                    MASONIC SPRING WORKSHOP 1977
                      W A L K I N G   T A L L
                          THEME SPEECH #2

                    Bro. Philip William Mayfield


Two years ago in this theatre, the question of "The Mason and
Masonry in the Permissive Society" was raised.  I find it more than
a little interesting what we Masons who have in common a membership
in what has been called "the most moral human institution that ever
existed" are once again asking fundamentally the same question. 
Our theme, "Walking Tall", raises many of the same questions, if
perhaps, from a more personal point of view.  I believe that the
question is worth asking again -- and again, if necessary.  Today
the only thing that doesn't change is change itself.  Many of the
changes that are occurring are not forced upon us - we have sought
them.  But these changes force us to keep asking basic questions. 
We need to ask these questions just to keep corrected the compass
that guides us on the course we choose to take.

I am reminded of one of my favourite stories of an old sea captain. 
We had steadily risen from youth through the ranks to heights of
prestige and fame.  But the old captain had one idiosyncrasy that
was a mystery to all who knew him:  before he ever issued an order,
he would unlock his desk and from it take a locked box and from
this remove a fragile, old scrap of paper at which he would glance
and then locking it up again as before, he would give the command. 
One day at sea, the old captain died.  After the funeral service
and the necessary ceremonies were completed, the first officer
moved into the captain's quarters as quickly as decency would
permit.  Anxious to finally acquire the secret of naval success, he
unlocked the desk, took and unlocked the box and withdrew the paper
and read, "the starboard side of the ship is the right hand side."

It is as important for Masons to keep basic concepts in mind as it
was for the old captain if we are to arrive safely at the
destination we set out for.  Perhaps Masons should write down on a
piece of paper, "the principle tenets of my profession are
brotherly love, relief and truth."  These are the compass points of
a Mason's life's journey and we need to keep them handy to avoid
losing our way.

As man has advanced through history from one age to the next, from
the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages, through the Age of Reason and the
Industrial Revolution to the Modern Age, he has always been moving
to the next frontier.  We, who have lived in the West, like to
think of ourselves as sons of the pioneers and the residents of the
last frontier.  Of course there are others who have called the
North the last frontier and still others the oceans.  but in my
understanding of history, the descriptions of the frontiers that I
have read have been more about the people who moved to the new
territory than about the geography itself.  So even as we gaze at
the frontier of the universe from our fragile platform in space, I
believe that the new frontier is still the soul of man, himself. 
As the new explorers head out to the sea's bottom or to the moon's
surface or to the backside of Mars and begin staking claims and
arguing over prior rights, the dilemma is still the same.  It is
man, himself: at once so energetic, so full of potential, so
creative, so god-like and at the same time so fragile, so ignorant,
and so crude.  I don't think the dilemma has been better described
briefly than by Schultz's Charlie Brown who said, "there is no
greater burden than a great potential."

As the new frontiersman looks around and begins to survey the new
scene of our modern day, contrary to the initial negative reaction,
its not so much that it's bad; it's more that it is so hard to get
one's bearings and try to make sense of what we are looking at
because the scene keeps changing so quickly and is filled with so
much action that it can be dangerous for the inexperienced
traveller until he learns what is necessary to survive.  When he
learns how to survive he can flourish in this new frontier for he
will not only adapt himself, he will modify his surroundings to fit
his needs.  But first, let us briefly look at the new frontier.

We often talk about creation as though it all happened fifty
million years ago.  But today, on the new frontier, we live in an
era of creation by explosion.  No longer do people, and especially
our children, patiently wait for long periods of experience to do
something.  Now a person trains and retrains for a number of jobs
and experiences in a lifetime.  The average North American child
watches something like seven thousand hours of television by the
time he is six years old and ready to start school.   The result is
that the learning experience along with everything else has been
greatly accelerated.  By the time he has reached high school, the
child has acquired as much learning as a second year university
student of thirty years ago.

A few years ago, you may have seen, as I did, a television
documentary called, "Birth of an Island" in which a new island rose
up out of the ocean.  It was named, plant growth was born, houses
were built and it was inhabited all in a period of six months. 
Time, creation, evolution, all mean something quite different than
they did ten years ago.  Especially for the young, the appropriate
time is now.  Tomorrow is today and today is forever.  The result
is that the dreams of our youth are no longer dreams.  When Sputnik
lifted off, when John Glenn circled the earth, when Neil Armstrong
stepped onto the moon's surface, when people no longer had to
wonder if it really was possible to perform such feats, then the
universe became man's home and it is the vision of the universe
that now captures our imaginations and dreams.  Nothing is
impossible for anyone.

I think of a five year old girl who was accelerated to a special
class of fast learners.  Asked if she didn't appreciate the
promotion she commented, matter of factly, that this is where she
should be.  Glancing at a world map she asked where the map of the
universe was?  Even with small children our history and ties now
run to the universe and the other planets in it.  They are waiting
anxiously for the next pictures from Mars on the television screen
and dreaming of setting foot there.

We live in a time when a thirty-six hour marriage counselling group
therapy session does far more than months of navel-gazing and
talking of father.  We live in a time when love-making and
baby-making are separated.  No woman needs to bear children unless
she wants to and is free to make love when she wishes.  This has
greatly changed much of our thinking about sex and what it is and
even the relationship between men and women for each other.  (Yet
only a fool would consider sex as only pleasure -- even now -- for
it has to do with a person's basic identity as one's self as man or
woman.)  As a result, people don't need to marry to get away from
home or to get sex.  These old moralities don't fit any more IN THE
SAME WAY THAT THEY USED TO.  With our experience so different from
what it was five years ago and even that experience so different
from previous years, how do we deal with our experience in this new
frontier in a way we can make some sense of?  If we only apply
survival tactics and we merely attempt to maintain the status quo,
like the old remittance man, the events of the new frontier will
simply pass us by.  In reality there is no status quo - there is
only an uncertain future!  it can be mystifying -- even confusing
-- trying to get your bearings to avoid losing your way because the
new frontier keeps changing and growing so quickly.

There are other aspects of the new frontier that are frightening,
too! It can be a dangerous place to be.  Our homes are vulnerable
not only to the thief in the night but also to those who would
deceive us at the front door with strange bargains or others who
would prey on our wives and daughters or others who would captivate
us as hostages in their violent struggle for survival.  The
competition of the business world is not always a friendly rivalry
and playing by the established rules is not always to be expected. 
We have to be very cautious about which contracts we seal with a
handshake.  We cannot expect others to come to our assistance even
if life is endangered.  Remember the boy whose car left the road
and crashed into a stream of water.  He died of exposure while
other passively looked on because they didn't want to "get
involved".  Recently a father told a news reporter how he called
from his burning apartment building for onlookers to catch his five
month old baby that he wanted to drop to safety.  They answered
back, "you'll just have to die in there."  Organized crime is part
of the life of every large community.  Petty crimes lie shoplifting
do as much if not more damage to our communities than armed
robberies.  Petty politicians do as much as any one to stifle the
force of creative human talent.  Whether the powers of destruction
be violent or insidious, the dangers of the frontier are there -
and they are very dangerous!

We are all explorers and settlers approaching the new frontier.  We
all experience the mystery and danger and perhaps the fear.  But I
hope that we are all able to experience some of the excitement,
too, for we don't come passively, helplessly and without tools; and
we don't come alone!  Masons should know this better than anyone
else.  The principle tenets of our profession are brotherly love,
relief and truth.  Even as speculative Masons, that means we are
professional workmen with a purpose and in our toolboxes we carry
the tools of a craftsman.  These working tools are designed for
adapting our environment to become a better place in which to live
and we remember that they have lessons for us, teaching us how to
live in the new frontier -- how to adapt ourselves, as well.  We
even have designs waiting for us to use in our building of the new
structures.  They are the designs from the Great Architect.

It took a vast enthusiasm and a gigantic optimism for our ancient
brothers to begin building the great temples and magnificent
cathedrals, for some of those structures took generations to
complete.  but no less an optimism is required by us today if we
are to successfully complete our building to our satisfaction.  I
am reminded of the story of a family with twin boys, on e of whom
was the eternal optimist and the other who was equally pessimistic. 
Because of the difficulty of living with two such extremes, the
mother went to see a child psychologist.  He said to bring them in
early next morning and leave them all day - which she did.  At nine
o'clock, he took the pessimist to a well-lighted modern room filled
with all the things a boy could want to have and play with and said
he would be back at four in the afternoon.  The optimist he took to
a dingy room with nothing in it but a pile of horse manure.  At
four o'clock he found the pessimist complaining about having
everything but the toy he wanted.  The optimist he found as
cheerful as ever, digging wildly through the pile of manure and
shouting, "I know there's a horse in here somewhere!"  This is the
optimism necessary if we are to make our mark on the frontier
today.

Brethren, the message that I have for you is simply this:  we have
a beautiful morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols. 
In the Craft, we have the resources to build upstanding men who are
able to walk tall.  We need to use all of these resources if we are
to succeed in our task.  Yet I don't feel we always use these
resources to good advantage - often because we don't take them
seriously.  For example, every candidate before he becomes a Mason
is asked if he believes in God and if he believes in the
immortality of the soul -- and he must answer both of these
questions in the affirmative if he is to become a Mason.  Following
this, within the Lodge room, our ceremonies and business are all
conducted in the presence of the great light of our faith.  We open
and close our meetings with prayer.  Yet I suspect that for every
ten men who would fight for the preservation of the Bible perhaps
one reads it regularly as a guide to life.  Masons recognize
religious faith as an integral part of moral development, yet
rather than supporting the Brother in the practise and growth of
his religious faith, lodge events often interfere with it.  Special
meetings and practise sessions held at the same time as a Brother's
service of Worship are an interference with an important part of
his life and this interference is an implicit suggestion that his
Worship and the growth of his faith are not so important.  Masonry
cannot allow itself to become involved, in sectarian matters - that
is as it should be - but the Lodge must be instrumental in
supporting each Brother in the practise of his faith if he is to be
the man who "walks tall".  Without faith in the Supreme Architect
in whose plan we are part of, without faith in the immortality of
the soul, from where can each Brother gain the motivation and the
courage to live by the example of architect, Hiram, who preferred
to die rather than betray his trust?  Our faith in God and in His
resources of not only faith, hope and charity but also integrity
and responsibility is the only foundation solid enough to support
the structures of the frontier that we are endeavouring to build.

In our efforts, each Craftsman, from time to time, needs to pause
and do some soul searching to check if the building of the "temple
of his soul" is squarely on its foundations.  "Am I shoddy in my
dealings?"  "Do I really care about my fellow man?"  "Do the
members of my family really know how much I care for them by the
way I live my life?"  "What kind of neighbour am I, really?"  "How
trustworthy am I?"  These are important religious questions - the
ones that really count!  These are the issues that make or break a
man - in his own eyes most of all.  This is where a man begins to
walk tall.  This is where he can begin to feel good about himself
and when this happens he can begin to tackle the problems of the
world and the dangers of the frontier.

The dangers of the new frontier that I referred to earlier
represent, in large part, the spiritual emptiness of our
population: the lack of integrity, the shirking of responsibility. 
We Masons have a share in that failure.  We may not have been
guilty of committing the offense but we are as guilty as anyone for
tolerating such offenses.  would our neighbourhoods be trashed by
common vandals if we cared about what happens?  would our business
practises foster a more productive economy if our attitude was less
"me first"?  Would our political system be less cluttered with
incompetent, if not shoddy politicians, if we cared to properly
support those good men who try against all odds to be responsible? 
With our country faced with the question of its very survival as a
nation, is it not imperative that our attitude reflect a genuine
concern for what is happening?

As Masons, we have a responsibility first of all to ourselves. 
Unless I care for myself what do I have of value to offer to anyone
else?  Following this, we have a responsibility to our neighbours
and our neighbourhoods because Masons care for their fellowman and
because our neighbourhoods reflect most of all the kind of people
we are.  We have a responsibility to our country.  Unless we care
what happens to our nation and take our part in the conduct of its
affairs, we have no right to complain about the poor laws or the
way they are enforced, the economic condition or the political
fiascos that are becoming a daily mockery of our highest ideals. 
Unless we car, we haven't even the right to object to our country
falling apart and our losing all of the human rights that our
forefathers for centuries have shed blood to first gain and then
protect.  Their efforts and what they have accomplished are worth
nothing if we don't care.  We have a responsibility to God who is
the source of all the goodness we can offer.

Brethren, when we really care, when the world can see how Masons
really love each other, that's when we WALK TALL!  When a group of
men as large as this group now in this theatre really cares, what
is to stop us from being the kind of people we want to be and from
building the kind of world we want to live in.  When someone really
cares, he is unstoppable.  For him nothing is impossible.

I want to tell you one more story to illustrate my point.  It is
the story of an anonymous girl who had always wanted to be a
missionary.  However, when she was quite young her mother died and
she was obligated to give up her wish to keep house for her father. 
But, when he died, she had to go to work and the only job she could
get was in a very old, prison-like mental hospital. Her duties
there were to pass out the food to those incurables in the cellar.
There was one girl down there who was especially deranged - so much
so that it was necessary to feed her by hand through the bars
because otherwise she would not eat or would try to kill herself
with the dishes she would break.  The anonymous girl fed her, not
once a day as required, but three times and she would do other
favours for her that the institution did not recognize.  She always
was kind to her and treated her with respect and compassion, even
while the deranged girl was kept in her own filth.  Unexpectedly
the patient began to speak and act more rationally and was later
moved to another ward where she continued to improve - and people
spoke of a miracle.  A new hospital with the most modern
psychiatric techniques was opened and when the most promising
patients were called for, the girl was transferred.  The time came
when she was to be discharged, but she had no family, no job, and
no place to go until someone suggest she nurse a young girl who was
both deaf and blind - a vegetable, everyone said.  She took the job
and she went to care for Helen Keller.  Because a still anonymous
girl who wanted to be a missionary refused to quit caring - and
cared for Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller, against all odds, was able
to testify to the power of God and in the indomitable human spirit.

When no one cares, nothing worthwhile happens.  When even one
person cares the possibilities for good things are limitless.  My
Brothers, may each one of you be that person.  Stand up!  Walk
tall!  This is your calling as a Mason!
