"My sincere hope is that in the end others will find reflection on my life as a worthy endeavor and will conclude that there was something about how I treated them and lived my life--that the tools worked for me and I worked the tools"The purpose of this essay...

Dr. John Maxwell in his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, describes in the Law of Process, that becoming a leader cannot be accomplished by attending an event, a seminar or workshop. A leader develops himself by the deliberate practice of leadership...

I know I’ve written about this before, expressed my opinion in workshops many times, and one day I was so frustrated I wrote (and never published) a “Lodge Education Manifesto.” I have read various old Masonic publications going back to before the turn of the century...

This morning I was reading a blog post from Seth Godin, marketing guru, thought producer, writer, and a great innovator. Seth displayed a graph from Google's Ngram Viewer. The Ngram Viewer lets you find and visualize how words and phrases have developed and been used...

Sean was excited. It was the night of his lodge meeting, and it would be the first time he would be attending after being made a Master Mason in the latest Grand Master’s One Day Class. He stopped at a window in the hallway of his office building and looked out at the...

Yesterday was Steve Martin’s 75th birthday. Happy belated birthday Steve! His comedy routine with the arrow through his head has always been one of my favorites. It’s spontaneous, wacky, and makes you wonder what’s coming next. The anticipation of what's coming is...

As the unrest, the protests, and the seemingly endless display of divisive rhetoric and behavior envelop us all, I have been asking myself, “what should our behavior be as Masons in response?” I have read the words of men whom I know to be Masons suggesting that I...

      Bob Clark glanced at the clock and noticed it was time to begin his usual preparation for lodge tonight. He chuckled to himself that “usual” won’t entirely be usual tonight. He and his wife, Joanne, were on a cruise ship headed for an island in...

A couple of weeks ago I asked the question whether your lodge would reset to a new normal when the conditions allow it to meet again. If you missed the post you can read it here. After I wrote the post, I began to think about how the pandemic has changed me, and as a...

  It is refreshing to see during this time of crisis lodges using whatever means to connect with their Brethren.  They are not only using conventional means such as phone calls and letters but also holding meet-ups and meaningful lodge education using the various...