The Hidden Lessons from Ritual Work

Condensed from an Article
By
Michael Mayer

So many times we seem to look at Ritual Work as not being that important and that is doesn’t have to be done that well.  We feel that we just need to have more Masons for our Lodges.  If we fail to share the teaching well, who do you think looses?

Please think back to that first night when you became a Mason.  It is a night we all share.  That night, most of us were apprehensive and confused as to what was going to happen.  Those first words you heard said at the Lodge door, asking questions and wanting answers of you, and how you were treated was only the start of your Masonic life.  I hope it is a life that leads us on a continuous journey of Masonic travel and education.

By memorizing the Degrees and Obligations, we share something no one else can understand.  The task of learning them, which we choose to do, is something we did.  This struggle teaches us what we all can do with hard work and a true desire to accomplish things.

So many times I have listed to the lectures and I still find them as interesting as the first time I heard them.  Every time I hear them, I find a new perspective that I have missed before.  I fear for those who choose not to listen to them in this way.  I fear that they will never find many of the lessons Masonry is attempting to teach us.

As for those that give those grand lectures, they learn as well.  They learn how it feels to give that perfect lecture and also when they do not get it perfectly right.  We can all learn lessons here too.  First, how we should overlook everyone’s little mistakes that we all make in life.  Secondly, we all need to remember that sometimes the best intentions to wrong by accident.

Being a Mason is not simply a series of tasks to be completed by memorizing questions and answers and repeating them one time.  It is a life long journey toward a perfection that few, if any, of us will accomplish.  But we are better men, husbands, fathers and bothers for starting and continually attempting to complete the walk.