Father Time Continues To Touch Us

Once again I knock out another Lee County Shrine Club monthly newsletter. I got it done and printed on schedule in spite of the holidays. Holidays always bring to mind people we knew, respected, cared about and loved that are now gone but certainly not forgotten. These people from the past inspired this article.

My wife and I had a nice Christmas with family. I guess my personal most pleasurable part of Christmas was being able to spend time with my wife. She is a perfect match for my insanity and we spend a lot of time laughing about a variable range of issues. I know what it is like to be married to a person that you dread being around. Christy doesn't create drama or argument, she creates fun and I really appreciate her for being her.

I hope you enjoy this article and thank you for reading my blog.

Father Time Continues To Touch Us

Once again the phone rang, once again I hear about another close friend and Brother Mason facing death. “It doesn’t look good” was the message. Here is another man who is not just a ritualistic scholar but someone who went deep into the study, history and purposes of the craft. Here is a man that truly made a difference in Freemasonry, someone worthy of our respect. Luckily he recovered this incident, but remains a very sick man.

One of my first experiences in Freemasonry was the funeral of a man who was very special to the lodge. He taught all the candidates their lectures and I remember being told he had just received the “Shriner of the Year” award; I wasn’t even a Shriner yet. Since that time I have known several good men that brought honor, respect and truth to our fraternity; something that is more rare than common in Mississippi Freemasonry, especially now. We all have our own experiences within our craft and have our own personal friendships among brothers. We should never forget these men and how these good brothers, now residing on a higher plane, improved the lodge, influenced young men to future greatness and we sure could use with us again.

Every year when the Academy Award or the Emmys come on TV they always do a special memorial segment featured celebrities that passed away the previous year. We do mention our lost brothers in our meetings, but maybe we need a special annual reminder of who we lost to death and take in account and reflect on their importance to our craft. It’s more than the ritual, the politics, or the years of membership; but rather whose death greatly affected our lodges and affiliated Masonic bodies. Some members are difficult to keep up with due to inactivity on the part of the member. Every brother is important to the craft. Every brother deserves our remembrance; even the non-participating ones.

Often I question the wisdom of our Masonic actions. Our membership continues to fall in spite of all the changes made to eligibility and qualifications of candidates. Have these changes truly improved our fraternity? Are we seeking men or is there men seeking us? Do our lodges offer enrichment and enlightenment to the membership? When is the last time your lodge discussed the meaning and intent of a symbol or a phrase?

Sometimes I feel like I am beating a dead horse when I write about the Masonic Lodge; harmony, fraternity, brotherhood, and participation. I start looking for a paragraph in a book and quoting a famous Masonic author and historian to include. How many times have our tenets and teachings been quoted in lodge and yet someone still isn’t happy. Often I have said that the most fallible thing about a Freemason is that they are human. Forget a hundred years ago, Masonry had changed significantly in the last twenty years. I know the Internet is now a factor in modern Freemasonry, especially in the information sharing area, but I believe the major factor affecting our lodges now is the loss of the men we had as leaders and teachers. Have we learned the lessons they attempted to teach us? I see men striving to take their place and seek the same respect without first employing the effort. Masonic leadership is a service, not a position of power; this much I have learned.

I no longer care about degrees, pomp and circumstance, honors, accolades or titles. I now seek peace, harmony, quiet reflection and the enlightenment from being open minded. Experience is our best teacher and mistakes are usually made from people rushing forward without the experience needed to maintain the required harmony. I get a lot of enjoyment from a simple stated meeting with no drama, full of fellowship and even a sliver of laughter from pre-lodge discussions. It does me a lot of good to drive up to that Shriners Hospital with a patient. Actually seeing the good work of our hospitals and being able to visit with Nobles from all over. These are dedicated men also volunteering their time helping children and many of them who have made hundreds of trips to that hospital. If you want to truly understand what being a Shriner is about, go visit a hospital; sit in the lobby and watch.

The men I have known who were trained fighters and professional soldiers didn’t feel the need to prove their abilities. They could break you in half in seconds. I witnessed such a friend approached by a young person who claimed he was going to show this guy a martial artist move. In a blink of the eye he was flat of his back on the floor immobilized with my buddy standing over him. This “big scary guy” asked him, “Was that what you wanted to teach me?” I have noticed the same quiet lack of ego among some of our finest Masonic leaders of the past. They didn’t need to prove themselves and they encouraged young men to jump in the chairs. These men taught without criticism and preferred to remain uninvolved with the politics of men. These men of the past whom Father Time has chosen to take from us were our guide and map for the future.

We have mentioned resolutions in the past. You don’t need to publicly resolve to reflect and ponder on those in the past who were the example of Masonic principles. Quiet personal reflection works. We can all take the time to remember those we truly miss among our numbers. Just before I go to print this I see in the local obituaries another Mississippi Masonic icon has died. The scythe of time continues without hesitation and we have another brother gone who will be missed.

Have a happy new year and think about how you can take the past into a positive future for you, your family and your Masonic Brotherhood. May the Great Architect of the Universe bless you and keep you safe.

Hummus & French Grapefruit

You would think I would have much more to say and certainly post more on this blog. I am sure I do but sometimes I don’t say what I am thinking. Sometimes I am unable to put on in words the thoughts which occupy my mind at the moment. For example; the first two sentences of this paragraph was written a week ago. The second sentence had an error in it that I just now corrected. I do love a word processor with spell-check.

Tonight was a simple night. My wife, who works in retail, got off work about two hours later than normal. Then we went out to eat. This is a rough time of year for retail personnel. Seems like we, as a couple experience the same emotions every year during the holidays. The holidays are vastly different than I remember as a kid. Then for years the combination of two bad marriages and being single back and forth, the holidays were just a time of years that came and went. I was thinking tonight while we were driving from the restaurant how much better the holidays are with this wife and this marriage. I didn’t want to say anything because I felt like I was beating a dead horse with the subject. This wife is so much better, so much easier to live with, much more understanding and I feel like I can be myself now. I am truly thankful and my Mother is right, she is a blessing.

Conflict is so prevalent now in everything, I get to the point I just don’t want to be involved in anything. The question is; how can you spend so much time on the Internet? My answer, it doesn’t piss me off. No conflict is involved in my time on-line. Millions of people are now on Facebook. I have reconnected with people from the past that I honestly want to be reconnected to now. Every Facebook friend accepted me and I accepted them. The best part is these Facebook friends do not create conflict in my life. I feel we are going to see more and more “groups” and “clubs” reduce in activity partially because of the changes in attitude in people and part due to the Internet. Why drive somewhere for a meeting to hear the same old stuff when you can stay at home and surf the globe. With social networking sites the group dynamic is met without interference in any schedule.

Businesses, news agencies, politicians, and charities already see the light and jumping on the web. With sites like Twitter and Facebook one can reach a bigger audience easier. I get Twitter updates from three news sources, five popular chefs, two Shriners sources and my daughter. It comes in real handy to keep up with things. The Internet has become a utility in life, like electricity, running water, natural gas, cable television and the telephone. I own and have owned several various reference books. It wasn’t necessarily the knowing the answer that was important but rather how to find the answer. I still like having reference material at hand. How many times have you thought or said “I can look it up on-line.” For example; my wife and I were discussing hummus in the grocery store tonight. She asked if it would be cheaper to make our own. Our curiosity increased after we saw that the jar of tahini cost over ten dollars. Naturally I said I would look up the recipe on-line. Poof! In fifteen seconds and by only typing “humm” in Google I hit this recipe. Another quick, click, drag, copy and paste, here it is ready to share. Gosh it might have taken a whole five minutes to look up a recipe in one of my cookbooks. Thirty years ago, I wouldn’t have known what hummus was much less found a recipe.

Hummus

Ingredients:
•1 16 oz can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans
•1/4 cup liquid from can of chickpeas
•3-5 tablespoons lemon juice (depending on taste)
•1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
•2 cloves garlic, crushed
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•2 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation:
Drain chickpeas and set aside liquid from can. Combine remaining ingredients in blender or food processor. Add 1/4 cup of liquid from chickpeas. Blend for 3-5 minutes on low until thoroughly mixed and smooth.
Place in serving bowl, and create a shallow well in the center of the hummus.
Add a small amount (1-2 tablespoons) of olive oil in the well. Garnish with parsley (optional).
Serve immediately with fresh, warm or toasted pita bread, or cover and refrigerate.

The Internet has changed our lives. It also occupies several hours of our time. It is constantly changing and constantly growing as well as the daily changes in what we see and use the Internet for.

I started this blog post over a week ago and just now continuing…….

My addiction to the Internet grows because it holds no conflict for me. (Yes I know I said that earlier which was a week ago) I can occupy my mind without strife and woe. It seems like I get involved with one section of the web and stick to that until I basically wear it out; I stayed on www.Bladeforums.com constantly for a long time. The knife websites held my interest and I still cruse through then now. Now it seems like Facebook is the number log on site for me. I can stay connected with multiple friends from multiple facets of my life.

Since I got my iPhone I have discovered podcasts and even found more on YouTube to watch. We have reached the “On Demand” generation and are able to listen to what we want to hear at the time we want to hear it. This changes the marketing aspect of the music industry greatly. Plus it cuts into the radio advertising area. Television is also moving in that direction. I was watching a special on PBS about the Ed Sullivan show and was reminded of a time way before VCR or DVR recordings. We used to have to wait for a show to come on and if we missed it, we missed it. Summer reruns used to be a singular rerun. A movie used to come on TV about three years after it ran in theaters. Now it plays in the theater, three months later it’s out on DVD and Pay-per-View. With the DVR we can record television and watch it at our convenience. Life has changed. I envision us all becoming Weebles, wobbling in front of a screen and keyboard. Never leaving our homes and the apocalypse is actually one major power outage….

I have discovered something new on the Internet. While goofing around on my iPhone looking at featured postings from YouTube, I found a couple from the West Coast that post “Videosongs” on YouTube. They are good and obviously started with a very small following to now a large following. These two young people, Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, collaborate on this music style of music and call themselves “Pomplamoose” which is French for grapefruit and my kind of name for a group. http://www.youtube.com/user/PomplamooseMusic

Tomorrow I have to make another trip to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Shreveport. I am going to turn in all the can tabs we collected this year. It is good to be part of something that totally benefits the children. Looks like I will be away from the Internet for a couple of days. I hope it doesn’t go bust due to my inactivity; at least I have my phone. Maybe I’ll have something more to blog about when I get back….