Why We Are Divided

A paper for Sequia Council No. 228 (AMD)
by RmOlano
SC#228 (AMD)
28 May 2007
Memorial Day

“…my question is why do we have a black and white mason, if we are one why were are still divided...” ---Bro MichaelO.

Why the sky is blue, the sea so calm and air is sweet but sometimes it is dark, rough and foul? Why we are still divided” An inquiry that seek for an answer which is as ancient as when Cro-Magnon or Homo Sapiens first existed and for evangelical view, since man were thrown out from the Garden of Eden. If one truly subscribe to the ideal of a “system of morality, veiled in allegories and illustrated by symbols,” the Brethren question is not a rhetorical and does elucidated the very foundation of why a notion like Freemasonry existed at all. If all human beings understand the need of tolerance in all aspect of experience known as life, then there is no need to “subdue our passion and improve ourselves in Masonry.” However, the time when human interactions reached the state where the blanket of Harmony is being shared by all inhabitants, it is the time when the world we live and known is not the same anymore---call it a land somewhere in West under the star named L’Amerika, Atlantis, Nirvana or Heaven if you dare so.

Why we are divided? Many lives were extinguished in asserting one country’s belief or interest is better than the other. Even within our Fraternity, personal livelihoods and careers were infringed because of the issue of who are regular and irregular, clandestine or non clandestine. Who is right and who is wrong? Understanding who we are and what Freemasonry is about is the same as observing multiple and varied colors emanating from a single source when filtered through a prism of human experience. However, one may view this experiment not from one light source to multiple of colors but in reverse order. Observe it as if the Master stepping down from the East to illuminate a darken state and for the witness to realize the separate, distinct and individual colors to become one shinning light through a prism that could be called as “a system of morality, veiled in allegories and illustrated by symbols.” It is a dissimilar interpretation and a different view of the same phenomenon.

Our Craft is composed of flawed but basically good men who still struggles and carries the inherent baggage of impurities known as being a man. Men who are in a process of learning that to be a better man, one has to understand his own weakness and strength. Without such basic understanding, one cannot expect him to understand his own Brethren and on a larger extent, the World where tolerance to other human is a key to “eradicating the problem” as Brother Michael mentioned. The Fraternity is not perfect and for all practical purposes neither any single Lodge nor Grand Lodge in this planet is or ever was. There is only one and being a Mason I do not need to point out the object of our search or the rough and rugged road we have to travel to reach that Gate where at the end, hopefully we can explain each spots on our lambskin apron.

We are divided because we choose to be. Though there are many species of birds that shares the same freedom of flight, those with same colors flocked together. It is just the Law of Nature. Man is not immune to this natural behavior. Some mortals transcended the boundary of skin colors of not only black and white but of brown, yellow or red and at ease with their decision. Some can but won’t, some won’t because they can't. Freemasonry offers guidelines to be a better man---an ethical man who will recognize what is right and what is wrong. It is erroneous to enforce something that is not welcome for the sake of political correctness. The resistance of merging comes in both direction and that unless we live in a time or place where a lamb can safely lay with lions, division is another spice in our journey as we watch the sand of our hourglass flows without pause.

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