Lead Your Life: The Worshipful Master's Guide

Explore the enigmatic role of the Worshipful Master in the lodge, and see how its principles can guide your personal growth. Tap into the craft of freemasonry as a metaphor for orchestrating your life's higher purpose, and discover the gravitational pull of your true calling. Join us in mastering the tools for life-changing results.

Key Points
• Unveil your life's higher purpose
• Harness the lodge's roles in life
• Crafting your inner temple
• Aligning mind with life's work
• Utilizing freemasonry's symbols

Best Quotes
00:31 - 00:42
• "The role of worshipful master in the lodge is essentially to lead the lodge in the pursuit of the higher purpose, whatever that higher purpose might be."

00:55 - 01:03
• "The worship of Maslow's Master's responsibility is to help that happen, help birth that from concept to reality."

01:40 - 01:45
• "If I don't really know what my higher purpose is, how can I activate the worshipful master?"

02:12 - 02:20
• "When you sit down to do this, you're gonna need to call on the rest of the, sort of, the rest of the craft contextually there."

02:44 - 02:48
• "Your higher calling tends to energize and innervate you as opposed to deplete you."

03:31 - 03:40
• "It will tend to have its own sort of gravity that pulls all of your other sort of functions together to help you achieve that."

Creators & Guests

Host

Brian Mattocks

Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

00:01
So in the last episode, we talked about using the lodge as an analog for an internal landscape and the different roles and functions of the craft as essentially perspectives you can take on solving problems or on evaluating your work. And so I would be remiss if we didn't start with probably the single most important role in the lodge, one that very few people have their own sort of connection with, which is odd, but we'll, we'll get into that in a little bit further. But that is the role of worshipful master. The role of worshipful master in the lodge is essentially to lead the lodge in the pursuit of the higher purpose, whatever that higher purpose might be. In the context of the heroic legend, the higher purpose was the building of the temple in the context of your own higher purpose, whatever your temple is.

00:55
The worship of Maslow's Master's responsibility is to help that happen, help birth that from concept to reality. But there's lots of things that the worshipful master is going to do to make that happen. He's gonna have his associates, his roles in the lodge to help him make sure that that work gets done. You're gonna have somebody who's gonna manage the labor, the craft. You're gonna have somebody who's gonna manage the resources. You're gonna have somebody who's going to act as messenger. You're gonna have somebody who's gonna be the workplace guards. You'll have all of these functions, and they all report to that worshipful master, that higher purpose. So that leads a lot of folks to, okay, so if I don't really know what my higher purpose is, how can I activate the worshipful master? How can I become that that leader that I need to be of my own life?

01:51
And you'll find in other episodes, we've talked a little bit about this, determining what your work is, finding that higher purpose your, your life's work might be for now, if you don't have that sort of temple well defined might be to actually set time aside to find what your temple is, to find out what that work is for you. When you sit down to do this, you're gonna need to call on the rest of the, sort of, the rest of the craft contextually there. But the, the things that you'll know, the indicators that you'll have that you're doing it right, is that when you do sit in a place of stillness, the work that you're considering, the work you're pursuing does resonate with you in a meaningful way. You don't get bored of it. You don't, it's not novelty. It's not like you're chasing yet another shiny object. It tends to, the, your higher calling tends to energize and innervate you as opposed to deplete you. And as you pursue that higher calling, whatever that might be, that inner temple, that that pursuit, you'll find that the functions

02:58
Of the, the mind, the psyche, the internal sort of cognitive parts of the lodge get in line actually fairly easily. They all get in line to support that work. It doesn't require you to bully your own attention, for example, to do the work. It doesn't require you to, to hide all of the distractions. It will, that, that's not to say you won't do that as well, but it will, when you find your life's work, when you find that temple for yourself, it will tend to have its own sort of gravity that pulls all of your other sort of functions together to help you achieve that. And then the worshipful master can sort of better, you know, sitting as a worshipful master, as a function can better organize and prepare using the other tools of the craft. So we'll get into more of kind of the application of this in future episodes.

03:53
But one of the things to, to really sit with as worshipful master when you do sit down in reflection and meditation is to, to evaluate your life's work, what your objective is. And I, I do believe everyone has one. They do have a, a life's work. That that's, it's okay that that changes over time as well. But as you're sitting there and evaluating your life's work, call on those other functions of the craft. Sit in deep reflection and appreciation for kind of where you're at, where you want to go. And then start using the tools of freemasonry, the symbols, and those other roles in the lodge function to help you achieve your objectives. I think you'll find that that process, that that adds a level to perhaps your freemasonry that just elevates it from you, you know, a social club to something that really has the potential to change lives.