Congratulations, Bro. Butch! I’m really glad for you. The sublime degree of Master Mason is truly the pinnacle of Freemasonry. It’s been said many times on this board, but you really can’t appreciate it until you experience it.
Like the EA, the degree is so long, and so involved, and so different from anything you have experienced before, that it leaves you stunned when it finishes. As you see it again and again, you appreciate it more, as you have liesure to see and hear the finer points that you can’t appreciate first time. One of the fine points is how the three degrees progress in imparting knowledge. The EA gives you the basics of Masonry, as they would have been taught to a teenage apprentice in the days of Operative Masonry; the FC expands this to impart what is needed by a man who has reached maturity and is beginning his adult life; the MM makes a quantum leap to instill in you what you need to make your entire life what your Creator intended, and to inspire you to realize the greatness that is in you, and to lift up a corner of the veil between us and immortality.
Everything that goes before, in the first two degrees, leads gradually but inexorably to its culmination in the MM degree; nothing that follows it can eclipse or diminish it. But new insights into all three of the Lodge degrees can be obtained in the appendent degrees. I hope that when you are ready, you will be motivated to seek additional light, and I’m sure you will enjoy it. It also provides expanded opportunities for brotherhood and fellowship, as you join with brothers from other lodges, and the possibility of joining in their work.
So, Bro. Butch, as Dean of the 2010 Class, you and I and all the other Brothers who have been faithfully following the progress of this most distinguished group can now await further joyous news from Steve, Martin and John as they join us as equal brothers. I can hardly wait!
