From the beginning.....

I started this blog as a journal of my own personal Masonic journey. Currently I am a fellowcraft mason. That is a 2° mason. I am starting this story back at the beginning of my journey. I knew very little about the masons and freemasonry to start with. The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to look at helping out the shriners because they had helped a kid I that went to church with and whom I taught a little about being a sound technician so he could help me with the sound board. I found a website called beashrinernow.com and found out that I would have to first be a mason before I could join the shrine. That is what started me on this journey that I am now on.

I had heard stories of how the freemasons were in charge of everything as well as they were completely against anything Christianity taught. To be completely honest, I was not sure if this was something for me. I started by searching on the web about anything I could read about freemasonry. I found many sites that had arguments for and against it. The anti-freemasonry sites seemed to be broken down into two different categories. There were sites that were conspiracy driven as well as those that were against it for religious reasons. The main concern to me was the religious side. I spent a great deal of time looking at what was being said and found tons of discrepancies in some of the sites. I then went to talk to some pastors about their thoughts of freemasonry. I got responses that were from “they worship the devil” to “they are a great organization that has helped me for years.”

One of the things that I noticed doing my research was that the vast majority of the people against freemasonry were never a mason themselves. All their research seemed to be based on snippets of text written 150+ years ago with very little based on information currently available. I decided then that I wanted to talk to some real freemasons. I did not have to look far. I found that a good friend of mine was a mason as well as a few other people I knew. I talked with them and they answered my questions. I knew the kind of people they were and knew that they would have left masonry behind if there was anything that would put their religious convictions in jeopardy.

After talking to some friends and doing a lot of reading, I decided it was time for me to get in contact with someone at a local lodge and see what else I could find out. I again got on the web and found the Grand Lodge of NC website. I figured that would be a good place to start since I wanted to look at mainstream or “regular” lodges and stay away from those considered to be “clandestine”.  I found a lodge that happened to be just a little over a mile from me that I didn’t know existed in the 8 years I lived in this town because it was on a short dead end road basically hidden behind a Baptist church. I found their website and sent an email to the secretary.