Thankful For The Fight
“The opportunity to fight for a better world.”
All Freemasons have, at some point, been asked a version of the following question:
- What does Freemasonry offer?
This question may come from friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, or the stranger noticing a masonic ring during a particularly dull elevator ride.
This question may even come from the Freemason himself; either during a low-point in his Masonic career or during the application process.
It is not an easy question to answer.
For years, this author’s answers were:
- Freemasonry offers the chance to meet new people;
- Freemasonry offers the chance for personal growth and development;
- Freemasonry offers enjoyable experiences; or
- Freemasonry offers what you put into it.
Not very enlightening.
What, based on the above answers, distinguishes Freemasonry from other social or civic groups?
A better answer is required.
This author found that “better answer” in a most unexpected place.
Per Wikipedia
- “Angel is an American supernatural television series, a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series was created by Buffy’s creator, writer and director Joss Whedon, in collaboration with David Greenwalt. It aired on The “WB” from October 5, 1999, to May 19, 2004, consisting of five seasons and 110 episodes.”
Angel was, for this author, early 2000’s “must see TV.”
It was, combined with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, an early 2000’s TV staple.
Interestingly, at the time, the author never really watched Charmed (a show regularly compared to or contrasted with Buffy and Angel).
Recently though, thanks to finding several used Charmed DVDs and a Paramount Plus subscription, Charmed has become a favourite show and one you will find on regular rotation in this author’s “recently viewed” section.
The premise of Angel is straightforward. Set in Los Angeles, a vampire cursed with a soul (the titular character), with his associates, helps the helpless, saves the souls of those who have lost their way, and makes the world a better place.
Or, at least, he tries to help the helpless and save the souls of those who have lost their way.
He tries to make the world a better place.
While the show’s premise is straightforward, the approach is anything but.
A typical approach, such as in Buffy or even Charmed, is one in which the heroes fight, overcome evil, and then receive a reward.
In both Buffy and Charmed, the heroes are rewarded with “normal” or “ordinary” lives.
The last scene of Buffy sees the titular character smiling contently as the sun shines on a beautiful day.
The last scene of Charmed sees the titular characters starting families of their own, peacefully growing old.
Angel, seemingly, begins with the same approach.
The audience is lead to believe that the titular character will, upon saving enough souls, helping enough people, and preventing enough apocalypses, be rewarded with the same “normal” life with which Buffy and the Charmed ones were rewarded.
All the titular character must do: make the world a better place.
However, very quickly, Angel deviates from this approach when both the titular character and the audience receive a surprisingly bleak revelation.
The world cannot be made a better place.
This is revealed in the following exchange between the titular character (Angel) and one of his many foes (Holland Manners).
- Angel: You’re not gonna win.
- Holland Manners: Well… no. Of course we aren’t. We have no intention of doing anything so prosaic as “winning.” Holland laughs]
- Angel: Then why?
- Holland Manners: I’m sorry. Why what?
- Angel: Why fight?
- Holland Manners: That’s really the question you should be asking yourself, isn’t it? See, for us, there is no fight. Which is why winning doesn’t enter into it. As a corporation, we go on… no matter what. You see, Angel… our firm has always been here on Earth… in one form or another. The Spanish Inquisition. The Khmer Rouge Genocide… one of my favorites. I personally was there. We were here when the very first modern cave man clubbed his neighbor on the head with a rock for stealing his dinner. See, we’re in the hearts and minds of every single living being on this planet. And that, friend, is what’s making things so difficult for you. That is the source of Wolfram & Hart’s power. You see, the world doesn’t work in spite of evil, Angel. It works with us. It works because of us. [Angel Season 2 episode “Reprise.”]
Evil (or human weakness, or human misery) isn’t “fighting” against good. Evil exists.
The above exchange is Sisyphean.
No matter how hard he works, no matter how hard he fights, Angel will never succeed in defeating evil.
He will never, in the bigger picture, make the world a better place.
How then, does Angel (the TV show) deal with this revelation The show is telling the audience that the main character can and will never succeed in the his very mission.
The TV show deals with this revelation in a brilliant way.
It deals with the revelation by shrinking the picture.
Angel will never, in the bigger picture, make the world a better place…but in the smaller pictures he can make one person’s world better….over and over again.
As Angel explains:
- Angel: Well, I guess I kinda worked it out. If there’s no great glorious end to all this, if nothing we do matters… , then all that matters is what we do. ’Cause that’s all there is. What we do. Now. Today. I fought for so long, for redemption, for a reward, and finally just to beat the other guy, but I never got it.
- Kate Lockley: And now you do?
- Angel: Not all of it. All I wanna do is help. I wanna help because, I don’t think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there’s no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.
It’s not about being rewarded.
It’s not about winning.
It’s about helping people.
It’s about making someone’s world better, today.
And then making someone else’s world better, tomorrow.
And then making someone else’s world better, the day after that.
And then…
And then…
And then…
This revelation completely changed the stakes for and of the show.
In Angel, the monsters and supernatural elements act as metaphors for the everyday suffering that exists within the world.
Even though this suffering can never be defeated in the bigger picture, one can make a difference and that difference!
This is the theme to which Angel returns again and again.
Consider this exchange from the Angel series finale.
- Gunn: What if I told you it doesn’t help? What would you do if you found out that none of it matters? That it’s all controlled by forces more powerful and uncaring than we can conceive and they will never let it get better down here? What would you do?
- Anne Steele: I’d get this truck packed before the new stuff gets here. Wanna give me a hand?
Consider how Angel ends.
Buffy and Charmed ends with the heroes being rewarded. Angel ends in an opposite (but perfect) way.
The surviving heroes, having just fought a series of monsters find themselves in an alley (battered and bruised). While in this alley, an army or even more monsters approach. The titular character says, “Let’s go to work,” and that’s exactly what they do. They go to work.
Making the world a better place is work.
It is work that never ends.
It is work without a reward.
It is the hardest thing one can do. It is also the thing at which one is most likely to fail.
So why bother?
Why fight?
Why work?
You work because, as Angel says: “I don’t think people should suffer as they do. Because, if there’s no bigger meaning, then the smallest act of kindness is the greatest thing in the world.”
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show echoed this theme and this idea when he said:
- “The work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch pail **** job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart, and dedicated people [including Freemasons] bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues till they get a positive result. And even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds.”
Fighting to ensure one person suffers less is the greatest thing in the world.
Both on Medium and on YouTube, Square & Compass Promotions have discussed the many ways in which Freemasony reduces suffering and makes the lives of its membership and the communities in which it is located better.
The health benefits or Freemasonry, its charitable endeavours, the way it fosters community and civility in a world so often lacking in both, are well documented.
This author has witnessed the above first hand and discussed this on YouTube.
- Freemasonry reduces people’s suffering and protects people’s health and people’s lives. …through the creation and maintenance of social connections. “Many types of scientific evidence show that involvement in social relationships benefits health. The most striking evidence comes from prospective studies of mortality across industrialized nations. These studies consistently show that individuals with the lowest level of involvement in social relationships are more likely to die than those with greater involvement (House, Landis, and Umberson 1988). For example, Berkman and Syme (1979) showed that the risk of death among men and women with the fewest social ties was more than twice as high as the risk for adults with the most social ties.
- Moreover, this finding held even when socioeconomic status, health behaviors, and other variables that might influence mortality, were taken into account. Social ties also reduce mortality risk among adults with documented medical conditions. For instance, Brummett and colleagues (2001) found that, among adults with coronary artery disease, the socially isolated had a risk of subsequent cardiac death 2.4 times greater than their more socially connected peers.”
- [J Health Soc Behav. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 August 4.] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/well/live/having-friends-is-good-for-you.html]
None of the above comes easy. As a Freemason, making the world a better place is a never-ending fight. A fight for which their is no reward except for the opportunity to reduce the suffering of others.
This story began with the quote: “the opportunity to fight for a better world.”
That has become the author’s answer to “what does Freemasonry offer.”
Freemasonry offers the opportunity to fight for a better world.
I have been a Freemason since 2007. For the past 17 years, I have used Freemasonry to try and make the world a better place. In many cases, I succeeded. In many cases, I failed. I expect to succeed and fail many more times. But I will keep fighting.
The opportunity to make the world a better place is an opportunity worth taking, no matter how hard the fight.
It is an opportunity for which I am thankful.
I am also thankful to be writing this on an Amtrak train on my way to Chicago and Glenview, to visit my friends and Brethren where I will be celebrating American Thanksgiving.
I am thankful for my health.
I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for Freemasonry.
I am thankful that I have the opportunity to return to a place I love.
I am even thankful that, while writing this, I can watch some of my favourite Christmas movies on Tubi (American Tubi no less).
I am thankful for every person fighting to make the world a better place.
I am thankful for every Freemason fighting to make the world a better place.
I am thankful because I can still fight.
I am thankful because I am still fighting.
All opinions expressed are those of Square & Compass Promotions and the guest(s), and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Windsor Masonic Temple and/or any Masonic group.
