I post a lot of things to Facebook.  I post music, political commentary, observations about life in general, and things about the world that strike me as odd or entertaining. On occasion I post to Facebook pages including the Grand Lodge of Mississippi.  

Recently I posted what I thought was a very positive piece about looking for the good in people and focusing on the positive things we see in the world. Hundreds of other people either “Liked” or “Loved” the post or left supportive comments.

Three people objected.

In the beginning I was shocked and surprised.  How could anyone object to looking for the good in people?  Well, they didn’t.  Their complaint wasn’t really with what I had written.  They objected to the fact that I was from Mississippi. 

The gist of their comments was that people from Mississippi are not open to ideas that are different from their own and like many other people who don’t live in the big cities on the coast Mississippians tend to generalize about other people. (I really enjoyed that generalization.)

My first response was to be irritated that someone who didn’t know me, didn’t know anything about me, and had never met me would make such an unfounded assumption. My second thought was to reflect on times I had made assumptions about people I didn’t know. 

When was the last time you read a news story about someone you didn’t know and formed a negative opinion based on that bit of hearsay gossip?  Years ago I met a famous musician who was notorious in the tabloids for his bad behavior.  He and I shared a table at a banquet, not by my choice.  We hit it off and our dinner lasted for about six hours.  We then spent the better part of the next two days together.  I found him to be one of the most polite, considerate and humble people I had ever met.  I learned from mutual acquaintances that much of what I had heard had a small grain of truth to it but was either exaggerated or that important details had been left out.  In other words, what I thought I knew about this person didn’t fully coincide with reality.

Too often we don’t take the time to learn about the real person, but instead make assumptions based on their family, their home town or country, their dress, their choice in tattoos, their religion, their race, their occupation, or their political affiliations. What we forget is that groups are made of people  and that each person is a unique individual with their own personality.

My friend Daryl Davis is an oddity.  He’s a fantastic musician and story teller.  He’s also a black man who has made a point to get to know and befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan.  The Klansmen made assumptions about Daryl based on his race, but because they and he were willing to talk, and more important, willing to listen, he has changed quite a few of their lives. 

He, and in many cases they, looked beyond the external to learn more about the internal hopes and dreams and beliefs of people different from themselves.  We should all  learn from Daryl’s example, and take time to know the person inside the skin instead of the person we think we know from how they look from the outside.

Richard B Stevens PM
Ebenezer Lodge #76
Senatobia, Mississippi

CONTACT: SIMON R. LAPLACE, 301-476-7330

The Bahamas have experienced an unprecedented amount of damage and destruction due to the two days that Hurricane Dorian battered the islands. While food, drinking water, and supplies are needed, the best way to assist them now is through your monetary donation.

The Bahamian Masonic leaders under the jurisdictions of the United Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and the Grand Lodge of Ireland have combined their efforts and requested the Masonic Service Association of North America (MSA) to issue this Disaster Relief Appeal.
Donations can be made online at www.msana.com. When remitting by check, please clearly mark that you wish the funds to go to the Bahamas Disaster Relief Appeal.

Please forward any donations you feel appropriate to help our devastated Brothers and their families in this stricken jurisdiction to MSA. Please make checks payable to MSA Disaster Relief Fund and send to 3905 National Drive, STE 280, Burtonsville, MD 20866.

Please remember, MSA deducts no part of your contribution for administrative expenses including charges by PayPal, bookkeeping, and cost of acknowledgment letters. Your entire gross donation will be sent to the affected jurisdiction.

MSA is a 501(c)(3) charitble organization.

Simon R. LaPlace, PGM
Executive Secretary Masonic Service Association of North America
3905 National Drive, STE 280
Burtonsville, MD 20866
www.msana.com

“The Lodge just ain’t what it used to be.”  “There’s so much discontent…it’s just not worth attending.” 

We’ve all heard similar statements.  In truth, your Lodge is no different than mine; we all experience the same problems.  Many Brothers leave the Lodge for the same reason many people quit attending church.  They believe that their Lodge is different and that their source of discontent, disagreement, and downright dissatisfaction is unique to their Lodge…that one person in it.  They believe that if they could just escape that one person, perhaps even that group, that their experience in Masonry will be different.  So they leave or quit attending.  When they demit or visit another lodge, surprisingly, they again experience the same problem.  Many times they attribute the problem to the institution itself, Masonry. 

I too had a problem with a Brother in my Lodge.  Everything that was wrong with our Lodge was attributable to this one member.  In fact, I was so convinced that this Brother’s actions were un-Masonic that they were worthy of charges.  When this Brother directly challenged my personal integrity, I was done with him.  I searched our book of laws, the Williams Digest,  to see what offenses I could cite against this malicious, errant Brother. Maybe you’ve done the same. 

Instead, what I found said, “check your own heart.”  In Williams Digest, no less!  Here I was searching the “laws” to support all the errors (I believed) my Brother had committed, when, in fact, Williams pointed the finger right back at me.  I was the Pharisee looking for the right law, when I had forgotten about grace itself. 

The law which I speak is a Digest Opinion which states, in essence, that it is a Masonic offense to “not ‘fellowship’ with another member of the Lodge.”  After this Brother had called me a liar, I assure you I had privately reserved myself to never speak to him again, let alone give him a Brotherly, Masonic handshake.  But Williams called me out for this reaction, and, instead, said to me that I should not be part of the problem but part of the solution.  While the problem was clearly this Brother, it was my obligation to fellowship with him and, through my own influences, make him a better man.  Instead of leaving our own Lodge and its problem members, we are all called to fellowship with them and help them become better men.  Who are we but men striving to become better than ourselves?  So too is that one Brother, and only you and your fellowship can help him, even if he is an angry old coot.  

R. Lane Dossett,  P.M.
Petal Lodge #516
Law and Jurisprudence Committee 

One dictionary defines musical harmony as “the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect”

Note that musical harmony doesn’t mean that every musician is sounding the same note at the same time. Instead,   harmony means that different musicians play different notes yet still produce a pleasing end result when all the notes are played together.  To do this, each musician must understand what the other musicians are doing if the group is to play in harmony. 

In Masonry,  harmony isn’t the state of full agreement by all parties on every detail. 

As Masons, we are taught to strive for harmony in the lodge.   We are to work together to produce a pleasing end result.

However, harmony doesn’t  mean we are to stay silent about important issues for fear of offending someone, nor does maintaining harmony require us to stay silent when someone says or does something we believe is detrimental to the lodge, to another Mason, or to the speaker himself.  In fact, as Masons we are required to speak up in those situations.

So what is harmony?  I suggest that harmony is the ability to speak, to listen, and to disagree without being disagreeable. 

When we speak, we should attempt to temper our words as much as possible, especially if the subject at hand is one on which the speaker and listener might disagree.  We should be clear in our speech, yet avoid inflammatory language.  When  offense is given inadvertently we should be quick to recognize that and make such amends as we can.

As listeners, we should pay attention to the content of the speech, and do our best to ignore harsh words that may be unintended, or said in the heat of the moment.   It’s always better to ask for clarification than to assume ill intent.  

I have a friend, a Brother Mason, who has a heart of gold.  He is a good, kind man of boundless charity and a drive to work for the betterment of the world around him.  He also has a distinct talent for saying the right thing the wrong way with the wrong words at the worst possible time. 

The best motives can often be hidden by a poor choice of words, or often by using words that have different meanings for the speaker and the listener.   Just as it is incumbent upon a speaker to recognize that offense has been given, it is just as important for the listener to realize that not all offense is intentional, and to try and forgive those who trespass against us.

Today, before we take offense, let us at least pause long enough to ask ourselves “Just what did the other person mean by that?”.   If need be, ask for clarification. 

In other words, let us stop, think, and measure the situation and the intent  before we stop, think, and measure our response.  That way, like the musicians, maybe we can speak and act in harmony in our lodges and in our lives. 

Richard B Stevens PM
Ebenezer Lodge #76

To the Worshipful Masters, Secretaries, and all Master Masons of Mississippi:
I am pleased to announce that the Grand Lodge Office is upgrading our member management database from an old DOS based program to a solution called Grand View. This is an upgrade from a nearly 40 year old
system. As such, please forgive this excessively long letter. Here are the details:

Over six months ago, then Senior Grand Warden Jason Jefcoat asked if I, as the Internet Committee Chairman and Webmaster, would attend the conference of Grand Masters of North America for the sole purpose of
speaking with Member Management Software Vendors and providing a recommendation to him. I did so, and also ensured that I took the opportunity to speak with Grand Masters and Grand Secretaries from other
jurisdictions regarding their experiences and satisfaction with their current products. Since that time, I have been investigating further on those vendors, as well as others that I had learned about while in attendance. In all, the following software vendors were researched:

• Unnamed upgrade by our current vendor, Quality PC of Meridian
• Masonic.ly
• Member Management Services
• Circumscribe
• MORI
• Grand View

After a thorough review of costs, features, and capabilities, I recommended Grand View to Bro. Jefcoat. When Bro. Tom Jones decided to retire as Grand Secretary, and I was appointed to fulfill his term, Grand Master Jefcoat directed me to move forward with the upgrade to Grand View. Over the first three weeks of June our database was exported, converted, checked for conversion accuracy, and more. Now, as of July 1st, 2019, all updates made to your Blue Lodge records are being done in Grand View.

Perhaps even more important than the mere update of our database is the significant increase in features all of us will gain. This letter is not sufficient for me to describe all of the features, but here are some highlights:

• Our Lodge Locator and Event Listings will be rolled into Grand View, saving money
• Lodge Secretaries can fix their Lodge Locator listing on their own with GPS coordinates
• Individual members can access their own records; update their address/phone, and more
• Grand View is accessible from any device with an Internet browser and a connection to the Internet, such as a smart phone, tablet, or PC
• Lodge Secretaries will be able to record members from their petition forward, as it happens
• Special Returns, Annual Returns, and more, will be able to be submitted electronically
• Electronic registration at our Annual Communication
• Email your members vs. sending out numerous letters, saving your lodge and the Grand Lodge money
• Instantly verify a Member’s current status, and much, much more

I expect that you have a lot of questions. In the months that follow I will be attending every Congressional School. At those events I will be prepared to demonstrate Grand View to anyone present and answer all of your questions that time will allow. This will also be the main topic of the Secretaries Meeting at our Annual Communication.

While it is my sincere desire that every lodge look for a way to leverage this software for their benefit, we will of course still accept your paper forms as we already do. In time, lodges will either opt to elect a Secretary who is comfortable with technology, or to appoint an assistant who can help the Secretary make entries through this system. Whatever the case, in time, we will eliminate a large portion of expenses currently caught up in printing and mailing.

You can access this system immediately. However, you should be advised that fine-tuning is still occurring. Normally these small adjustments would be made quietly in the Grand Lodge Office, but with the Craft having access you will necessarily see our “dust” as we clean up the data and better integrate it into all the features of Grand View.

To access Grand View: The direct link to register your login and pair it with your membership record is: https://ms.grandview.systems/membership_registration.

However, you can also navigate to that link in this method: Head to our website, msgrandlodge.org, and open the “Members” menu. At the bottom of that menu is “Member Portal”, click/tap that link. This will take you to the Grand View Sign In Page. Find the link that says “Sign up”, just below the login area, and click/tap it.

Here you will be required to provide 3 pieces of information: 1) Your HOME lodge number, 2) Your MEMBER NUMBER, excluding leading zeros, and 3) Your LAST name. You can locate your Member Number on your dues card. However, due to our old method of receiving information from subordinate lodges, if you have been made a Master Mason since 9/1/2018 you are likely not yet in our computer database. This can be corrected by your Lodge Secretary, but he has not yet been trained in how to do this! I request the patience of such members as we make this extensive transition.

I look forward to seeing you at an upcoming Congressional School where I will be readily available to answer your questions and help show you around this new tool for all of our members.

Sincerely & Fraternally Submitted,
Jared F. Stanley, Grand Secretary
Grand Lodge of Mississippi

There are so many important lessons wrapped up in the Third Degree that it would take a lifetime to understand and apply them. Serious contemplation of our destiny inevitably leads us to the brink of the grave. We are taught in the Third Degree to consider what may lie beyond that grave and to prepare for the day when we meet our Creator.

So it is that the apprehension of our mortality sets us on the rungs of Jacob’s ladder: to our faith, our hope that our journey beyond this life will lead us to God and to our understanding that we share these hopes (and their attendant fears) with all humanity, which is the beginning of true charity.

 We are taught in Freemasonry that to strive to overcome our baser instincts and sail the boat of this life over the rough seas of passion with equanimity and rectitude is the highest degree of perfection to which a human  being can aspire. True self-knowledge and understanding our strengths and our weaknesses is undoubtedly the beginning of wisdom.  As we are indeed, in some mystical fashion, made in God’s image, understanding ourselves is the first required step to knowing God.

Kenny McGill, PM
Chaplain Petal Lodge #516