grand master’s message
Grand Master’s Message Of Ink and the Grand Architect
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ne of the greatest pleasures of being Grand Master comes from enhanced opportunities to participate in the degree work of our constituent Lodges. Whether as a long-time member of Benjamin B. French No. 15, as one of the travelling Past Masters of Union No. 6, or as a part of an inter-Lodge team organized by our hardworking Grand Lecturer, I have been blessed with the chance to play a direct role in the fraternal advancement of so many young brothers. This Masonic year is only half over, and already I have participated in the initiation, passing and raising of – literally - dozens of Master Masons. And what Masons they are! The West Gates of our Lodges have opened to a new generation of brothers whose increase in numbers is exceeded only by their growth in diversity. They burn with a white-hot passion to pursue the search for Wisdom, Strength and Beauty with an intensity that older brothers wistfully recall from our own times as newly-made Masons.
Because now we can read their tattoos. Realizing that The Voice reaches far beyond the bounds of our noble Fraternity, I hasten to assure any readers who are non-Masons that there is nothing in the ritual or tradition of the Craft that speaks directly to the current passion for taking artistic license with one’s pelt, through the application of colored inks via needle contraptions that may well have sprung from the imagination of the Fathers of the Inquisition. Our Grand Lecturer (who supervises our ritual) does not include a “Deputy of the Ink” on his staff. In the initiation, passing and raising of our candidates, we do our best to leave their appearance without permanent marks, and their appendages without significant alteration.
That having been said, it has to be admitted that in our recorded history that goes back at least to 1599 C.E., and a tradition Most Worshipful Brother that predates that earliJoseph S. Crociata est written record by a factor of centuries, one can find nothing that prohibits the making of a Mason who displays the odd tattoo. Indeed, given the unique role of the British Back in those days, you’d have to socialize with the military in the spread of Freemasonry throughout new Masons for a while outside of the Lodge to get the world, it’s safe to assume that the presence of an appreciation of how varied their paths to Masonic tattoos amongst the brethren has been a constant Light have been. You’d need to share a meal in the feature, despite the lack of any learned treatise or refectory or spend time at an after-Lodge “place article on this aspect of our Masonic antecedents’’ of Masonic refreshment” to appreciate how, even practices that I can find. though they differ in background and experience, they share much in common. But many from this I don’t raise this solely as a subject for amusenew generation reveal the first hints of their diverment. In many ways, what I read on the tattoos as sity at the moment they enter the Lodge Room for they pass before me reveals a good deal – not only their degrees. about our newly-minted Masons, but also about continued on next page The Voice of Freemasonry
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