I have been a member of many
organizations. Most of them, at one
point or another, have developed a mission statement.
A mission statement is a formal summary
of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual.[1]
The exercise of formalizing a mission
statement for yourself or your organization is to examine what is the
fundamental reason behind your existence, and then distill that down to as few
words as possible, while retaining the essence of the mission. TED talks, which brings unique and
interesting speakers together to share knowledge, has a two-word mission
statement: Spreading ideas.[2]
The Grand Lodge of Minnesota developed a
mission statement some years ago. We
identified three components of the mission of the organization and its
members: Freedom. Integrity.
Tolerance.
(It is a bit ironic that two of the
components, political freedom and religious tolerance, are two areas Masons are
forbidden to discuss in lodge: Politics
and Religion. We choose to concentrate
on what binds us together rather than what may cause dissension in the
fraternity.)
Freemasons
embrace diversity of opinion, religious, ethnic, cultural, social and
educational differences.[3]
There may be readers
who will say that they know men who are Masons and not very tolerant. Not fake news! There are intolerant people who are Masons!
I even have a part in one of the
Scottish Rite degrees where I say: We
have sinned against thee, oh our Father, and broken thy commandments. We have forgotten mercy and practiced
intolerance. We have judged our brother
harshly and condemned him unheard.
While we, as individuals and an
organization, fall short of our stated goals and ideals, we continue to strive
to reach our goal. We, as individuals
and an organization, owe it to ourselves to make an honest appraisal of our
actions and, where found wanting, make an honest effort to live more in
accordance with those goals and ideals.
A moral of Masonry is to “Make good men
better.” None of us is perfect, and each
of us needs to strive, every day, to live up to our ideals, as men. As
Masons. As Christians, Jews or
Muslims.
Or as Americans.
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