52
  Speaker: There are some building I know we've been.
• 9:54
  Speaker: I'm looking at all of us.
• 9:55
  Speaker: We've been to some of them that, um, even in the twenty first
• 9:58
  Speaker: century, they still don't have air conditioning in them.
• 10:00
  Speaker: They're not, uh, able to be retrofitted, like you said.
• 10:04
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 10:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker: So probably still a good reason to try to either go dark or stay
• 10:10
  Speaker: dark when you physically can't upgrade the building.
• 10:16
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 10:17
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:18
  Speaker: Someone would like to make a
• 10:19
  Speaker: motion to purchase an AC window
• 10:21
  Speaker: unit.
• 10:22
  Speaker: Uh, we did that.
• 10:23
  Speaker: So ordered.
• 10:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Speaker: So Space Novum is the only lodge room, uh, in the building that
• 10:31
  Speaker: has any kind of AC.
• 10:32
  Speaker: Because we went out one day, it
• 10:34
  Speaker: was August and we couldn't do it
• 10:36
  Speaker: like, so a couple of guys and I,
• 10:38
  Speaker: we went up to the Home Depot,
• 10:39
  Speaker: bought one of those like stand
• 10:40
  Speaker: up units.
• 10:41
  Speaker: And boy, it was, it was, it was wild.
• 10:46
  Speaker: We had.
• 10:46
  Speaker: We had a little claim to fame, right.
• 10:48
  Speaker: Like the only lodge room in the
• 10:50
  Speaker: temple to ever have a C a
• 10:53
  Speaker: purpose built Masonic temple, a
• 10:55
  Speaker: milestone.
• 10:57
  Speaker: It is pretty wild.
• 10:59
  Speaker: So a third attendance go up.
• 11:00
  Speaker: That's the real question.
• 11:02
  Speaker: Oh, God.
• 11:03
  Speaker: No.
• 11:04
  Speaker: Okay.
• 11:05
  Speaker: Uh, nobody.
• 11:07
  Speaker: So that that that excuse was stricken from the record.
• 11:10
  Speaker: Nobody comes out mostly because of the heat.
• 11:13
  Speaker: But like in these times, right?
• 11:15
  Speaker: It's not so much agricultural demands as it is.
• 11:19
  Speaker: Both the heat.
• 11:22
  Speaker: Okay.
• 11:22
  Speaker: But more than that, it's vacation and leisure.
• 11:25
  Speaker: Like, uh, yeah, they just people
• 11:28
  Speaker: go, oh, the summer the kids are
• 11:30
  Speaker: off.
• 11:30
  Speaker: So we do vacations.
• 11:32
  Speaker: So that's, that's a good reason, right?
• 11:34
  Speaker: Uh, because if you look at, um, like church attendance, right?
• 11:37
  Speaker: That tends to go down over the summertime as well because it's
• 11:41
  Speaker: family vacations and the habits that you've built up, you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker: uh, while the school is in session tend to change a little
• 11:49
  Speaker: bit when you get into a summer routine and do travel and visit
• 11:52
  Speaker: family and all that stuff.
• 11:53
  Speaker: So yeah, I could definitely see that.
• 11:59
  Speaker: So going dark doesn't necessarily, while there are
• 12:03
  Speaker: multiple root causes, right?
• 12:05
  Speaker: It can be this umbrella term for a reason why you might want to
• 12:10
  Speaker: just, just turn off the lights for a little bit, uh, for a
• 12:14
  Speaker: couple months, um, to give the brethren some sort of respite,
• 12:18
  Speaker: some sort of recess in order to, uh, come back refreshed.
• 12:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:24
  Speaker: That like, you know, preventing
• 12:26
  Speaker: officer burnout, I think is what
• 12:27
  Speaker: you're leading up to could be
• 12:29
  Speaker: absolutely.
• 12:30
  Speaker: Especially for those lodges that, you know, meet multiple
• 12:34
  Speaker: times a month.
• 12:35
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 12:35
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:36
  Speaker: Your hometown lodges, I mean, like, I think Manasseh probably
• 12:38
  Speaker: meets every week regardless.
• 12:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 12:41
  Speaker: Waukegan seventy eight even in the summer?
• 12:44
  Speaker: Yep.
• 12:44
  Speaker: Waukegan does too.
• 12:45
  Speaker: We don't care.
• 12:46
  Speaker: They're like, oh, we have AC.
• 12:47
  Speaker: We meet every single Monday.
• 12:49
  Speaker: Uh, except, you know, right
• 12:50
  Speaker: after New Year and right after
• 12:52
  Speaker: Christmas.
• 12:53
  Speaker: Um, so yeah, I mean, the third Monday.
• 12:57
  Speaker: So it's not like we ever take
• 12:59
  Speaker: off the Fourth of July or
• 13:00
  Speaker: anything.
• 13:01
  Speaker: It's, uh, it's always there.
• 13:04
  Speaker: I'm curious.
• 13:05
  Speaker: Does say, does Grand Lodge, Virginia or D.C., do you guys
• 13:08
  Speaker: know have Grand Lodge stipulations around how you guys
• 13:14
  Speaker: can go about going dark?
• 13:16
  Speaker: Or how does that work for you?
• 13:18
  Speaker: Well, I'm glad you asked, Joe.
• 13:20
  Speaker: Take it away.
• 13:21
  Speaker: Damn, you are lazy today.
• 13:22
  Speaker: Um, I, I can actually speak for both of those jurisdictions.
• 13:27
  Speaker: So in Virginia, there's no requirement that you go dark.
• 13:31
  Speaker: Um, a few lodges do go dark in July and August.
• 13:35
  Speaker: Um, meaning that they don't have
• 13:37
  Speaker: stated communications or stated
• 13:38
  Speaker: meetings.
• 13:39
  Speaker: Um, now in the Washington, D.C. jurisdiction.
• 13:46
  Speaker: Um, my lodge there, Benjamin B
• 13:47
  Speaker: French does go dark in the
• 13:50
  Speaker: summertime, but all that means
• 13:52
  Speaker: is they don't have any stated
• 13:55
  Speaker: meetings.
• 13:55
  Speaker: Um, we still have social events,
• 13:57
  Speaker: we have picnics, we have get
• 13:58
  Speaker: our, um, every month with a
• 14:01
  Speaker: fifth week, we have a social,
• 14:03
  Speaker: um, there's just no business
• 14:05
  Speaker: meetings.
• 14:06
  Speaker: So yeah, you could see like community service and charity
• 14:09
  Speaker: projects might take off during those times, stuff that you
• 14:12
  Speaker: can't normally do.
• 14:13
  Speaker: Um, when you're meeting every single week, practicing, getting
• 14:18
  Speaker: ready for degree work or, you know, whatever else.
• 14:21
  Speaker: Um, I think, and that's a really
• 14:25
  Speaker: interesting one though, like, I
• 14:26
  Speaker: think that's probably a almost,
• 14:29
  Speaker: it feels like a repurposing,
• 14:32
  Speaker: right?
• 14:32
  Speaker: Because most lodges, most lodges have some form of AC or fans.
• 14:39
  Speaker: Um, I think and probably most lodges.
• 14:43
  Speaker: Uh, wouldn't mind meeting all the time.
• 14:46
  Speaker: Uh, but if you're going to take advantage of, of going dark for,
• 14:51
  Speaker: uh, whatever period your grand lodge allows for filling it up
• 14:55
  Speaker: with those kinds of events, I think is awesome.
• 14:58
  Speaker: I would love if we did that.
• 15:00
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker: Here's some other, uh, folks in the chat in Wisconsin.
• 15:05
  Speaker: We go dark in the winter because
• 15:08
  Speaker: winter's too harsh to come to
• 15:10
  Speaker: lodge either.
• 15:10
  Speaker: It's too cold.
• 15:12
  Speaker: Uh, the opposite problem and probably shouldn't be driving
• 15:15
  Speaker: out in the weather as well.
• 15:18
  Speaker: Yeah, Midwest winters are terrible, but you guys get it up
• 15:22
  Speaker: there in Virginia too.
• 15:23
  Speaker: Like you guys got pounded last year, right?
• 15:26
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:27
  Speaker: In twenty twenty five.
• 15:28
  Speaker: I mean, yeah, we oh, good.
• 15:30
  Speaker: More or less.
• 15:31
  Speaker: Yes.
• 15:32
  Speaker: But I do I will say for a big snow we are we are so yes,
• 15:37
  Speaker: definitely, definitely find those winter homes.
• 15:39
  Speaker: Let's just get a winter compound and just all go somewhere.
• 15:42
  Speaker: Yeah, we just call it the Snowbird.
• 15:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker: Like January.
• 15:46
  Speaker: February.
• 15:46
  Speaker: Just go.
• 15:47
  Speaker: Um, no, it's funny you said that
• 15:49
  Speaker: because, uh, I remember on the,
• 15:51
  Speaker: the, uh, years where we had in
• 15:54
  Speaker: Manassas, where we had really
• 15:55
  Speaker: bad snow in January and February
• 15:57
  Speaker: and everything was frozen every
• 15:58
  Speaker: day.
• 15:59
  Speaker: Um, we started little carpools for some of our older brothers
• 16:02
  Speaker: because they just flat out would not come to lodge.
• 16:03
  Speaker: So, you know, we had the usual crew going to pick up some of
• 16:07
  Speaker: the older brothers, making sure they got to dinner and then
• 16:10
  Speaker: making sure they got home.
• 16:11
  Speaker: Um, so that became a thing.
• 16:13
  Speaker: But to, to Jason's point, it's not every single year.
• 16:16
  Speaker: Um, but we do do that as well.
• 16:19
  Speaker: Brother Scott says his lodges do not meet officially in the
• 16:23
  Speaker: summer, usually because of social and family events.
• 16:27
  Speaker: That makes sense.
• 16:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker: So for Illinois, we have an interesting thing.
• 16:33
  Speaker: So we have constitutional authorization.
• 16:36
  Speaker: So the code is good is one ninety eight A and one ninety
• 16:42
  Speaker: eight A yeah.
• 16:43
  Speaker: It says we are permitted to specify in its own bylaws.
• 16:48
  Speaker: So your own lodge bylaws, the omission of stated meetings for
• 16:53
  Speaker: up to two months of each year.
• 16:56
  Speaker: They don't have to be congruent or.
• 16:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 16:59
  Speaker: Is that the right word?
• 17:00
  Speaker: Maybe.
• 17:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:01
  Speaker: Concurrent continuous concurrent.
• 17:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:03
  Speaker: That's what I mean.
• 17:04
  Speaker: Uh, so they don't have to be concurrent.
• 17:06
  Speaker: Um, some lodges, most lodges that go dark take total
• 17:10
  Speaker: advantage of that.
• 17:10
  Speaker: And they're like, hey, July and August, we're not meeting or
• 17:13
  Speaker: whatever the case is space Novum we go dark in November because
• 17:19
  Speaker: we meet on the first or October.
• 17:22
  Speaker: We go dark in October, uh,
• 17:23
  Speaker: because we meet the first Friday
• 17:26
  Speaker: of the month, which is typically
• 17:28
  Speaker: the same weekend as Grand Lodge
• 17:30
  Speaker: sessions.
• 17:31
  Speaker: So we don't meet that week to
• 17:33
  Speaker: promote the members going to
• 17:35
  Speaker: Grand Lodge.
• 17:37
  Speaker: And then we also don't meet in December because of the sheer
• 17:40
  Speaker: number of high holidays.
• 17:42
  Speaker: So we just say October and December, we don't meet.
• 17:45
  Speaker: We meet in November, uh, kind of in the mid.
• 17:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 17:52
  Speaker: Um, so I know Virginia doesn't
• 17:55
  Speaker: have any clauses specifically
• 17:57
  Speaker: carved out in the methodical
• 17:58
  Speaker: digest.
• 17:58
  Speaker: I don't believe they do, you
• 18:01
  Speaker: know, ask that lodges meet once
• 18:03
  Speaker: a month.
• 18:04
  Speaker: And so that usually leaves it open.
• 18:08
  Speaker: Like it's like that's pretty
• 18:09
  Speaker: much you're going to meet at
• 18:10
  Speaker: least twelve times a year and
• 18:13
  Speaker: with, with the various
• 18:15
  Speaker: exceptions.
• 18:16
  Speaker: So, uh, here's one exception that's kind of interesting.
• 18:19
  Speaker: When the Patriot Lodge number nineteen fifty seven was being
• 18:23
  Speaker: chartered and we had the opportunity to write bylaws from
• 18:27
  Speaker: scratch, knowing that we were an academic, Lodge said, what do we
• 18:33
  Speaker: do about our young brothers who are still in school and are
• 18:40
  Speaker: going to take the summer off.
• 18:41
  Speaker: Right?
• 18:42
  Speaker: So we managed to get approved into our bylaws.
• 18:46
  Speaker: The fact that we go dark in June and July because school is out.
• 18:53
  Speaker: So, you know, kind of either people graduate in either
• 18:56
  Speaker: classes are done in May or they graduate late May, early June.
• 19:00
  Speaker: So that's super practical.
• 19:02
  Speaker: Yeah, that's very practical.
• 19:04
  Speaker: I love that.
• 19:06
  Speaker: And that gives the young
• 19:08
  Speaker: brothers a chance to go back
• 19:09
  Speaker: home.
• 19:10
  Speaker: Question doctor.
• 19:11
  Speaker: Is that a a University Lodge type of thing.
• 19:14
  Speaker: Do other university style lodges do the same thing?
• 19:18
  Speaker: Uh, that's a really good question.
• 19:20
  Speaker: Did we come up with that on our own or did we borrow that bylaw?
• 19:24
  Speaker: Scott Sherman.
• 19:26
  Speaker: Scott Sherman he's got an academic that Sherman knows all.
• 19:29
  Speaker: Scott would know.
• 19:30
  Speaker: He's the man.
• 19:31
  Speaker: So we're just going to wait for his comment pop up?
• 19:33
  Speaker: But yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker: Correct.
• 19:35
  Speaker: Scott.
• 19:37
  Speaker: Who needs Google?
• 19:38
  Speaker: Just ask.
• 19:39
  Speaker: Just ask.
• 19:39
  Speaker: Scott.
• 19:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:41
  Speaker: Um, but that's been very helpful.
• 19:43
  Speaker: Uh, we still have that in our bylaws today.
• 19:45
  Speaker: And, um, certainly it has.
• 19:49
  Speaker: So it sounds kind of like you
• 19:50
  Speaker: guys have this ability to go
• 19:52
  Speaker: dark, even though you have
• 19:55
  Speaker: another code or something that
• 19:58
  Speaker: says you still have to meet once
• 19:59
  Speaker: a month.
• 19:59
  Speaker: Correct.
• 20:01
  Speaker: That's, that's kind of like a unwritten rule thing, it seems.
• 20:04
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:04
  Speaker: It's very unique, uh, to actually have into the bylaws
• 20:07
  Speaker: that we can go dark in Virginia.
• 20:09
  Speaker: And so what we had it all
• 20:10
  Speaker: blessed by the Grand master at
• 20:13
  Speaker: the time made sense for the
• 20:16
  Speaker: academic scheme.
• 20:18
  Speaker: Right.
• 20:18
  Speaker: The university scheme.
• 20:19
  Speaker: So, um, I think that's why we were kind of the exception to
• 20:22
  Speaker: the rule and it, it has paid off dividends for sure.
• 20:27
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 20:28
  Speaker: That's sweet.
• 20:29
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker: Like in Illinois, we We are
• 20:33
  Speaker: mandated to meet ten times a
• 20:36
  Speaker: year.
• 20:36
  Speaker: At least that's what's in the code at least.
• 20:40
  Speaker: Okay.
• 20:40
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker: And a few years ago, we tried to say, hey, can we make it so that
• 20:47
  Speaker: we only have to meet four times a year for business?
• 20:50
  Speaker: You can meet more times.
• 20:53
  Speaker: Sure.
• 20:53
  Speaker: But minimum minimum is four.
• 20:55
  Speaker: So quarterly.
• 20:57
  Speaker: And they shot it down because they said, well, how are we
• 20:59
  Speaker: going to vote on candidates?
• 21:02
  Speaker: And it's like, well, if you got a candidate, then you would
• 21:04
  Speaker: obviously just call a meeting.
• 21:05
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:06
  Speaker: The next meeting.
• 21:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 21:08
  Speaker: But the masses were like, I
• 21:10
  Speaker: didn't get a jump out of that
• 21:11
  Speaker: guy.
• 21:12
  Speaker: I was like, you know, so stupid.
• 21:15
  Speaker: Um, yeah, but it does raise the question.
• 21:20
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 21:20
  Speaker: Like maybe more now than ever before.
• 21:24
  Speaker: Uh, no, I'm not going to say
• 21:25
  Speaker: masonry is needed now more than
• 21:27
  Speaker: ever before.
• 21:27
  Speaker: It's my favorite.
• 21:29
  Speaker: Uh, no. Now more than ever before, we have such an ability
• 21:32
  Speaker: to communicate offline Zoom meetings, all of the things
• 21:35
  Speaker: regular business standing bills, like you probably don't need to
• 21:43
  Speaker: meet for business every month.
• 21:47
  Speaker: MM. Well, I guess that depends on the, on the, the term of what
• 21:53
  Speaker: we mean by business.
• 21:54
  Speaker: Right.
• 21:55
  Speaker: Like some, some jurisdictions,
• 21:56
  Speaker: you don't have to technically
• 21:58
  Speaker: bring any of that crap up during
• 22:00
  Speaker: a meeting.
• 22:00
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 22:01
  Speaker: Like they're nice to haves.
• 22:02
  Speaker: Um, and some of them are wrote because that's what your
• 22:06
  Speaker: secretary, you know, like Robert Johnson, who's been around for
• 22:08
  Speaker: twenty years as secretary, that's what he does.
• 22:11
  Speaker: He reads the bills and he waits for people to, you know, opine
• 22:15
  Speaker: on the bills.
• 22:15
  Speaker: And then he argues with the treasurer about paying the bills
• 22:18
  Speaker: but not required, that you, you I do argue with my treasure, my
• 22:22
  Speaker: treasurer in both.
• 22:23
  Speaker: Well, in one of my lodges.
• 22:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:26
  Speaker: I argue with my treasurer all the time.
• 22:27
  Speaker: He's so cheap.
• 22:28
  Speaker: I'm talking to you, Eric.
• 22:30
  Speaker: Boom.
• 22:31
  Speaker: Oh, brother Scott chiming in
• 22:33
  Speaker: areas in Massachusetts we are
• 22:35
  Speaker: required to meet ten times a
• 22:37
  Speaker: year.
• 22:37
  Speaker: Most choose to take off July and August, especially without AC.
• 22:42
  Speaker: But others take off other months
• 22:44
  Speaker: tracing back to harvests or
• 22:46
  Speaker: fishing.
• 22:46
  Speaker: Profession.
• 22:47
  Speaker: Profession.
• 22:47
  Speaker: I didn't even think about that.
• 22:49
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker: Coastal cities.
• 22:50
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Speaker: Lobster roll month, baby.
• 22:53
  Speaker: Gotta take off.
• 22:54
  Speaker: Have some lobster roll.
• 22:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker: John doesn't show up because it's old bay time.
• 22:57
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker: What are we.
• 22:59
  Speaker: What are we?
• 23:00
  Speaker: Crab roast.
• 23:01
  Speaker: Crab roast.
• 23:02
  Speaker: Let's see.
• 23:02
  Speaker: Let me go back.
• 23:03
  Speaker: Do we have it?
• 23:03
  Speaker: Yes.
• 23:04
  Speaker: We still have the crab roast.
• 23:07
  Speaker: There it is.
• 23:08
  Speaker: Signature.
• 23:09
  Speaker: Classic.
• 23:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:10
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 23:11
  Speaker: Lodge is closed on sake of crab roast.
• 23:16
  Speaker: So I guess so far.
• 23:20
  Speaker: Uh, and I hope I'm not jumping ahead, John, but I'm.
• 23:23
  Speaker: I'm curious, what are some of those negative.
• 23:28
  Speaker: What are some of the negatives about going dark?
• 23:31
  Speaker: Oh, interesting.
• 23:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 23:33
  Speaker: So, you know, there's lots of ways you could spin this, right?
• 23:37
  Speaker: Um, because we've talked about
• 23:42
  Speaker: causes and of which there are
• 23:45
  Speaker: many.
• 23:45
  Speaker: We've covered a lot more than I
• 23:47
  Speaker: even considered, um, including
• 23:49
  Speaker: crab roasts.
• 23:51
  Speaker: Yes.
• 23:53
  Speaker: But here's the problem with that is, uh, there's, there's two,
• 23:56
  Speaker: two major things, right?
• 23:57
  Speaker: Um, once it becomes a tradition, then you're actually taking away
• 24:03
  Speaker: a little bit of, um, autonomy from the master, right?
• 24:06
  Speaker: The master being able to, to choose when, um, when and how he
• 24:11
  Speaker: runs this lodge.
• 24:13
  Speaker: And so, um, there's a little bit of that I know, I know Joe's
• 24:17
  Speaker: thinking about that one.
• 24:18
  Speaker: The other thing that came to mind too, if nothing else is um,
• 24:23
  Speaker: building a habit.
• 24:24
  Speaker: So the psychological aspect, my
• 24:27
  Speaker: mother lodge when we came
• 24:28
  Speaker: through.
• 24:29
  Speaker: You could count on something every Monday.
• 24:32
  Speaker: And it was just like Monday night.
• 24:34
  Speaker: There was something to do with
• 24:35
  Speaker: the lodge, whether it was the
• 24:36
  Speaker: first and third were the stated
• 24:38
  Speaker: meetings or, um, the second
• 24:41
  Speaker: Monday was, uh, practice and
• 24:43
  Speaker: then the fourth Monday was
• 24:44
  Speaker: degrees, right.
• 24:45
  Speaker: And so it was just, you always
• 24:47
  Speaker: knew when to show up, what was
• 24:49
  Speaker: going on.
• 24:50
  Speaker: And so when you disrupt that, then it kind of makes it easy to
• 24:55
  Speaker: take your foot off the brake or foot off the gas and, and even,
• 24:59
  Speaker: uh, well, you know, maybe, maybe I'll come back to lodge later,
• 25:02
  Speaker: you know, just like again, the whole summer disruption that I
• 25:05
  Speaker: talked about earlier.
• 25:07
  Speaker: So it's, there's certainly even in the best spirit, there's
• 25:12
  Speaker: unintended negative consequences that can come with you.
• 25:15
  Speaker: When you mentioned like the idea of, of this tradition, um, I, I
• 25:24
  Speaker: really like, um, the first thing that pops into my head.
• 25:28
  Speaker: It's tradition.
• 25:29
  Speaker: Well, yeah.
• 25:29
  Speaker: And tradition in this sense, we've always done it that way.
• 25:33
  Speaker: Feels like an excuse.
• 25:34
  Speaker: Oh, yes.
• 25:35
  Speaker: And it's like pure institutional
• 25:39
  Speaker: because it's always been that
• 25:40
  Speaker: way, right?
• 25:41
  Speaker: It's pure intent.
• 25:43
  Speaker: Pure institutional laziness.
• 25:45
  Speaker: No, no, no, RJ, you're not listening.
• 25:47
  Speaker: We've always done it this way.
• 25:50
  Speaker: Right.
• 25:50
  Speaker: It's the most dangerous phrase in any organization, right?
• 25:52
  Speaker: We always said that, oh, if a
• 25:54
  Speaker: lodge has central air, no
• 25:56
  Speaker: farmers in the lineup and a pile
• 25:58
  Speaker: up on, you know, the work,
• 26:00
  Speaker: staying dark for the sake of
• 26:01
  Speaker: just staying dark is just a
• 26:04
  Speaker: failure.
• 26:07
  Speaker: Yeah, I'm.
• 26:08
  Speaker: I'm kind of torn.
• 26:10
  Speaker: Don't be positive.
• 26:11
  Speaker: I am, I am, I'm torn inside.
• 26:12
  Speaker: I, I'm just thinking of the
• 26:15
  Speaker: myriad of lodges that I'm a
• 26:16
  Speaker: member of.
• 26:17
  Speaker: And some would bum me out if
• 26:19
  Speaker: they went dark over the summer
• 26:20
  Speaker: and some.
• 26:20
  Speaker: I don't think I could care less
• 26:22
  Speaker: if they went dark over, say
• 26:23
  Speaker: more, you know, like I'm
• 26:25
  Speaker: thinking of what the lodge does,
• 26:27
  Speaker: right?
• 26:28
  Speaker: Like there are lodges and I'm not going to name any names.
• 26:32
  Speaker: There are lodges that I'd be
• 26:34
  Speaker: super bummed if I was not, if I
• 26:36
  Speaker: knew I couldn't go to that lodge
• 26:38
  Speaker: in July and August, you know,
• 26:39
  Speaker: because, you know, it definitely
• 26:41
  Speaker: still fills my fills my tank
• 26:43
  Speaker: when it comes to what I'm
• 26:44
  Speaker: looking for.
• 26:45
  Speaker: Um, there are other lodges that
• 26:47
  Speaker: I'm a member of and not a member
• 26:48
  Speaker: of that.
• 26:49
  Speaker: Like I said, it's the same wrote stuff all the time.
• 26:52
  Speaker: I get nothing out of it.
• 26:53
  Speaker: I probably don't go that often, and I wouldn't care if they
• 26:57
  Speaker: weren't having a meeting in July and August, you know?
• 26:59
  Speaker: So there you go.
• 27:02
  Speaker: Oh, here's a here's another unintended or unintended
• 27:05
  Speaker: consequence, depending on how malicious you are.
• 27:08
  Speaker: Say you've got a candidate ready
• 27:10
  Speaker: to go and he submits his
• 27:11
  Speaker: petition.
• 27:12
  Speaker: The last day you meet before you.
• 27:14
  Speaker: You break for three months.
• 27:15
  Speaker: This is the elephant in the room.
• 27:17
  Speaker: Like I know so many guys and like it.
• 27:21
  Speaker: It compounded with Covid.
• 27:23
  Speaker: So not only did they turn it in.
• 27:27
  Speaker: And then when we came back, it was summer months and all this.
• 27:32
  Speaker: They just like we.
• 27:33
  Speaker: How many guys did we lose?
• 27:35
  Speaker: I wonder, I wonder maybe how many guys we.
• 27:37
  Speaker: That's amazing.
• 27:38
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:38
  Speaker: To think about the unseen, the unseen brother.
• 27:42
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker: This gets to the the definition of what it means to go dark.
• 27:46
  Speaker: Um, like I said, one one of my
• 27:49
  Speaker: lodges, they don't have stated
• 27:51
  Speaker: meetings or stated
• 27:52
  Speaker: communications, but that doesn't
• 27:53
  Speaker: preclude them from having a
• 27:56
  Speaker: called meeting or a called
• 27:57
  Speaker: communication or calling the
• 27:59
  Speaker: purpose of degree work or there
• 28:01
  Speaker: you go.
• 28:02
  Speaker: So I think it means a little bit different in each jurisdiction,
• 28:05
  Speaker: um, what they can and can't do.
• 28:07
  Speaker: But that goes back to your point
• 28:08
  Speaker: on what is the master allowed to
• 28:10
  Speaker: do?
• 28:11
  Speaker: The master can call a meeting
• 28:12
  Speaker: whenever the hell he wants, you
• 28:14
  Speaker: know?
• 28:14
  Speaker: Um, but it doesn't have to be for the purpose of doing
• 28:18
  Speaker: business, you know, listening to Robert read the bills.
• 28:21
  Speaker: We don't have to do that.
• 28:22
  Speaker: Well, you don't have to do that in Illinois anyway.
• 28:24
  Speaker: I don't.
• 28:24
  Speaker: That's why I go once every five
• 28:26
  Speaker: years, so I don't have to listen
• 28:28
  Speaker: to it.
• 28:28
  Speaker: Rub it in, rub it in.
• 28:31
  Speaker: Well, you guys, I think all of
• 28:33
  Speaker: you kind of hit on something
• 28:35
  Speaker: that I'm I'm curious on your
• 28:37
  Speaker: feelings.
• 28:38
  Speaker: That.
• 28:39
  Speaker: Right.
• 28:39
  Speaker: If masonry is this daily advancement and if you go dark,
• 28:47
  Speaker: you're sort of breaking the continuity of the brotherhood.
• 28:51
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 28:52
  Speaker: MM. See, I, I look at that as my two months to be a scumbag and I
• 28:56
  Speaker: do all my scumbag.
• 28:57
  Speaker: You get you get to Mason for two months and you get healed again.
• 29:01
  Speaker: That's that's what we call the meeting night.
• 29:04
  Speaker: Only hypocrisy.
• 29:05
  Speaker: Right.
• 29:05
  Speaker: So if a man only acts like a mason when he's wearing an apron
• 29:09
  Speaker: inside the lodge room, he's not really a mason.
• 29:13
  Speaker: Right?
• 29:13
  Speaker: Good thing that never happens.
• 29:15
  Speaker: Archie.
• 29:15
  Speaker: He's just an actor who plays a part.
• 29:17
  Speaker: It's a unicorn.
• 29:20
  Speaker: If a if a brother is completely
• 29:22
  Speaker: detaching himself from the
• 29:23
  Speaker: fraternity and stops checking in
• 29:24
  Speaker: on sick bros or stops practicing
• 29:27
  Speaker: relief, right?
• 29:28
  Speaker: Starts acting out in his community because Lodge is out
• 29:31
  Speaker: for the summer, right?
• 29:32
  Speaker: It was just the, uh, Alice
• 29:34
  Speaker: Cooper's school's out for
• 29:35
  Speaker: summer.
• 29:35
  Speaker: School's out for summer.
• 29:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker: Uh, just out for summer.
• 29:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker: No. It's not.
• 29:42
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 29:42
  Speaker: I mean, when else are you going
• 29:44
  Speaker: to have, you know, satanic
• 29:45
  Speaker: music?
• 29:46
  Speaker: Take a boat down to hedonism?
• 29:48
  Speaker: You know, just get I do that.
• 29:50
  Speaker: We're talking while Lodge is open or dark.
• 29:53
  Speaker: No, only during going dark months.
• 29:55
  Speaker: Okay.
• 29:56
  Speaker: Gotcha.
• 29:57
  Speaker: God, I've been to some fun lodges.
• 30:00
  Speaker: Um, have you guys ever experienced this?
• 30:03
  Speaker: This is one that I'm so afraid of.
• 30:05
  Speaker: What are you going to ask?
• 30:06
  Speaker: Oh, well, I it's going to be probably worse where I'm from
• 30:10
  Speaker: because we don't have the same sort of codified ritual.
• 30:15
  Speaker: Like, uh, what do you call it?
• 30:18
  Speaker: Like rules that that you guys have in Virginia.
• 30:22
  Speaker: Like you guys have wardens, cards and stuff.
• 30:24
  Speaker: And in our case like that, none of that matters.
• 30:28
  Speaker: Um, I'm curious on the idea of like the working tools getting
• 30:34
  Speaker: rusty, like when you took a summer break for school, right?
• 30:38
  Speaker: The first month of going back into high school or whatever,
• 30:42
  Speaker: you're, you're just rehashing all the garbage, not all the
• 30:46
  Speaker: stuff that you, you just, you ended last school year on.
• 30:49
  Speaker: So you have remedial for like the first month.
• 30:52
  Speaker: Yup.
• 30:52
  Speaker: And it makes me wonder, you
• 30:53
  Speaker: know, like they always say, oh,
• 30:55
  Speaker: um, it took eleven months before
• 30:59
  Speaker: of being mastered before I
• 31:00
  Speaker: finally opened the lodge the
• 31:01
  Speaker: right way.
• 31:02
  Speaker: And that was my last meeting night.
• 31:04
  Speaker: Right.
• 31:05
  Speaker: Like all that practice.
• 31:06
  Speaker: Well, what happens if you interrupt that continuity?
• 31:09
  Speaker: You know, do you forget how to do stuff?
• 31:12
  Speaker: Are you going to, you know, just the rituals.
• 31:16
  Speaker: Have you ever seen that happen?
• 31:18
  Speaker: Like guys like after going dark
• 31:20
  Speaker: or sitting there and they stand
• 31:21
  Speaker: up and they give the wrong words
• 31:22
  Speaker: or something.
• 31:23
  Speaker: I was gonna say, I probably
• 31:24
  Speaker: remember a time as a as a deacon
• 31:27
  Speaker: taking up a wrong word or two
• 31:29
  Speaker: over the, you know, September
• 31:32
  Speaker: time frame.
• 31:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 31:33
  Speaker: I have a hard time visualizing
• 31:35
  Speaker: that because you guys know, we
• 31:37
  Speaker: don't go dark, uh, at Manasseh
• 31:39
  Speaker: Lodge and we meet every Monday
• 31:41
  Speaker: for practice unbroken line since
• 31:44
  Speaker: nineteen oh five, except for
• 31:46
  Speaker: Covid.
• 31:47
  Speaker: Um, but that doesn't count.
• 31:49
  Speaker: So, so I love hearing things like Mister Coffee here.
• 31:55
  Speaker: Who says in Pennsylvania we go
• 31:57
  Speaker: dark July and August, but we
• 32:00
  Speaker: still have fraternal events
• 32:02
  Speaker: planned.
• 32:03
  Speaker: So baseball games, lodge picnics, social gatherings.
• 32:09
  Speaker: The field feels like the best of
• 32:12
  Speaker: both worlds the occasional crab
• 32:14
  Speaker: roast.
• 32:19
  Speaker: I think that's certainly a
• 32:21
  Speaker: middle ground to where if you
• 32:23
  Speaker: still have brethren that want to
• 32:24
  Speaker: stay engaged, but you have a
• 32:26
  Speaker: tradition.
• 32:27
  Speaker: Um, and as I was telling Robert in the green room, you know,
• 32:31
  Speaker: remember, tradition is peer pressure from dead people.
• 32:36
  Speaker: So just because we went dark, because the lodge was built
• 32:41
  Speaker: before air conditioning, that doesn't mean you still have to
• 32:44
  Speaker: do that today.
• 32:45
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 32:45
  Speaker: Um, but if you, if you have that
• 32:48
  Speaker: tradition, then by all means,
• 32:50
  Speaker: let those who need to take and
• 32:51
  Speaker: take it and supplement it with
• 32:53
  Speaker: practices and, and parties and
• 32:57
  Speaker: things, things to do with the
• 32:58
  Speaker: families.
• 32:58
  Speaker: Uh, so there you go.
• 33:01
  Speaker: There's a middle ground there.
• 33:03
  Speaker: Or if it's legislative change or
• 33:05
  Speaker: bylaws, you know, there's
• 33:07
  Speaker: nothing to say, hey, we're not
• 33:08
  Speaker: going to we're not going to go
• 33:10
  Speaker: dark anymore.
• 33:11
  Speaker: But then you gotta do a mailing and a bylaw change.
• 33:14
  Speaker: That's a lot of work.
• 33:16
  Speaker: There's a lot of work, Joe.
• 33:18
  Speaker: Well, just do it.
• 33:19
  Speaker: When, uh, during those slow months, when people don't show.
• 33:25
  Speaker: Boom.
• 33:26
  Speaker: Yep.
• 33:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Speaker: So I, I did find, uh, Maryland's, um, constitution
• 33:37
  Speaker: does, does have them to have the permission to choose to, um,
• 33:46
  Speaker: have recess during June, July, August or September.
• 33:50
  Speaker: Oh yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker: So that's, that's written in their Grand Lodge rules.
• 33:57
  Speaker: Interesting that they, that they stipulate what months it can be.
• 34:00
  Speaker: The specific the months.
• 34:02
  Speaker: Yep.
• 34:02
  Speaker: During the months of June.
• 34:05
  Speaker: July.
• 34:05
  Speaker: August.
• 34:05
  Speaker: September.
• 34:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:07
  Speaker: Mr.. Coffee when he said, uh, we go dark in July and August.
• 34:11
  Speaker: So I wonder, right.
• 34:12
  Speaker: Because Pennsylvania is very codified.
• 34:16
  Speaker: Uh, last time I heard there are, there are like mandated events
• 34:20
  Speaker: where the lodge has to be open to the public on certain days.
• 34:23
  Speaker: I don't know if that's still, but like, are you, uh, I'll say
• 34:28
  Speaker: brother coffee, is it are you mandated to only do those two
• 34:32
  Speaker: months or do you have to, or is it like up to the lodge?
• 34:35
  Speaker: I'm just curious.
• 34:38
  Speaker: Or I. Scott German because he probably knows also.
• 34:40
  Speaker: Uh, yes.
• 34:42
  Speaker: So if you don't answer, I'm sure his his Masonic knowledge goes
• 34:46
  Speaker: far beyond Massachusetts.
• 34:49
  Speaker: It has no walls.
• 34:50
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker: There's no walls.
• 34:53
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 34:56
  Speaker: Right.
• 34:57
  Speaker: So, um.
• 35:00
  Speaker: Now, the big question is, does it still make sense?
• 35:05
  Speaker: Is it still relevant for twenty twenty six to have this
• 35:12
  Speaker: tradition of going dark in whatever form that looks like.
• 35:17
  Speaker: We've talked about the the
• 35:19
  Speaker: varieties and different
• 35:20
  Speaker: variables to consider when going
• 35:23
  Speaker: dark.
• 35:23
  Speaker: But if someone wasn't familiar
• 35:26
  Speaker: with this concept, but was
• 35:28
  Speaker: familiar with how every other
• 35:29
  Speaker: business runs or, you know, any
• 35:31
  Speaker: other organization runs, you
• 35:34
  Speaker: know, your, your, your church or
• 35:36
  Speaker: synagogue doesn't go dark just
• 35:38
  Speaker: for we're gonna take the summer
• 35:40
  Speaker: off.
• 35:40
  Speaker: I was gonna say, where are you going with business?
• 35:42
  Speaker: Because I haven't had a summer off since.
• 35:44
  Speaker: That's what I'm saying.
• 35:45
  Speaker: Since I graduated high school.
• 35:47
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:47
  Speaker: So so, you know, like, does it make sense to even have this
• 35:55
  Speaker: practice in twenty twenty six?
• 35:59
  Speaker: I think in the green room, we were talking a little bit and,
• 36:02
  Speaker: and we kind of likened it to daylight savings time, right?
• 36:07
  Speaker: I mean, in the same parallel
• 36:09
  Speaker: that that happens with, uh,
• 36:11
  Speaker: Farming.
• 36:13
  Speaker: Uh, not really sure that's necessary anymore.
• 36:18
  Speaker: Uh, and I, and I wonder if it's
• 36:20
  Speaker: even necessary, uh, for lodges
• 36:23
  Speaker: to be going dark in the summer
• 36:25
  Speaker: also.
• 36:26
  Speaker: My gut reaction is it's just an
• 36:29
  Speaker: antiquated thing that has become
• 36:33
  Speaker: a tradition.
• 36:35
  Speaker: But also.
• 36:38
  Speaker: Your boy's not going to go to a lodge that's so hot.
• 36:42
  Speaker: There are spatulas taped to each chair in August, right?
• 36:48
  Speaker: Just peel you right out.
• 36:50
  Speaker: I'm not interested in that now.
• 36:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:52
  Speaker: That's fair.
• 36:54
  Speaker: But also, how do we get around saying like that?
• 36:57
  Speaker: We're just like lazy.
• 37:00
  Speaker: Well, sometimes, I mean, there's been August meetings that were
• 37:05
  Speaker: hot and space meets in August.
• 37:07
  Speaker: And we rented out the community
• 37:10
  Speaker: center next door for fifty
• 37:11
  Speaker: bucks, and we moved the charter
• 37:13
  Speaker: there.
• 37:13
  Speaker: Yeah, see, I was thinking about that.
• 37:15
  Speaker: There are alternatives.
• 37:17
  Speaker: Let's assume you can't retrofit your building, but you can
• 37:22
  Speaker: change the location.
• 37:24
  Speaker: You can get a dispensation to move your meeting to a lodge
• 37:29
  Speaker: that does have air conditioning or some other venue.
• 37:32
  Speaker: I know like four lodges who have
• 37:34
  Speaker: to do degree work over the
• 37:35
  Speaker: summer all the time, and they're
• 37:38
  Speaker: forever just asking to use
• 37:40
  Speaker: Waukegan.
• 37:41
  Speaker: And they come out and they do their degree work and they go
• 37:43
  Speaker: home, you know, and we're happy to let them come do that.
• 37:48
  Speaker: It's, uh, I don't know.
• 37:50
  Speaker: It makes sense, especially for candidates.
• 37:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker: Like we can't say that we're
• 37:57
  Speaker: hard up for members and then be
• 38:00
  Speaker: like, oh, yeah, but, you know,
• 38:03
  Speaker: let him let him simmer for a few
• 38:05
  Speaker: weeks.
• 38:06
  Speaker: We'll see you in September.
• 38:07
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:08
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:10
  Speaker: Like in Super Troopers.
• 38:12
  Speaker: That's not cool.
• 38:17
  Speaker: Uh, there's some good, good chats in here.
• 38:20
  Speaker: Um, did Mr. Coffee reply?
• 38:22
  Speaker: Yeah, he said, technically up to the lodge for those two months
• 38:27
  Speaker: as it has been voted on, but he's never heard where the vote
• 38:33
  Speaker: was not to go dark.
• 38:35
  Speaker: Oh, tradition.
• 38:38
  Speaker: Because that's the way we've always done it.
• 38:41
  Speaker: Tradition.
• 38:44
  Speaker: So there you go.
• 38:46
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:46
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 38:50
  Speaker: That is true.
• 38:51
  Speaker: Um.
• 38:52
  Speaker: Oh. My past state education officer, Michael Overturf.
• 38:57
  Speaker: Uh, worshipful brother Overturf.
• 38:59
  Speaker: He, uh, he said I'd take January and February just because Mother
• 39:04
  Speaker: Nature is usually off her meds.
• 39:06
  Speaker: And Chicago weather tries to come south.
• 39:09
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker: It's true.
• 39:11
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 39:12
  Speaker: I always felt I would feel bad
• 39:14
  Speaker: because Mike lives so far south,
• 39:16
  Speaker: and he'd have to come up to,
• 39:17
  Speaker: like, Springfield all the time,
• 39:18
  Speaker: and then sometimes farther up
• 39:20
  Speaker: here.
• 39:22
  Speaker: And the weather was always crap.
• 39:26
  Speaker: Mr. coffee did come back and say, look, they had to suspend
• 39:29
  Speaker: their degree, work for their Fellowcraft and E to take a
• 39:33
  Speaker: mandatory break, continuing back up in September.
• 39:39
  Speaker: Earlier you put up you put up that thing from, uh, Mitchell
• 39:42
  Speaker: Wade ninety seven twenty three.
• 39:45
  Speaker: Traditionalism kills lodges.
• 39:49
  Speaker: What?
• 39:50
  Speaker: That's a spicy hot take.
• 39:52
  Speaker: It is.
• 39:54
  Speaker: It is a spicy, hot take because I feel like some guys just, uh,
• 40:00
  Speaker: they feel like an attack or like a change in the tradition is a
• 40:03
  Speaker: is an attack on the tradition?
• 40:05
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:06
  Speaker: Oh, like I knelt where Hiram knelt.
• 40:08
  Speaker: And if you say we can't meet in this month, you're spitting on
• 40:12
  Speaker: the face of masonry.
• 40:14
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:15
  Speaker: You burn down Simpkins store.
• 40:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:20
  Speaker: And there's good traditions, too, right?
• 40:21
  Speaker: I mean, there's traditions to have when they make sense.
• 40:25
  Speaker: I think blindly following tradition.
• 40:28
  Speaker: I think Joe said it a long time ago, Joe.
• 40:30
  Speaker: You said something like masonry is a living tradition.
• 40:32
  Speaker: So as long as masonry is being practiced, things kind of adapt.
• 40:38
  Speaker: You might not remember saying that, but I wrote it down.
• 40:40
  Speaker: So they're true.
• 40:42
  Speaker: I'd say they're forced to adapt.
• 40:44
  Speaker: Nobody ever wants to adapt.
• 40:47
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:49
  Speaker: Ooh.
• 40:50
  Speaker: Here's another way to think about it.
• 40:53
  Speaker: Like Grand Lodge rules, it
• 40:56
  Speaker: should be allowed, but not
• 40:58
  Speaker: required.
• 41:00
  Speaker: Totally agree.
• 41:01
  Speaker: Yeah, that's probably the best of both worlds.
• 41:04
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 41:04
  Speaker: But I wonder the way you guys
• 41:07
  Speaker: mentioned it, about having the
• 41:08
  Speaker: dark months and then using that
• 41:10
  Speaker: time for sort of officer
• 41:11
  Speaker: recharge, or maybe just casual
• 41:16
  Speaker: meet ups at restaurants and
• 41:18
  Speaker: stuff for the, you know, or a
• 41:20
  Speaker: movie night or something that
• 41:21
  Speaker: you guys organize sit down at
• 41:22
  Speaker: the lodge.
• 41:23
  Speaker: Um, I don't know.
• 41:26
  Speaker: Part of me goes, well, that's
• 41:28
  Speaker: kind of nice because we get to
• 41:29
  Speaker: not have to focus on our lecture
• 41:33
  Speaker: practice.
• 41:34
  Speaker: Right?
• 41:36
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker: And similarly, I'm a little
• 41:39
  Speaker: jealous of some of the other
• 41:41
  Speaker: lodges that like your, your,
• 41:43
  Speaker: your newly chartered two lodges
• 41:45
  Speaker: that only meet once a quarter,
• 41:46
  Speaker: right.
• 41:47
  Speaker: Or a couple times a year.
• 41:48
  Speaker: And therefore the, the time that
• 41:55
  Speaker: they do meet, it's a little bit
• 41:56
  Speaker: more deliberate and purposeful
• 41:58
  Speaker: and concentrated.
• 41:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:00
  Speaker: It's a good word, you know.
• 42:01
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:02
  Speaker: As, as compared to well, it's the first Monday of the month,
• 42:06
  Speaker: so here we go.
• 42:07
  Speaker: Sure.
• 42:08
  Speaker: So, you know, yes, I admit I'm talking out of both sides of my
• 42:11
  Speaker: mouth here that building a habit is a good thing.
• 42:13
  Speaker: And, uh, what I'm really trying
• 42:15
  Speaker: to get to is, what if we just
• 42:19
  Speaker: allowed the lodge to have their
• 42:22
  Speaker: own flexibility, not be held by
• 42:26
  Speaker: rules or tradition and say, you
• 42:28
  Speaker: know what?
• 42:29
  Speaker: Our lodge all agree that we can practice masonry best when we
• 42:34
  Speaker: meet on, um, on months that have thirty days and no more.
• 42:45
  Speaker: And that's just how the lodge,
• 42:47
  Speaker: if that is what's going to make
• 42:48
  Speaker: the lodge grow and be
• 42:50
  Speaker: successful.
• 42:53
  Speaker: Sure.
• 42:54
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Speaker: Why not?
• 42:56
  Speaker: Because people don't like that.
• 42:58
  Speaker: Well, that's that's crazy talk.
• 43:03
  Speaker: Bat dead.
• 43:04
  Speaker: Sixteen seventy eight.
• 43:05
  Speaker: Great point.
• 43:07
  Speaker: Uh, he says we still have
• 43:09
  Speaker: ranchers and farmers in our
• 43:11
  Speaker: lodges, still have quite a few
• 43:13
  Speaker: men in our lodges that have
• 43:14
  Speaker: occupations that demand that
• 43:16
  Speaker: time away.
• 43:17
  Speaker: And it gets hard sometimes during, you know, camping season
• 43:20
  Speaker: or he mentions later on, uh, caving season as well.
• 43:25
  Speaker: Totally agree.
• 43:26
  Speaker: But I also feel like, you know, if those guys aren't showing up,
• 43:30
  Speaker: then we understand.
• 43:34
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 43:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker: I don't need the whole lodge to
• 43:36
  Speaker: go dark because three guys can't
• 43:38
  Speaker: show up.
• 43:40
  Speaker: But if you are in a community
• 43:41
  Speaker: that's largely, you know, a
• 43:43
  Speaker: farming community or you have
• 43:44
  Speaker: something like this, like maybe
• 43:45
  Speaker: a lodge up in Yosemite area or
• 43:47
  Speaker: something, I'm sure like it's
• 43:49
  Speaker: totally warranted.
• 43:51
  Speaker: Like you got trail work to do or whatever.
• 43:53
  Speaker: Yeah, I think we glossed over that a little bit, you know,
• 43:56
  Speaker: talking about the talking about agriculture and, you know, like
• 44:00
  Speaker: coastline professions as people don't do those anymore.
• 44:03
  Speaker: I mean, those are there are
• 44:05
  Speaker: there's a rural lodge an hour
• 44:07
  Speaker: south of me that, you know, I'm
• 44:08
  Speaker: sure most of the guys there are
• 44:10
  Speaker: busy as hell June, July and
• 44:12
  Speaker: August.
• 44:12
  Speaker: You know what I mean?
• 44:12
  Speaker: So, um, so I get it, I get it.
• 44:15
  Speaker: It's and we can become kind of provincial in our attitudes
• 44:18
  Speaker: because we're, we're just looking at the thing that we
• 44:21
  Speaker: know, you know?
• 44:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:22
  Speaker: Like bubble.
• 44:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 44:25
  Speaker: What if um, again allowed but not required.
• 44:31
  Speaker: Um, Grand lodges were like look.
• 44:34
  Speaker: Got it.
• 44:35
  Speaker: You might have this tradition.
• 44:37
  Speaker: What if you use that time as a reset button, not just for
• 44:44
  Speaker: yourself over the summer, but for the lodge recharge plan,
• 44:48
  Speaker: develop a strategic plan, figure out what the rest of the year is
• 44:51
  Speaker: going to look like.
• 44:52
  Speaker: Um, figure out if you need to change anything for the back
• 44:56
  Speaker: half of your year.
• 44:57
  Speaker: Like how that's, that's smart strategic planning.
• 45:02
  Speaker: Two for two.
• 45:03
  Speaker: You said so many words in that sentence.
• 45:06
  Speaker: I did.
• 45:07
  Speaker: Are anathema.
• 45:11
  Speaker: To the concept that we live in
• 45:12
  Speaker: that I'm not even going to opine
• 45:14
  Speaker: on it.
• 45:16
  Speaker: It makes sense to many.
• 45:17
  Speaker: Ten dollar words.
• 45:20
  Speaker: Anathema.
• 45:21
  Speaker: Opine.
• 45:22
  Speaker: Opine.
• 45:24
  Speaker: Crab roasts.
• 45:25
  Speaker: Crab roast.
• 45:26
  Speaker: I know you're talking my language.
• 45:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:31
  Speaker: But I mean, let's find.
• 45:32
  Speaker: Seriously, um, anybody who has a lot of that goes dark.
• 45:35
  Speaker: If you'd like us to host a crab
• 45:36
  Speaker: roast, we will add that to the
• 45:39
  Speaker: calendar.
• 45:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 45:40
  Speaker: We'll host just, like have a fish fry, raise some cash, uh,
• 45:47
  Speaker: pay our mileage to get out there and we will host a crab.
• 45:51
  Speaker: There'll be crabs that that John caught.
• 45:55
  Speaker: There you go.
• 45:56
  Speaker: Make it happen.
• 45:57
  Speaker: Chesapeake Bay.
• 45:58
  Speaker: Let's go crabbing season.
• 46:02
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker: We'll.
• 46:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:03
  Speaker: John will autograph the back of
• 46:04
  Speaker: a crab for you before you eat
• 46:07
  Speaker: it.
• 46:09
  Speaker: I may have done that before.
• 46:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 46:14
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 46:15
  Speaker: Mike brings up a super good point, too.
• 46:18
  Speaker: He said it's the hassle of trying to to do dispensations.
• 46:22
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 46:23
  Speaker: So on that, I kind of don't
• 46:26
  Speaker: agree because I feel like
• 46:27
  Speaker: getting a dispensation is pretty
• 46:28
  Speaker: easy.
• 46:29
  Speaker: It's an email now.
• 46:30
  Speaker: Um, but the red flags of missing the required quorum per the
• 46:35
  Speaker: Constitution too often.
• 46:37
  Speaker: That's huge.
• 46:39
  Speaker: We've definitely like space Novum has missed like I've got
• 46:44
  Speaker: probably two years in a row.
• 46:46
  Speaker: Um, not this, not this year, but prior years.
• 46:50
  Speaker: Uh, August, two years in a row.
• 46:52
  Speaker: We didn't make quorum, which
• 46:54
  Speaker: means we didn't have seven
• 46:55
  Speaker: dudes.
• 46:56
  Speaker: I mean, granted, we only have at the time seventeen members.
• 47:01
  Speaker: But um, yeah, so and then that
• 47:05
  Speaker: puts us in a weird spot because
• 47:06
  Speaker: now we missed a meeting, no
• 47:08
  Speaker: quorum.
• 47:10
  Speaker: We go dark for November or October rather and December.
• 47:13
  Speaker: So for three months we didn't have business.
• 47:16
  Speaker: That doesn't look great on our report for our DD GM right.
• 47:22
  Speaker: Like, oh, you guys can't make quorum.
• 47:23
  Speaker: That doesn't sound very healthy.
• 47:26
  Speaker: So it does add some additional scrutiny to to that.
• 47:37
  Speaker: All right.
• 47:38
  Speaker: Last question of the night before we go to final thoughts.
• 47:41
  Speaker: If there were no such thing as going dark for any of the
• 47:44
  Speaker: variety of reasons we covered tonight, but it was pitched as a
• 47:48
  Speaker: as a brand new idea by a young member of your lodge.
• 47:52
  Speaker: Right.
• 47:52
  Speaker: Um, under what conditions would you entertain the idea?
• 47:59
  Speaker: Like, you know, like, well, the Wi-Fi is down, so I think we
• 48:02
  Speaker: need to call off lodge.
• 48:06
  Speaker: Okay.
• 48:06
  Speaker: So the conditions that require it or the I'm just saying.
• 48:10
  Speaker: Yeah, like, okay, in general, you wouldn't have to like go all
• 48:14
  Speaker: formal and say, well, you know, we'd have to pass this up to our
• 48:17
  Speaker: DM or whatever.
• 48:18
  Speaker: But just in general, where would it make sense?
• 48:23
  Speaker: I like the, I like the one
• 48:25
  Speaker: example I gave, and obviously
• 48:26
  Speaker: it's jurisdictionally dependent
• 48:28
  Speaker: where you don't have to have
• 48:30
  Speaker: business meetings during those
• 48:32
  Speaker: months, but you can still do
• 48:33
  Speaker: degree work.
• 48:34
  Speaker: You can still get together.
• 48:36
  Speaker: Um, you can still have those communications.
• 48:39
  Speaker: Um, I think that's the best of both worlds.
• 48:42
  Speaker: Um, you know, but again, it comes with the, there are
• 48:46
  Speaker: certain jurisdictions like ours is not one of them where you
• 48:50
  Speaker: have to have a discussion about the cable bill going up and that
• 48:53
  Speaker: kind of thing, like in some places you're lucky.
• 48:56
  Speaker: It's like, no, the bills get paid and the master decides
• 48:58
  Speaker: everything and you don't have to discuss anything with anyone.
• 49:01
  Speaker: So you know, that streamlines it already.
• 49:03
  Speaker: But like I said, I think the best of both worlds is, um, not
• 49:07
  Speaker: having to have a stated meeting.
• 49:09
  Speaker: Um, but you're still, you're
• 49:10
  Speaker: still working on candidates,
• 49:12
  Speaker: you're still working on
• 49:13
  Speaker: yourself.
• 49:13
  Speaker: You're still getting together ritualistically to do it doesn't
• 49:16
  Speaker: excuse the work.
• 49:19
  Speaker: It just gives you a reason to not have a regular stated event.
• 49:25
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:25
  Speaker: But if that new member came up to me and said, hey, I want to
• 49:29
  Speaker: go dark where we don't do jack shit for two months, I would
• 49:33
  Speaker: not, I would not dig that.
• 49:34
  Speaker: Yep.
• 49:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:36
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 49:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 49:38
  Speaker: I gotta agree with Joe in that.
• 49:40
  Speaker: I, I feel like going dark for just two months is, uh,
• 49:45
  Speaker: particularly even in a row.
• 49:48
  Speaker: Um. Maybe it's just me.
• 49:53
  Speaker: Um, but I thrive most.
• 49:57
  Speaker: I'm very like, uh, baseline human being, right?
• 50:03
  Speaker: I have the psychological needs
• 50:05
  Speaker: that I have or like what
• 50:07
  Speaker: textbook biological, uh, you
• 50:10
  Speaker: know, stuff.
• 50:11
  Speaker: I need social contact.
• 50:14
  Speaker: I'm not like, you know, I, yeah, I have a social battery and
• 50:17
  Speaker: stuff that goes out like, like many people do.
• 50:19
  Speaker: Sure.
• 50:19
  Speaker: But I need that.
• 50:21
  Speaker: Like I actually went and re joined my mother lodge, uh,
• 50:27
  Speaker: because my mother lodge meets every single Monday and my
• 50:32
  Speaker: education lodge base Novum, which I love, you guys know, but
• 50:35
  Speaker: it meets just once a month.
• 50:39
  Speaker: And then like, we don't have a
• 50:41
  Speaker: whole lot of fellowship in
• 50:42
  Speaker: between.
• 50:43
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 50:44
  Speaker: Granted, one of our transplants who came out, uh, from Colorado,
• 50:49
  Speaker: uh, Brother Wyatt, he brought us back to doing like quarterly
• 50:55
  Speaker: dinners together outside a lodge and doing a philosophy night.
• 50:59
  Speaker: So that's been really nice.
• 51:02
  Speaker: But I'm with Joe.
• 51:04
  Speaker: I can't just say, hey, let's
• 51:05
  Speaker: call it quits for two, two
• 51:07
  Speaker: months.
• 51:08
  Speaker: Like, yeah, I'm still acting like a brother outside in the
• 51:10
  Speaker: real world, right?
• 51:11
  Speaker: But also, um, I don't know, man.
• 51:16
  Speaker: I need face time.
• 51:17
  Speaker: I need face time with the people
• 51:19
  Speaker: that I choose to want to be
• 51:22
  Speaker: with.
• 51:22
  Speaker: You know, masonry, for the most
• 51:24
  Speaker: part, with few exceptions, is
• 51:26
  Speaker: the people that I choose to
• 51:27
  Speaker: gravitate around.
• 51:28
  Speaker: Right.
• 51:29
  Speaker: Um, and it recharges you.
• 51:31
  Speaker: I don't know from for me, I mean, like John, I know you
• 51:34
  Speaker: don't get to come to lodge like super often, right?
• 51:38
  Speaker: As much as I would like.
• 51:39
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 51:40
  Speaker: But when I saw you at Esoteric Con, you were like on ten.
• 51:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:46
  Speaker: You know, you were an extra version out.
• 51:48
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:49
  Speaker: You were in your element and you got that recharge.
• 51:52
  Speaker: And I think for a lot of us, that's that's a reason alone.
• 51:56
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:56
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 51:57
  Speaker: To to continue to meet even if it's, you know, not sure.
• 52:03
  Speaker: I don't need to open.
• 52:04
  Speaker: Right.
• 52:07
  Speaker: Just do something cool.
• 52:08
  Speaker: Just do something cool.
• 52:10
  Speaker: All right.
• 52:11
  Speaker: So final question for tonight, starting with Joe.
• 52:14
  Speaker: Oh is it time to flip the switch on going dark.
• 52:19
  Speaker: Yeah I think so.
• 52:21
  Speaker: Um for, for the lodges that do it for the reasons that we
• 52:25
  Speaker: discussed for tradition because it says it in the bylaws.
• 52:29
  Speaker: Um, I think it's kind of passe.
• 52:32
  Speaker: Um, so if you go to lodge for the reasons that a lot of us
• 52:37
  Speaker: talked about tonight, um, yeah, I think it is time to, to flip
• 52:42
  Speaker: the switch on that.
• 52:43
  Speaker: No pun intended.
• 52:45
  Speaker: Um, yeah, but again, I, I've, I've spent a lot of my Masonic
• 52:49
  Speaker: journey in a place that does not go dark, and I would find it
• 52:53
  Speaker: weird if it did.
• 52:54
  Speaker: So yeah, flip the switch, flip the switch and be the change.
• 53:03
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 53:03
  Speaker: I say in terms of that, um,
• 53:06
  Speaker: look, if if you live in a
• 53:08
  Speaker: community where it's necessary
• 53:10
  Speaker: still, you know, whatever, do
• 53:12
  Speaker: it.
• 53:12
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 53:12
  Speaker: Um, but let's just say you're a,
• 53:17
  Speaker: a lodge that has air
• 53:18
  Speaker: conditioning.
• 53:19
  Speaker: You have plenty of members and yeah, I mean, just or keep it,
• 53:25
  Speaker: but fill the time.
• 53:26
  Speaker: Don't, don't use it as a, just
• 53:29
  Speaker: like a, you know, a two month
• 53:31
  Speaker: break.
• 53:32
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 53:34
  Speaker: Because look, I just, I don't, I won't, I don't buy it when you
• 53:40
  Speaker: say, oh, I need no masonry for two straight months.
• 53:44
  Speaker: Oh brother Ivan said in the on a Facebook chat.
• 53:49
  Speaker: Darkness doesn't apply to the secretary.
• 53:52
  Speaker: Can confirm.
• 53:53
  Speaker: Okay.
• 53:54
  Speaker: Uh, we're always busy, dude.
• 53:56
  Speaker: Uh, and it doesn't stop for us.
• 53:58
  Speaker: And it, you know, it doesn't have to stop for anybody.
• 54:01
  Speaker: But look, I think as is the cases for many Masonic
• 54:06
  Speaker: organizations, it's up to you what works for you.
• 54:10
  Speaker: There you go.
• 54:12
  Speaker: I agree.
• 54:13
  Speaker: Be the change.
• 54:15
  Speaker: Even in July and August.
• 54:17
  Speaker: Even in July.
• 54:18
  Speaker: All year long.
• 54:20
  Speaker: All year long.
• 54:22
  Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
• 54:22
  Speaker: Uh, everything you guys said and more.
• 54:24
  Speaker: Uh, the only thing I would add is that.
• 54:26
  Speaker: Yeah, I do believe that while
• 54:28
  Speaker: well intended, when the
• 54:30
  Speaker: tradition arose and, and for a
• 54:33
  Speaker: variety of different reasons, it
• 54:35
  Speaker: is for most purposes,
• 54:37
  Speaker: anachronistic today.
• 54:39
  Speaker: Right.
• 54:39
  Speaker: That there are solutions to some
• 54:41
  Speaker: of these reasons why the
• 54:42
  Speaker: tradition started.
• 54:43
  Speaker: And yet, uh, if not done
• 54:46
  Speaker: deliberately or thought about
• 54:47
  Speaker: how we're going to keep masonry
• 54:49
  Speaker: going.
• 54:49
  Speaker: Then it can be, um, something
• 54:52
  Speaker: that is just kind of an
• 54:54
  Speaker: unnecessary, uh, stalling and
• 54:56
  Speaker: with, with unintended
• 54:57
  Speaker: consequences.
• 54:58
  Speaker: Something we talked about
• 54:59
  Speaker: tonight, uh, including, you
• 55:00
  Speaker: know, candidate, uh, stalling
• 55:02
  Speaker: candidate progress.
• 55:03
  Speaker: So, you know, the best answer is
• 55:06
  Speaker: one where I think it was said
• 55:07
  Speaker: earlier that, you know, it
• 55:09
  Speaker: should be allowed, but not
• 55:11
  Speaker: required.
• 55:11
  Speaker: And let let each lodge figure
• 55:14
  Speaker: out what's best for the culture
• 55:15
  Speaker: of their lodge and culture
• 55:16
  Speaker: includes, uh, when they meet,
• 55:18
  Speaker: how they meet and how often they
• 55:19
  Speaker: meet.
• 55:20
  Speaker: So but then we'll solve that one other day.
• 55:23
  Speaker: Not going to solve it today, but
• 55:25
  Speaker: for, for now, I want to thank
• 55:26
  Speaker: you all very much for watching
• 55:28
  Speaker: and keep searching for more
• 55:29
  Speaker: light.
• 55:29
  Speaker: Have a good night.