I demitted from a lodge I helped found tonight.
Mumblety-teen years ago, there were four of us who decided that our fraternal interests would be well served by a lodge that did things differently than most. A lodge that would be small, formal, and would inculcate the true lessons taught by our ritual and philosophy. A gentleman’s lodge. So we and about 30 other men formed that lodge, and I was its charter secretary for about 13 years.
The lodge ebbed and flowed; at one point it got down to fewer than 10 members, and then it started to grow again and is a vibrant lodge where everybody knows everyone and people come because it meets only five times a year and always has something educational (as well as a good restaurant-cooked meal).
As I’ve gotten older in both physical years and fraternal years, I’ve decided to back off of some of the things I do. Particularly as a secretary. I counted up the “secretary-years” of all the groups I’ve served in that capacity over my nearly two decades in the fraternity, and it’s now up over 50. (At times, I’ve been secretary of five or six bodies at a time.) So among my other “retirements”, I retired from the secretary position in this particular lodge two years ago.
Regrettably, I haven’t been to a meeting of that lodge since. I’ve been to one of the festive dinners, when a friend and brother from Virginia addressed the lodge, but that’s it. And because the lodge is predicated on mandatory attendance (which is admittedly honored more in the breach than otherwise), and because I’m tired, and have a life membership in another lodge, and because frankly I have better things to do with the dues money, I went over tonight and handed in my request to be dismissed from plural membership.
The few brothers I discussed it with were at first a bit shocked but then they understood. I hope. And I left before the meeting started, because I didn’t want to be sitting there in lodge when they read my letter — just because I didn’t want to see the disappointment I imagine was engendered when they heard that the second-to-last founding member was leaving.
They’ll be fine. And I’ll have more time to do other things without feeling guilty that I missed the meetings.
It’s not meant to interfere with our usual vocations, you know.