Masonic Journey

My answers to interview questions from Gary Norman, PM of Corinthian Lodge for the lodge newsletter in 2023, presented here in whole.

When were you initiated, passed, and raised?

I was initiated on May 17 passed on October 11 and raised on November 22 in 2013. My class includes Bros. Don Long, Charles Fuller, and W. Scott Schulte.

What influenced you to join Corinthian? (Versus another lodge?)

I found the closest lodge to Parkville, Maryland with the nicest web site and a contact form I could use to reach out to someone electronically. At the time Bro. Jake Bucksbaum was lodge secretary and it gave me the confidence to visit when he replied promptly to my email and answered a few questions before inviting me to visit on a rehearsal night.

When did you become an officer? Why did you become an officer?

I knew one day I wanted to be master of the lodge because it's something that my grandfather did at his lodge in New Jersey and I wanted to understand the journey he had taken. I started to fill in lower officer chairs almost immediately but with my daughter having been born in April of that year, I was not interested in jumping in too far too fast. In 2015 I was appointed by PM Les Hodgson as Junior Steward.

The lodge had other plans for me and that was my last year in an appointed office. From 2016 to 2021 I was repeatedly elected and re-elected by the lodge to (in order) Secretary, Senior Warden, Membership Chairman, and Worshipful Master. It was a wild ride and not a path I'd recommend for anyone, but one in which I was supported and encouraged all the way.

Who are one or two brothers, perhaps at Corinthian or otherwise, who have been fundamental and influential in your Masonic journey?

PM Joe Creamer gets a lot of well deserved accolades for keeping Corinthian Lodge running like a well-oiled machine through his terms and mine. Without his constant prodding and coordination we would have never earned the Grand Master's award all these years in a row. He makes it his personal mission to demand excellence from everyone he works with.

My masonic journey would not have been possible without the brothers of Belcher Lodge #180 of New Jersey who showed up in 2013 at the Adams-Perfect Funeral Home in Northfield to perform his masonic memorial service. The family had always known he was a mason and celebrated his masonic accomplishments but he spoke of it so rarely that seeing these brothers take time out of their Saturday to celebrate his life with such a beautiful ceremony motivated me to go home and pursue my own path in masonry.

What is one of your largest memories or accomplishments when serving in the East?

I've been studying a lot of stoic philosophy of which the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is a central character. Aurelius came to power in 161 AD with huge plans for to grow and prosper the empire but within a few years was entirely consumed by managing a war with Parthia and (more pointedly) the Antonine Plague which is thought to have been a measles pandemic. A historian of the time wrote of him that "amid unusual and extraordinary difficulties he both survived himself and preserved the empire."

I feel a certain kinship with Aurelius on a vastly smaller scale. I came in with a plan to form my year as Master into the shape I desired and in true stoic fashion the year formed me (and the rest of the lodge) into a shape that the times demanded of us. It was a very effective lesson for me.

What is your vocation?

I'm a software developer currently working on contract to the federal government.

What have you learned from the craft? And what do you hope for Corinthian in the future?

I feel like the ritual and lectures really opened my mind to being more receptive to philosophy, symbolism, and exegesis in a way I never was before. I've added so much regular reading and research that I never would have picked up without having the anchor of the masonic lectures. I hope I can turn my research from the solitary pursuit it is today to sharing with the lodge and my brothers over the next few years.

I would favor spotlighting you returning as a student. I think that be admirable.

My return to school is actually one of the way that the pandemic changed the direction of my life for the better. When so many colleges and universities were forced to go remote and could still provide the same level of education without regular classroom sessions I realized that I might be able to finish my long set-aside bachelors degree with online college. In Fall of 2021 I re-enrolled at UMGC and as of today I'm 5 classes (15 credits) away from completing my degree. My mom has been waiting 22 years to watch me walk across a graduation stage so needless to say she's thrilled.

I would also note you as one of my more deist scientific minded brothers.

I had a crisis of faith in my 20s because the church I grew up in was very proscriptive. As I tried to make sense of everything I was struck by how creation could be so vast and unfathomable but we as human beings could for a moment believe that we could encase even a infinitesimal part of it in our minds enough to comprehend what might be expected of us. I take regular comfort in my faith in that grand design.