A Time for Remembering

Rector’s Rambling: November 2009

November is a month for family remembrances. All Saint’s and All Soul’s call me to remember those who have gone before. They will be especially introspective days for me this year. Veteran’s day always calls me to remember the heritage I have received and sought to pass on to my children. Thanksgiving, while a civil holiday and not on the church kalendar, arouses in me some of the most godly thoughts I am likely to experience in the course of a year. The approach of Advent calls me to consider again what the coming of Jesus into the world means to me and mine. The celebrations are not as large or as commercial as those surrounding Christmas and Easter, but perhaps they are in a way more introspective and in some ways more painful, and more blessed than those great public feast days of our faith.

“Anticipating that the normal course of events will take place in Lancaster,” I will experience another important family day this November. I wish with all my heart that my dad could have been here for it, but God had another posting for him, and so I shall reluctantly content myself with the knowledge that one day we will perhaps be able to talk about it in heaven. On the 20th at 7 PM, given the above caveat, I will be installed as the worshipful master of Lancaster Lodge # 57, Free and Accepted Masons. Like my father before me, I am blessed to be a part of this ancient fraternity whose members are dedicated to the promulgation of brotherly love, relief, and truth to all people of good will, without regard to their political party or religious creed. If you are free that evening, I would invite you to come to the Temple at 224 South High Street for the ceremony and reception to follow. I have often said that as the Church brings me Jesus Christ in the sacraments, and the Regiment taught me the true meaning of virtue, so the Lodge schools me in that morality which has built and maintained our culture. I hope you will be able to share the evening with me.

May November be for you a time of holy thoughtfulness. May you take the time to remember those with whom God has blessed your life. May you shed a blessed tear, and go forth to walk in the way of God, and to do the work He has given you to do.

Sincerely,
Bill+

Focusing on What is Important

Last night, I attended a meeting of the William Reece Chapter of the Allied Masonic Degrees, a research society and convivial fellowship group. Much of the discussion centered around some wonderful artifacts owned by a member of the group, which he brought for show and tell, and the propensity of many in our fraternity to engage in wild and unsubstantiated rumors, not to mention the occasional "conspiracy theories" and even the occasional goofy religious concoction (my choice of words.) It was an enjoyable evening, and was over before we seemed to get started. As I drove home, I began to generalize the discussions and lessons of the evening to my faith, and to my citizenship, and to life in general. Distraction seems so often to be the normal state of human affairs. My wife once threated to get me a sweatshirt which on the front said "I have ADHD" and on the back "Oh look! A chicken!" I sometimes think there are many folks who could honestly wear such a shirt. It all seems rather humorous and harmless enough, but is it? What of that one who takes aside a young Mason, or a young Christian, or a recent graduate from basic training or boot camp, who has just completed a life altering experience in degree or baptism or training, and leads them to believe that which is marginal at best and distracting at the worst. The elder Mason who leads a young man to believe that the true secret of Freemasonry is the identity of the Merovingian line of Kings or the location of some archaeological artifact, or the Bishop who counsels a new Christian that their persuit of a deepening personal relationship with Jesus Christ is "the western heresy," or the NCO who plys a young boot with alcohol and the club scene to the degree that he or she forgets his responsibility to serve the common good of humanity as a soldier, sailor, airman, marine, coastie, or agency rat of what President and Brother Theodore Roosevelt called "The Greatest Republic Upon Which The Sun Ever Shone"; I would argue that that person falls within the paramaters of that group which our Lord said would be better off drowned in the depths of the sea. To cause one who is full of idealism and passion for good to be distracted and to turn from that motivation and dedication is indeed a sin against God and against man. I pray that I will always be on guard not to be among that number. Rather let me concentrate on the basics of my beliefs. With a firm reliance upon Almighty God, with a clear and reasonable mind, and with a genuine concern for truth and for all whom God has made, I pray that my love of liberty, of personal responsibility, and godly charity might be an encouragement and a model for many. So Mote it Be.