Masonry

After Jane was called a Mason by those who wish to discredit her, one of her readers pointed out that 1) there are lodges of people who call themselves Masons and yet are co-ed or all-female; these are not generally recognized by the majority as true Masons, and 2) there has been a mixed reaction to the Order of the Eastern Star, with British Masons a good deal more skeptical or negative than U.S. Lodges.

I have no first-hand knowledge of this issue, but my family's history is intertwined with Things Mason, so it might be appropriate to comment.

My grandfather was a Shriner and either a 32nd or 33rd degree Mason, depending upon whom one speaks to. Some cousins tell me they are skeptical about the 33rd degree version of the story; it's apparently very rare for this to be granted at all. Let's just say the exact ordinal is a little hazy, but he was way into it.

My grandmother, his wife, was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, and I believe a female cousin on his side is as well: she appears to be even more gung ho about the Masonic culture than her husband is, though she holds the belief that females cannot be Masons.

My mother was a member of Job's Daughters, and her younger sister was in the Rainbow Girls.

When my mother took her first long trip away from home she was 16; she was traveling by bus. This would have been in 1952, ten years before I arrived on this planet. As my grandfather drove her to the bus station he told her that if she ever got in trouble or needed help in any way, she should look for someone with a Mason ring, and get help from him.

That is interesting to me: my grandfather was essentially telling my mother that there are some strange men you can trust. If I have a daughter would I ever tell her that she could always trust someone she met through, say, Twelve Step programs? No: there are a lot of crazy people in Twelve Step programs.

But I feel good that there is an organization out there that engenders that level of trust. I like the notion that once in a while there's a way to guess which people might be decent human beings.

At present my aunt wears my grandmother's Order of the Eastern Star ring. I like that. Someday I'll probably wear it myself. It's pretty, and it reminds me that underneath all my family's problems and neuroses, there is a thread of decency, a concern for Doing the Right Thing, at least most of the time. It's nice to think about that every now and again.