MW Cameron M. Bailey

The Secretary of my home Lodge (Sultan-Monroe 160) called me and let me know that today is my 'Masonic Birthday.' It seems that I was Raised a Master Mason exactly ten years ago today.

What a great ten years they have been!

I've been blessed to have met and formed strong friendships with great men from every corner of the State, friends from the tiniest of towns to the largest of cities. Travel has allowed that to extend further as I've been able to get to know some amazing Freemasons from all over North America.

Likewise, my wife has been welcomed with open arms, no matter where we have traveled, and she too has grown some great and strong friendships.

I've had the opportunity and great honor of leading my local Lodge (Centralia 63) as Worshipful Master, the fightin' 17th Masonic District as DDGM, and for the third year now the F&AM of Washington. Given the nature of our obligations, and the men involved with our fraternity, these are truly the greatest honors a man can receive.

I've gotten to learn, and to study. Freemasonry is what we make of it. Some view it as simply a social endeavor, others as largely a charitable endeavor. Neither of those things are wrong. I view it largely as an opportunity to learn. The Scottish Rite touts itself as the University of Freemasonry, and it makes the tremendous educational resources it holds available to all. That learning has added so very much to my life, and as yet, I've only just scratched the surface. Freemasonry truly is a lifetime study for those who seek that.

Lastly, and most importantly, Freemasonry has helped me to improve myself. I am not the man I was ten years ago. In that way, it has fulfilled its promise to me, the same promise it makes to each of its Initiates.

I wrote about that some years ago for an article in our magazine, the Masonic Tribune, and it still holds true today.

Freemasonry, if you allow its lessons to penetrate into your heart, will make you into a better man.

I don't often like writing about intensely personal things, but I'll give an example here to let you know just one of the ways that can happen.

My wife and I travel on a fairly regular basis around Mexico. We've been to a myriad of interesting places there, from a tiny mountain town of perhaps 125 people and no electricity where we stayed, to the 21.2 million person greater City of Mexico.

Where we never go, refuse to go, is to any resort built for tourists from the United States.

Traveling as we do through Mexico (ever spend 14 hours on a bus because your geography was bad and you misjudged just how far it is from Mexico City to Puerto Vallarta?) we see quite a bit of poverty. It has been improving over the past few decades, but poverty is still rampant in Mexico. Rampant but quiet. Pushy panhandling is not something encountered there, rather most often a silent plea, or a very young child working for pennies.

When we travel in Mexico, I dress just as I do here. Always in a Masonic shirt, always with a couple big Masonic rings. By and large Mexican Masons are much more circumspect with such things, but by wearing the things I do I've been able to meet a great many local Brothers as they come up and introduce themselves.

One of our trips, shortly after I'd become a Mason, I remember this quite vividly. It was night and my wife and I were walking a pedestrian walkway, back to our hotel. It was well lighted, and we walked passed an elderly lady, sitting silently, but with a cup for alms close at hand.

I remember walking right on by.

Later that night, that bothered me. It bothered me a great deal, and it still bothers me to this day. I shamed myself.

You see, it bothered me because that lady saw a hand, emblazoned with a big Masonic ring, indifferently pass right by her, giving no thought to her plight.

Remembering the things I'd encountered in Lodge, I learned that night that my inaction wasn't right. It wasn't right for me, and it certainly wasn't right for the Fraternity I was representing.

Since that time, whenever we are traveling through Mexico my wife and I will make it a point to carry a lot of small currency, giving it to those we see in need.

This is just one small example of the myriad of ways Freemasonry has worked within me, to improve me.

#MasterMason #Friendship #Leadership #SelfImprovement #Charity

-Cameron

Cameron M. Bailey Past Grand Master The MW Grand Lodge F&AM of Washington

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