Herod Couldn't Stop Listening

Author's Note: This essay is an effort to think through a difficult human and leadership dynamic by examining an ancient story. I am not comparing myself to John the Baptist. I possess neither his righteousness nor his calling, and I certainly make no claim to being a messenger of God. Nor should anyone recognize another person in these pages and conclude that I am describing him as wicked, corrupt, or evil. I do not believe that. What interests me is something much narrower and more human: the psychology of a relationship in which one person is repeatedly drawn to a voice that challenges, frustrates, and sometimes condemns his choices. That dynamic strikes me as remarkably familiar. So, with all appropriate humility about the comparison, I want to explore a fascinating question: Why couldn't Herod stop listening?

There is something about the story of Herod Antipas and John the Baptist that I have always found more interesting than its gruesome ending. It is easy to remember the banquet, the dance, the rash promise, and John's head arriving on a platter. Those images are so dramatic that they can obscure a much quieter and, for me, much more fascinating detail.

Herod listened to John. More than that, he apparently kept listening to him.

This was not a comfortable relationship. John had publicly condemned Herod's marriage to Herodias, telling him plainly that it was unlawful for him to have his brother's wife. Herod responded by imprisoning John. Yet Mark tells us something remarkable about what happened afterward. Herod feared John, recognized him as righteous and holy, protected him, and continued hearing him. Depending upon the translation, Herod was perplexed or disturbed by what John said, and yet he still listened gladly.[1]

That contradiction fascinates me.

Herod had solved the practical problem. John was behind bars. The troublesome preacher no longer had the freedom he once possessed. Herod had political authority, guards, wealth, status, and the power of the state. John had a prison cell. Yet apparently Herod kept going back to hear what the prisoner had to say.

Why?

Perhaps the answer tells us something important about leadership, truth, and the peculiar relationship that sometimes develops between a leader and the person willing to tell him what he does not want to hear.

Power has always had a problem with honest counsel. The higher someone rises in an organization, the easier it becomes to become insulated from uncomfortable information. People surrounding leaders have interests of their own. Employees want careers. Political allies want influence. Friends want relationships preserved. Volunteers want appointments. Subordinates want advancement. Even good people learn which subjects produce irritation and which opinions receive approval. Without anyone deliberately designing it, a leader can gradually find himself surrounded by increasingly agreeable information.

John wanted nothing from Herod. That may have been part of his power.

John was not looking for an appointment. He was not seeking promotion. He was not asking Herod to invite him to dinner. He did not need access to the palace, and he certainly wasn't tailoring his message to preserve it. There was very little Herod could offer John that would cause John to change what he believed was true. That makes a person extraordinarily difficult to control. It may also make him extraordinarily compelling.

Perhaps Herod kept listening because John possessed something that becomes increasingly rare around powerful people: independence. Here was a man who apparently did not care whether Herod liked what he said. John knew where he stood. He had drawn his moral line and wasn't moving it merely because the person standing on the other side happened to be the ruler of Galilee.

Herod could reject John's conclusion, but he could not easily dismiss the man who delivered it.

There is a leadership lesson buried there. Sometimes the person who frustrates us most is also the person whose opinion we continue seeking. We may disagree with him. We may resist his recommendations. We may become irritated when he points out something we would rather leave alone. We may even create distance between ourselves and him. Then, strangely, we find ourselves asking again what he thinks.

Why would anyone do that? Perhaps because somewhere beneath resistance there is recognition. We recognize that this particular person is not calibrating his answer according to what will please us. We may not believe he is always right. He almost certainly isn't. But we believe we are going to receive what he actually thinks.

That has value.

There is also an important distinction between hearing counsel and following it. Leaders sometimes repeatedly consult people whose advice they seldom take. From the adviser's perspective, this can become maddening. If you keep asking what I think, why do you keep doing something else? But perhaps that misunderstands what the leader is seeking.

Sometimes an adviser is not being used as an instruction manual. He is functioning as a reference point. The leader wants to know where the boundary is, even if he ultimately decides to cross it. He wants the dissenting opinion in the room. He wants to know what someone without the same incentives sees when looking at the problem.

Perhaps that was part of what John represented to Herod. There is no indication in Mark that John's message became more accommodating because Herod kept listening. John apparently continued being John, and Herod continued being Herod. One possessed political authority; the other possessed moral independence. Their relationship existed inside the tension between those two forms of power.

Then other people entered the equation.

Herodias did not share Herod's fascination with John. Mark tells us that she held a grudge against him and wanted him dead. For a time she could not accomplish that because Herod protected him. Then came Herod's birthday banquet, Herodias's daughter, the dance, and Herod's spectacularly foolish promise to give her whatever she requested. After consulting her mother, she returned asking for John's head.[2]

This is where the story becomes an extraordinary study in leadership. Herod did not want to do it. Mark says he was "exceeding sorry." But he had made his promise publicly, surrounded by important guests. His nobles were there. His military commanders were there. The leading men of Galilee were there. To refuse the request would require Herod to retreat publicly from his own words.[3]

Nobody physically forced Herod to order John's death. That distinction matters. Herodias created the pressure. The daughter delivered the demand. The assembled guests created the social environment. Herod's own rash promise created the trap.

But Herod gave the order.

That is one of the harder lessons of leadership: other people can maneuver us toward a decision without relieving us of responsibility for making it. Leaders create—or at least tolerate—the environments surrounding them. They choose whose voices receive access. They decide which behaviors are rewarded. They establish whether disagreement is safe or costly. Eventually, that environment begins exerting pressure back upon the leader.

At first, a leader may tolerate the person who says uncomfortable things. He may even value him. But over time, others may find that person troublesome. Perhaps they resent his influence. Perhaps they dislike his criticism. Perhaps his presence complicates decisions they would prefer to make without resistance. The cost of continuing to listen begins to rise.

That is when leadership becomes difficult. It is easy to value honest counsel when the counsel costs us nothing. The real test comes when listening threatens a relationship, an alliance, our popularity, our convenience, our pride, or something we have already publicly committed ourselves to doing.

Herod could listen to John while John was merely troublesome. At the banquet, John became expensive.

Herod chose the room.

That doesn't necessarily make Herod incomprehensible. Quite the opposite. It makes him painfully human. Most of us know the pressure of having said something we wish we could take back. Most of us understand the embarrassment of reversing ourselves publicly. Most leaders eventually discover that doing the right thing can require disappointing people whose approval matters to them. Herod faced precisely that moment and failed it. The consequences were irreversible.

There is another side to this story, however, and it concerns the person giving the unwelcome counsel. The truth-teller can make a mistake of his own. He can begin believing that because someone repeatedly asks for his opinion, he has become responsible for the other person's decisions. He can continue explaining, warning, persuading, arguing, and returning to the same subject because surely, eventually, the other person will understand.

But counsel does not transfer responsibility. The adviser owns the advice. The leader owns the decision.

There comes a point when the person who has spoken must relinquish the outcome. He can explain what he sees. He can warn about consequences. He can refuse to flatter. He can even say the same uncomfortable thing more than once when asked. But he cannot live another person's life or exercise another leader's judgment.

Perhaps that is one of the most difficult boundaries for experienced leaders to accept when they become advisers to other leaders. Experience allows us to recognize patterns. Sometimes we can see the collision coming because we have already survived one ourselves. We naturally want to reach for the steering wheel.

But it isn't ours anymore.

There is a final detail in Mark's account that gives the story an almost haunting conclusion. After John's death, reports about Jesus began reaching Herod. People offered different explanations for who Jesus might be. Herod had his own answer: "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead."[4]

Think about that. Herod had finally silenced John. The prisoner was gone. The troublesome voice could no longer challenge him. There would be no more uncomfortable conversations and no more inconvenient moral judgments from the cell. Yet when another powerful voice appeared, Herod heard John again.

That may be the most profound part of the story. Removing the messenger does not necessarily remove the message. We sometimes imagine that discomfort originates in the person who causes us to confront something we would rather avoid. Remove the person, and perhaps the discomfort will disappear. Stop asking his opinion. Exclude him from the conversation. Reduce his influence. Surround ourselves instead with voices that are easier to hear.

But if the uncomfortable voice touched something we already suspected might be true, silence does not solve the problem. The voice becomes internal.

Perhaps that is why Herod couldn't stop listening in the first place. Somewhere beneath the irritation and perplexity, he recognized something in John that he could neither comfortably accept nor completely dismiss.

That is why every leader needs at least one person who can say no, who can say, "I think you're wrong," or ask, "Have you considered what this will cost?" Every leader needs someone who does not need the leader's approval badly enough to alter the answer. Such people are rarely comfortable companions to power, but they are enormously valuable.

The responsibility works both ways. The adviser must remember that honest counsel does not make him righteous, infallible, or responsible for controlling the outcome. The leader must resist the equally human temptation to confuse discomfort with disloyalty.

Perhaps that is why thinking through this ancient story has left me more at peace with some experiences of my own. Human relationships that once seemed contradictory make a little more sense to me now. A person can value honest counsel and resist it at the same time. He can seek an independent voice while also finding that voice deeply frustrating. He can distance himself from the person offering unwelcome advice without becoming indifferent to what that person has said.

More importantly, I am reminded of the boundary between counsel and responsibility. If someone asks what I think, my obligation is to answer as honestly and fairly as I can. What happens afterward belongs to him. I need not persuade him, rescue him from a decision I believe is mistaken, or carry responsibility for consequences that are not mine. Understanding that does not resolve every disagreement, but it does make the burden considerably lighter.

Herod possessed virtually every form of worldly power available in his circumstances. John possessed almost none. Herod could imprison him, and eventually Herod could silence him.

What Herod apparently could not do was stop listening.

And in the end, even after John was gone, Herod could not stop hearing him.

Notes

1. Mark 6:17–20. The textual tradition is particularly interesting here. The King James Version says Herod "did many things, and heard him gladly," while several modern translations render the passage as Herod being greatly perplexed or puzzled by John and nevertheless continuing to listen to him. Either reading preserves the central paradox: John's words troubled Herod, yet Herod remained drawn to hearing him.

2. Mark 6:21–25. Mark portrays Herodias as harboring the desire to kill John before the banquet and presents the daughter's request as originating with her mother.

3. Mark 6:26–28. The Gospel explicitly connects Herod's decision with both his oath and the presence of his dinner guests. The text therefore supports interpreting social standing and public embarrassment as important elements in his decision, although the broader psychological interpretation developed in this essay is my own.

4. Mark 6:14–16. Herod's later identification of Jesus with the executed John provides the basis for the concluding reflection about the persistence of John's voice in Herod's conscience. The claim about Herod's internal psychology is interpretive rather than something the text explicitly states.

Historical Note: The first-century Jewish historian Josephus independently records Herod Antipas's execution of John the Baptist in Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII. Josephus emphasizes Herod's fear that John's influence over the population might lead to political upheaval rather than the banquet narrative found in the Gospels.

When Everyone Was the Star

There is something wonderfully unpredictable about Single-A baseball. You can have a home run, questionable umpire calls, errors, baserunning mistakes, catcher interference, a hit batter, a promotional gimmick called Fantasy Football Losers Night, five-dollar beer, fireworks—and Miles Davis nearly getting you into an argument with the woman sitting next to you. All in one evening.

Tonight was another trip to Ontario to see the Tower Buzzers, the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate, this time against the Inland Empire 66ers, an affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. By my count, this was somewhere around my fifteenth baseball game of the season and my sixth or seventh different ballpark. I've been doing a lot of baseball traveling this summer, and I'm finding that the games themselves are becoming only part of the reason I enjoy going.

Once again, minor league baseball gave me something to think about that had very little to do with the final score.

An Hour Early

I arrived about an hour before the game and headed upstairs to the Flight Club. My seat included access to the air-conditioned lounge and buffet, something I appreciated considerably more tonight because it was hot outside and there wasn't much of a breeze.

Getting there early also gave me an unexpected bonus. The Dodgers game was playing on the big screen inside the lounge, so I spent about an hour watching the major league club before heading outside to watch the young men several rungs below them on the organizational ladder.

In retrospect, there was something interesting about that juxtaposition. For an hour, I watched players who had made it. Then I walked outside and watched players trying desperately to get there.

Single-A Shenanigans

The Tower Buzzers won, and the game had just about everything you expect from Single-A baseball. There was a home run, errors, baserunning mistakes, catcher interference, a hit batter, and a few umpire calls that left everyone wondering exactly where the strike zone had migrated.

And, of course, there was Fantasy Football Losers Night.

What exactly Fantasy Football Losers Night has to do with baseball, I couldn't tell you. Probably nothing. That's part of the charm of minor league baseball. Teams seem wonderfully shameless about inventing reasons to have fun at the ballpark. Every night needs a theme, every inning needs some entertainment, and apparently fantasy football losers need their own night at a baseball stadium.

None of it has to make much sense.

It just has to be fun.

So What?

One of my favorite things about the Ontario ballpark is the organist. He's terrific, and he doesn't simply play the predictable handful of songs we've all heard at baseball games for decades. Throughout the evening he'll slip in all kinds of music, and tonight he was playing quite a bit of jazz.

At one point, he played Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Later came Miles Davis and So What.

Sitting next to me was a woman who had struck up a fairly lengthy conversation with the woman sitting in front of her. They were talking quite a bit. In fact, at one point she was telling the other woman that her husband complains about how much she talks.

Meanwhile, between pitches, the organist was playing So What.

Without really thinking about it, and mostly under my breath, I went along with the music.

"So what?"

She turned and looked directly at me.

There are moments in life when you immediately understand that what you intended and what another person heard are two completely different things.

"No, no," I quickly explained. "The music. That's the name of the song. So What. Miles Davis."

Now I'm sitting in a minor league baseball stadium explaining Miles Davis, jazz, and the musical selections of the ballpark organist to a complete stranger so neither she nor her husband thinks the guy sitting next to her has just offered unsolicited commentary on her conversation.

Fortunately, she understood, and it became funny rather than confrontational. We ended up having a pleasant conversation ourselves throughout the rest of the evening.

That's another thing I like about these smaller ballparks. You're close enough to the game to hear things happening on the field, but you're also close enough to the people around you that strangers occasionally stop being strangers.

When Everyone Was the Star

Somewhere during all of this, I started paying closer attention to the players themselves.

Think about who these young men were only a few years ago. For many of them, they were probably the best baseball player at their high school. Maybe they were the best player in their entire league. The pitcher was the kid nobody could hit. The shortstop was the kid everyone came to watch. Their parents sat in the stands while coaches, teammates, and probably a few scouts talked about how far this kid might go.

Some went on to college and became stars there. Eventually somebody from a major league organization noticed them. They were scouted, drafted, signed, or otherwise brought into professional baseball.

Then something happened that must be both exhilarating and humbling.

The star walked into a clubhouse filled with stars.

Everyone there had been the best player somewhere. The pitcher who dominated his high school league was now throwing to a hitter who dominated another one. The college All-American was standing next to another college All-American. The player accustomed to being the person everyone watched was suddenly just another name on a minor league roster.

And they're still nowhere near the top.

Single-A isn't Dodger Stadium. There are more levels above them, filled with better pitchers, better hitters, better fielders, and other prospects competing for the same handful of opportunities. Even reaching Triple-A doesn't guarantee that you'll ever step onto a major league field.

That has to require an enormous psychological adjustment.

Learning Not to Be the Star

I noticed it particularly when the umpire made a couple of calls that certainly appeared questionable from where I was sitting. The players didn't argue. A batter might hesitate for a moment after a questionable strike call, but then he headed back toward the dugout. The pitchers behaved much the same way. There were no dramatic gestures, prolonged arguments, or attempts to show up the umpire.

They moved on.

Watching them, I started wondering how much of minor league player development has nothing whatsoever to do with hitting, pitching, or fielding a baseball. I suspect part of becoming a major league player is learning how not to be the star.

These young men have entered an organization. Talent got them through the door, but talent alone isn't going to get them to Los Angeles. Now they have to learn discipline, patience, teamwork, and how to deal with failure. They have to learn how to accept instruction when they've spent most of their lives being better at baseball than nearly everyone around them.

Perhaps most importantly, they have to learn that being the best player on the team and being a good teammate aren't necessarily the same thing.

From a leadership perspective, I found that fascinating. Organizations outside baseball struggle with exactly the same problem. Someone excels at one level, gets promoted, and suddenly discovers that everyone around them is talented too. The qualities that made someone exceptional yesterday may only make them average tomorrow.

Professional baseball seems to recognize that transition explicitly. That's why the system isn't merely about practice. It's called player development.

They're developing the player, not merely the swing.

Five-Dollar Beer

Of course, I wasn't contemplating leadership development for nine straight innings. This was still minor league baseball.

Ontario has a promotion called the Beer Batter. An opposing player is designated as the Beer Batter, and if he strikes out, beer drops to five dollars for a period of time.

He struck out.

The stadium celebrated, and I went to get my five-dollar beer.

When I ordered one, they tried to give me two. Apparently buying only one discounted beer was an unusual enough decision to require clarification. I assured them that one was fine.

It was very cold, the stadium was very hot, and under those circumstances one cold beer was just about perfect.

Fireworks After Baseball

The Tower Buzzers won, which made the evening considerably more enjoyable than my previous visit, when the Fresno Grizzlies demolished them 17-2.

After the final out came the fireworks. I've now seen several minor league fireworks shows this summer, and I'm becoming convinced that fireworks after a baseball game are one of life's underrated pleasures.

You don't need Disneyland. You don't need the Fourth of July. You don't need a massive stadium filled with fifty thousand people. Sometimes it's enough to sit in a small ballpark with a few thousand other people while the stadium lights go dark and fireworks explode beyond the outfield.

Then the lights come back on, everyone gathers their things, and you walk back to your car.

Another summer night completed.

The Road Ahead

By my rough count, I'm somewhere around fifteen baseball games into this season, spread across six or seven different ballparks. I'm hoping to add a couple more major league games before the season ends, and I'd still like to get out to the ballparks in San Bernardino and perhaps Visalia if I can work them into my travels.

But I'm discovering that keeping track of the ballparks isn't really the point. Neither is keeping track of wins and losses.

It's the things that happen while you're there.

It's hearing Miles Davis on a ballpark organ and accidentally making a stranger think you've insulted her. It's watching a home run on a hot summer night. It's getting a five-dollar beer because some unfortunate opposing batter struck out. It's fireworks over the outfield.

And occasionally it's watching a group of young men chase a dream and realizing that one of the first things they may have to learn is how to stop being the person they have always been.

For most of their lives, somebody told these kids they were special. Their talent proved it. Their statistics proved it. The trophies and scholarships and scouts proved it.

Then professional baseball handed them a uniform, put them in a clubhouse filled with other exceptional young men, and essentially said:

Now show us what else you've got.

Maybe that's one of the reasons I keep going to these games. I leave home expecting to watch baseball, and somewhere between the first pitch and the fireworks, I usually find myself thinking about something else entirely.

Tonight it was about what happens when everyone was the star.

And what it takes to become something more.

We Must Not End Here: Prince Hall and the Three Pillars of a Living Lodge

In The Temple Within, I return repeatedly to the three great pillars of Freemasonry—Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty—not simply as architectural symbols within the Lodge, but as a practical framework for thinking about what a healthy Lodge should accomplish. Traditionally, the pillars represent qualities necessary to support and adorn a great undertaking. My argument takes those familiar ideas and asks what they might mean operationally for a Lodge trying to remain relevant to its members and useful to its community.

I have come to think of Wisdom as Masonic education, Strength as pathways for meaningful participation, and Beauty as community engagement. Wisdom gives a Mason something worth learning. Strength gives him somewhere meaningful to put that knowledge to work. Beauty allows the effects of that work to become visible beyond the walls of the Lodge. When those three functions work together, the Lodge can become more than a place where Masons meet. It can become a center of Masonic and civic life.

I have thought about that framework primarily as a response to challenges facing contemporary Freemasonry. We frequently talk about declining membership, retention, Masonic education, and the difficulty of keeping newly raised Masons engaged. Yet the underlying idea—that Masonic knowledge should lead to action and that Masonic action should eventually extend beyond the Lodge—is hardly new.

In 1797, Prince Hall gave us a remarkable expression of it.

Prince Hall and African Lodge

Prince Hall occupies a unique place in both American and Masonic history. On March 6, 1775, Hall and fourteen other Black men were initiated into Freemasonry by a military lodge associated with British forces in Boston. They subsequently organized African Lodge No. 1. In 1784, the group petitioned the Grand Lodge of England for a charter, which was granted, creating African Lodge No. 459. From those beginnings developed the Masonic tradition that now bears Prince Hall's name (Hinks & Kantrowitz, 2013).

Those dates matter because of the world in which Hall and his Brothers were practicing Masonry. The American Revolution proclaimed liberty while slavery remained a reality. Black Americans occupied an uncertain and often hostile position within the new republic. Hall's Masonic leadership consequently cannot be separated neatly from his advocacy for Black citizenship, abolition, and education. Scholars of early Black Freemasonry have shown how Prince Hall Masonry became both a fraternal institution and a vehicle through which Black men could articulate ideas about citizenship, morality, dignity, and participation in American society (Hinks & Kantrowitz, 2013; Walker, 2008).

Hall himself acted on those ideas outside the Lodge. In 1787, he was among the Black Bostonians petitioning Massachusetts authorities over the inadequate education available to Black children. His advocacy reflected a larger struggle among Black Bostonians to connect education with citizenship, independence, and participation in American society (Mills, 2021).

Hall also opposed slavery directly. He participated in petitions against slavery and the slave trade, making the contradiction between America's professions of liberty and the treatment of Black Americans impossible to ignore. The significance is difficult to miss: Hall was not practicing a Masonry confined to ritual performance. The principles discussed among Brothers were being carried into questions of education, citizenship, slavery, and public morality.

That provides important context for what he told his Lodge in 1797.

A Charge at Menotomy

On June 24, 1797, Prince Hall delivered a Charge to African Lodge at Menotomy, Massachusetts. The address was important enough to Hall's Brothers that it was published at their request. The original eighteen-page pamphlet survives today in the Library of Congress (Hall, 1797).

A Masonic Charge is moral instruction. It takes the principles of the Craft and asks the Mason to consider what they demand of him. Hall's Charge is particularly valuable because we do not need to reconstruct his thinking through generations of later interpretation. We can read his own words.

At one point Hall considers the obligations of charity and love that exist among Masons. He recognizes a particular responsibility toward one's Brothers, but then refuses to allow the moral lesson to remain confined there. He writes:

“although we are to begin here, we must not end here” (Hall, 1797).

The sentence is short, but its implications are enormous. Hall's argument expands outward. Moral concern cannot be restricted to the fraternity, nor confined by divisions of color, place, or nation. His Masonic audience is being asked to understand Brotherhood not as the outer boundary of moral responsibility, but as its beginning.

A Mason learns Brotherhood by practicing it with the man beside him. But if that lesson is genuine, the principle cannot depend upon the other man wearing an apron. The Lodge becomes the place where a moral habit is cultivated, not the boundary beyond which that habit ceases to operate.

Scholars examining African American Freemasonry have identified precisely this larger social dimension. Hinks and Kantrowitz (2013) describe Prince Hall Masonry as promoting fellowship and social advancement while also becoming intertwined with opposition to slavery and racial inequality. Walker (2008) places African American Freemasonry within a larger struggle over democracy and citizenship. Later Prince Hall institutions likewise maintained substantial connections with the communities around them (Muraskin, 1975).

Hall's 1797 Charge therefore gives us something more interesting than an artifact of early Masonic history. It gives us a way to reconsider the three pillars of a living Lodge.

Wisdom: Give the Mason Something Worth Knowing

The first pillar is Wisdom. In The Temple Within, I define Wisdom operationally as Masonic education. A healthy Lodge should explore the deeper meanings of ritual and symbolism, encourage discussion, and help members apply Masonic teachings to their lives.

But Masonic education cannot merely mean accumulating Masonic trivia. The purpose of education is not to create a Mason who knows more facts about Freemasonry than the man sitting next to him. The purpose is to develop his capacity for reflection, judgment, and ethical action.

That idea is consistent with Hall's larger life as well as his Masonic work. His involvement in the struggle for Black education in Boston demonstrates that education and citizenship were closely connected concerns. Mills (2021) shows that the Black educational movement in which Hall participated linked schooling with political agency and the development of citizenship.

Prince Hall Masonry would continue to serve an educational function long after Hall's death. Muraskin (1976), studying Prince Hall Freemasonry as an institution of adult education, found that it provided forms of moral instruction, citizenship education, intellectual development, social training, and practical learning outside conventional educational institutions.

That is Wisdom functioning as more than information. It is formation. In my own Masonic journey, I discovered much the same thing. Understanding the Craft required more than memorizing ritual or attending meetings. It demanded study, reflection, discussion, and perseverance. The goal of Masonic education should therefore not simply be to explain the symbols. It should teach a Mason to think with them.

But education creates another problem. Once we have taught the Mason, what do we give him to do?

Strength: Give the Mason a Pathway to Participate

This is why I increasingly regard Strength as perhaps the most neglected of the three pillars. In my framework, Strength means creating pathways for meaningful participation. A healthy Lodge provides opportunities for its members to contribute, not merely through elected office, but through mentoring, education, charitable projects, events, committees, community programs, and the countless forms of labor necessary to sustain a functioning Lodge.

A Mason cannot remain permanently a recipient of Masonry. At some point, he must become a participant in it. That distinction becomes especially important when considering Hall. African Lodge was not merely creating a private space in which Black men could enjoy fraternal fellowship. The historical scholarship demonstrates that early African American Freemasonry became intertwined with questions of abolition, citizenship, community formation, public argument, and racial equality (Hinks & Kantrowitz, 2013; Walker, 2008). The Lodge helped create an environment in which men could learn together, organize together, and act together. That is a form of Strength.

Wisdom without Strength risks creating educated spectators: men who attend lectures, study symbols, understand ritual, and perhaps possess considerable Masonic knowledge but have no meaningful avenue through which to convert understanding into labor. A Lodge cannot continually give a man Light and then give him nothing to illuminate. If Wisdom teaches the Mason what the Craft asks of him, Strength creates opportunities for him to practice it.

The Brother becomes a mentor or teacher. He helps organize the charitable project, welcomes the new Mason, assists with education, solves problems, takes responsibility for some part of Lodge life, or finds another place where his abilities can serve the work. Participation does not require everyone to become an officer. It requires a Lodge capable of showing each Brother that there is meaningful work to be done and that some portion of that work can be his.

The lesson thereby becomes labor. The Mason ceases merely to receive and begins to contribute, and what he has learned begins to acquire practical form. That progression naturally carries us toward the third pillar, because once knowledge becomes action, we have to ask where the effects of that action should end.

Beauty: We Must Not End Here

Of the three pillars, Beauty may be where Prince Hall's 1797 Charge speaks most directly to the framework I have been developing. In The Temple Within, I argue that Beauty extends beyond the Lodge walls to the community it serves. Prince Hall expressed the underlying principle with remarkable economy nearly 230 years ago when he told his Brothers that “although we are to begin here, we must not end here” (Hall, 1797).

That sentence changes the way we might understand community engagement. Beauty is not simply public relations, nor is it putting the Square and Compasses on a banner at a community festival so people know the Lodge exists. Neither should charity become primarily an opportunity to take photographs proving that Masons performed charity. Those things may make the fraternity visible, but visibility alone is not Beauty.

Beauty is what the surrounding community experiences when Masonic formation works. If Wisdom has taught a man to think differently, and Strength has given him opportunities to turn those principles into disciplined action, Beauty is the visible consequence of that process. The lessons taught within the Lodge begin to affect families, neighborhoods, institutions, and communities because the men carrying those lessons leave the Lodge and live among other people.

Hall's own life illustrates that movement. His concern with education did not stop with discussion among his Brothers; it entered the public struggle over schooling. His opposition to slavery did not remain an abstract statement about universal Brotherhood; it entered petitions and public argument. His understanding of Masonic charity did not terminate at the edge of the fraternity. The Lodge may have been one place where principles were cultivated and Brotherhood practiced, but Hall's Charge makes clear that the moral circle could not remain closed around Masons alone.

That is what makes “we must not end here” such an important Masonic idea. The Lodge is a workshop in which a man practices fidelity, charity, restraint, responsibility, and concern for another person. But if those principles are genuine, their moral force cannot suddenly disappear when he encounters someone who is not a Brother. Beauty emerges when the character being cultivated within the Lodge becomes visible through the Mason's conduct outside it.

The Three Pillars of a Living Lodge

Prince Hall was not proposing my three-pillar model in 1797, and we should not pretend that he was. To impose a contemporary organizational framework upon his Charge and attribute it to him would distort the historical record. What we can say is that when Hall's thought is placed beside this framework, there is a striking resonance between them.

Wisdom asks the Lodge to give a Mason something worth knowing. It means teaching history, philosophy, symbolism, ritual, and ethical principles, but it also means developing the ability to reflect upon those things and apply them. Strength asks what happens next. Once a man has been given something worth knowing, he needs meaningful opportunities to put that knowledge to work. Beauty then asks where the consequences of that work become visible. If the process is functioning properly, families, neighborhoods, institutions, and communities should experience something different because Masons are present within them.

The pillars therefore depend upon one another. A Lodge possessing Wisdom but lacking Strength risks becoming a classroom in which increasingly knowledgeable men remain spectators. A Lodge possessing Strength without Wisdom can become busy without being purposeful, producing activity without clearly connecting that activity to the deeper lessons of the Craft. A Lodge possessing Wisdom and Strength but never allowing their effects to reach the surrounding community can become self-contained, preserving a beautiful internal system whose influence stops at its own front door.

A living Lodge brings the three together. It educates men so that they understand the principles they have undertaken to practice, provides meaningful ways for those men to participate in the work, and encourages that work to become visible through service and conduct beyond the Lodge. Wisdom educates the Mason, Strength engages him, and Beauty reveals what Masonry has produced.

This is why the question of membership retention may be more complicated than simply asking how we persuade men to keep attending meetings. Perhaps we should ask what happens after a man receives the degrees. What does he learn that deepens his understanding of the Craft? What meaningful work is placed before him? Where can he participate without waiting years for an elected office? Most importantly, who benefits from the man he is becoming?

Those are questions about organizational health, but they are also questions about purpose. If a Lodge teaches without providing opportunities to act, something has been left unfinished. If it provides activity without giving that activity Masonic meaning, something has also been lost. And if all of that learning and labor remains invisible beyond the Lodge, Prince Hall's old admonition returns with uncomfortable force: we may have begun here, but we have also ended here.

Begin Here, But Do Not End Here

Prince Hall lived in a world profoundly different from ours. African Lodge existed amid slavery, racial exclusion, revolutionary political change, and uncertainty about the place of Black Americans in the new republic. Modern Lodges face different problems, and it would trivialize Hall's circumstances to pretend otherwise. His Charge was not a twenty-first-century discussion of membership retention, Lodge programming, or community outreach.

Yet the principle he articulated survives the circumstances that produced it. The Lodge must be a beginning. Masonry begins by working upon the individual, giving him symbols through which to examine himself, Brothers among whom he can practice fraternity, and obligations intended to shape his conduct. The Temple begins within, because the first material upon which the Mason is expected to labor is himself.

But successful work upon the individual should eventually produce consequences beyond the individual. The educated Mason should become useful, the engaged Mason should become consequential, and the Lodge should leave evidence of its existence not merely in minutes, membership rolls, buildings, and bank accounts, but in the people and communities touched by the character of the men it develops.

This may ultimately be the connection between Prince Hall's Charge and the three pillars of the living Lodge. Wisdom begins the work by giving a Mason something worthy of contemplation and study. Strength carries that work forward by providing meaningful pathways through which understanding becomes participation. Beauty completes the progression when the character and labor cultivated within the Lodge become visible in the world beyond it.

Prince Hall's challenge therefore remains remarkably contemporary. We may begin among ourselves, but we cannot allow the moral work of Freemasonry to terminate there. If our ritual, education, symbolism, fellowship, and obligations produce nothing beyond the walls of the Lodge, we should ask ourselves whether we have truly built the Temple—or merely studied the plans.

Wisdom may begin the work, and Strength may carry it forward, but Beauty is how the world knows something was built.

References

Hall, P. (1797). A charge, delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, at Menotomy. Benjamin Edes.

Hinks, P. P., & Kantrowitz, S. (Eds.). (2013). All men free and brethren: Essays on the history of African American Freemasonry. Cornell University Press.

Mills, S. (2021). An African school for African Americans: Black demands for education in antebellum Boston. History of Education Quarterly, 61(4), 478–502.

Muraskin, W. A. (1975). Middle-class Blacks in a white society: Prince Hall Freemasonry in America. University of California Press.

Muraskin, W. A. (1976). The hidden role of fraternal organizations in the education of Black adults: Prince Hall Freemasonry as a case study. Adult Education, 26(4).

Walker, C. D. B. (2008). A noble fight: African American Freemasonry and the struggle for democracy in America. University of Illinois Press.

Wallace, M. O. (2002). Constructing the Black masculine: Identity and ideality in African American men's literature and culture, 1775–1995. Duke University Press.

Three Payments Left—Then the Universe Totaled My Car

There are certain things you probably shouldn't say out loud because the universe has a peculiar sense of humor. “Things are finally settling down” is one. “What else could possibly go wrong?” is another. I recently discovered a third: “This is the last car I'm ever going to buy.”

I meant it, too. I had a Kia K5 that I loved, it was approaching 100,000 miles, and I had exactly three payments left. I had taken care of that car from the beginning. I kept the maintenance records, did the services, fixed what needed fixing, and treated it like something I planned to own for a very long time. It was the first model year of the K5, a high-end version with all-wheel drive, a beautiful red interior, and enough bells and whistles that even five years later, I still enjoyed getting behind the wheel.

At nearly 68 years old, I had a plan. Three more payments, then no more car payment. I would buy a good aftermarket warranty, keep maintaining the Kia, and drive it until either the car or I decided we'd had enough. Earlier that very day, I had explained the plan to my wife, Marie. I was almost at 100,000 miles, the car was running beautifully, and I saw absolutely no reason to replace it.

“This is the last car I'm going to buy,” I told her.

The universe apparently heard me.

Although I didn't know it at the time, the story had actually begun about six weeks earlier with a yappy dog and a Milk Dud.

My office occupies one-third of what was originally a three-car garage. In the summertime, I can open the office window and the garage door and get a wonderful breeze moving through the place. I often work late, and it's a pretty comfortable arrangement until something interrupts it.

In this case, that something was one of the neighborhood's little yappy dogs. They occasionally escape and make their way over to my house, where they bark at my dog and generally create the kind of commotion that small dogs seem to believe is their contribution to society.

It was about eleven o'clock at night when I heard them going at it again. I happened to be eating Milk Duds, so I walked out of the office and into the garage to see what was happening.

There stood one of the little yappy dogs.

Peeing in my garage.

I bit down on the Milk Dud.

Up came the bridge on my lower jaw.

There are chains of cause and effect that make perfect sense when you look backward at them, even though no sane person could have predicted them going forward. Dog pees in garage. Man bites Milk Dud. Dental bridge comes out. Six weeks later, man buys new car.

We'll get there.

The next morning, I went to the dentist to have the bridge put back in place. While he was working, he brought up a tooth toward the back of my mouth that we'd been watching.

“You know that tooth we've been talking about?”

I knew the tooth.

It was coming out.

The molar behind it has an enormous, ugly filling in it. I have a certain affection for that filling because it has been with me for half a century. A Navy dentist put it there 50 years ago when I was in Coast Guard boot camp. The Coast Guard didn't have its own dentists, so when we needed dental work, we got Navy dentists.

That Navy dentist did one hell of a job.

The filling isn't pretty. I doubt anybody would put it on the cover of a dental journal as an example of cosmetic dentistry. But after 50 years, it's still there. It survived my years in the Coast Guard, a marriage, children, careers, businesses, countless meals, and five decades of everything else life managed to throw at me.

Ugly or not, that filling has earned my respect.

The tooth in front of it hadn't been quite as fortunate. It had cracked, and there was no saving it. That started several weeks of dental adventures: pulling the tooth, shaving down the surrounding teeth, fitting a temporary bridge, waiting for the permanent bridge, and paying the portion that insurance politely leaves behind for you to enjoy.

I have also become convinced that dental drills get louder as you get older. At 20, somebody drills on your tooth. At nearly 68, the sound seems to travel directly through your skull and into whatever part of your brain stores regret.

Finally, on Thursday, the permanent bridge went in.

It fit perfectly. The dentist cemented it into place, everything felt right, and I walked out happy. I've been going to these dentists for years. They've done both of my bridges, and they do excellent work. I couldn't have been more pleased.

That evening, I was scheduled to drive to Arcadia Masonic Lodge to present a Masonic education program.

The day before, I had recorded a video I called Inside the Workshop. It showed some of the process I use to prepare before giving a presentation. People occasionally tell me I'm a great public speaker. I appreciate the compliment, but I've always thought there was something else going on.

I'm prepared.

There is research. Then an outline. Then more research. Then another outline. Things get added, moved, cut, rewritten, and condensed until I finally have the presentation I want. And then I rehearse it.

Preparation has a remarkable way of looking like talent from the audience.

By the time I stand in front of a room, I don't want to be figuring out what I'm going to say. I've already figured it out. The audience gets the final product, not the workshop that produced it.

So Thursday evening should have been simple. The permanent bridge was finally in my mouth. The Masonic education was rehearsed. I had plenty of time to get to Arcadia, and I was planning to stop somewhere and eat before heading to the lodge.

I was driving along when traffic ahead of me came to a stop.

I stopped.

Then I looked in the rearview mirror.

The car behind me wasn't stopping.

If you've spent enough time behind the wheel, you know that moment. Your brain understands what's about to happen before your body can do anything useful about it. There was a car stopped in front of me. My foot was already on the brake. There was nowhere to go.

Then it hit me.

Hard.

After the initial shock passed, I got out and looked at the Kia.

The bumper was destroyed, but that was only the obvious damage. The quarter panels showed signs of buckling. The trunk lid was pinched. When I looked down into the trunk, I could see that the structure itself had been pushed inward and bent at a sharp angle.

It didn't look good.

And this wasn't just another car to me.

This was the car with three payments left.

It was the car I had told my wife that very day I intended to keep. The car I was going to buy an aftermarket warranty for. The car that had nearly 100,000 miles on it and was still in great condition. The car that, only hours earlier, I had declared would be the last car I ever bought.

Apparently, I had neglected to consult the Bronco driver.

 We exchanged information, and after reporting the accident, I was left with one immediate problem: the trunk wouldn't stay closed. Fortunately, there are very few problems in life that can't at least be temporarily negotiated with a roll of duct tape. I taped the trunk shut, looked over the rest of the damage, and made a decision that probably says something about me. I still had a Masonic education to give in Arcadia. The car was wounded, but it was drivable. I was shaken, but I was fine. And I had spent all that time researching, writing, and rehearsing the presentation. So I climbed back into my battered Kia, duct tape holding the trunk together, and continued on to Arcadia Masonic Lodge. I stood up that evening and gave the lecture just as I had planned. Preparation has a way of carrying you forward, even when the plan itself has been rear-ended. 

We exchanged information. I eventually pulled off the freeway into a parking lot and contacted USAA.

From that moment forward, something happened that deserves to be part of this story because we spend plenty of time complaining about insurance companies.

USAA was terrific.

They took the claim, directed me to the collision center they trusted, helped arrange everything, and got the rental-car process moving. That night, I uploaded the documents online. The next morning, things were already happening.

I also made the mistake of spending part of Thursday night reading about unibody construction.

Until that evening, unibody construction occupied exactly none of my thoughts. Suddenly, I was getting an education. A bumper can be replaced. A trunk lid can be replaced. Quarter panels can be repaired. But when the energy from an impact travels into the structural portions of a unibody vehicle, the conversation changes.

The next morning, I took the Kia to the collision center. I pointed out the damage inside the trunk to the man looking at the car.

He studied it for a moment.

“It doesn't look good.”

That was not the reassurance I was hoping for.

He told me it was going to be close, although ultimately the decision belonged to the adjuster. I left the Kia there, went over to Enterprise, and my rental car was waiting.

Again, USAA had made the whole thing remarkably painless.

Then Sunday morning I woke up and saw the message.

The Kia was totaled.

I stared at that for a while.

A car is an object. I understand that. It's metal and glass and rubber and plastic, with an increasingly ridiculous number of computers tucked into places we never see. But we don't really experience our cars as collections of parts.

We experience them in miles.

That Kia and I had traveled nearly 100,000 of them together.

And I had three payments left.

Then I saw the settlement amount.

That helped.

Because I had taken such good care of the car, kept the maintenance records, and because of the particular model and equipment, the valuation was excellent. USAA treated me fairly. There wasn't a prolonged argument or some ridiculous lowball offer that turned an accident into a second disaster. I reviewed the amount online and accepted it.

Which created a new problem.

I needed a car.

Only a few days after announcing that I had purchased my last one.

I started looking around. I looked at used K5s and newer K5s. I checked dealerships. On Saturday, I had already gone online and gotten pre-approved for financing through my credit union. If I had to buy another car, I wanted to walk into the dealership knowing exactly where I stood. The insurance settlement was going to become my down payment—all of it—which put me in a strong position.

Marie and I headed to the Kia dealership in Ontario.

I wasn't necessarily going there to buy a car.

This, I've learned, is another sentence the universe finds amusing.

Then I saw the new K5.

I had really wanted another red interior because that had been one of my favorite things about the old car. But the new one caught my attention for another reason. It had a matte metallic gray finish, a beautiful color that reminded me a little of the stainless-steel look of the DeLorean from Back to the Future, only darker and more refined.

Then I got inside.

Five years of technology had transformed a car I already liked.

The 10-inch screen I had been perfectly happy with had become a 13-inch display. My iPhone connected through Apple CarPlay. The controls were better. The interior had been completely redesigned. The passenger compartment seemed roomier. The trunk seemed larger. Everything was familiar enough that I knew I was sitting in a K5, but different enough that it felt like an entirely new car.

It was essentially the car I loved, five years into the future.

I bought it.

There was one more bit of absurdity waiting for me. I had done the responsible thing and arranged financing with my credit union before walking into the dealership. Then the dealership's finance guy managed to find me a better interest rate.

Through the same credit union.

At that point, I decided to stop asking questions.

I drove home in a brand-new Kia K5 with a 100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty and additional warranty coverage—the very kind of protection I had been planning to purchase for the old K5 after making those last three payments.

A few days earlier, I knew exactly what the next several years were going to look like. I would make three payments. I would buy the warranty. I would maintain the car. I would drive it for years.

It was a good plan.

That's one of the things driving teaches you if you spend enough time behind the wheel. We like to believe we're in control because we're holding the steering wheel. We pick the destination. We choose the route. We decide when to leave. We control the speed. Most of the time, that illusion works pretty well.

Then something appears in the rearview mirror.

I've spent enough time driving to know that the best stories rarely happen when everything goes according to plan. They happen when somebody gets into your car and says something you never expected to hear. They happen when you take a turn you weren't planning to take. They happen when the destination changes halfway through the trip. They happen when life decides that your carefully constructed itinerary is merely a suggestion.

Sometimes they happen when a Bronco doesn't stop.

And apparently, sometimes they begin six weeks earlier when a yappy little dog pees in your garage while you're eating a Milk Dud.

Looking backward, I can trace the entire ridiculous chain. A dog wandered into my garage. I bit down on a Milk Dud. A bridge came loose. A cracked tooth was discovered. Six weeks later, the permanent bridge went in. That evening, I headed toward Arcadia to give a Masonic education. Traffic stopped. I stopped. The Bronco didn't. The Kia I planned to keep for years was totaled, and a few days later I was sitting behind the wheel of its newer cousin with another 100,000 miles of road waiting in front of me.

Three payments.

That's how close I was to the plan.

Maybe that's why I've always loved driving stories. The road doesn't care about the plan. It simply keeps unfolding through the windshield, one mile at a time. You can prepare. You can maintain the car. You can rehearse the presentation. You can leave early. You can make all the right decisions.

But you don't get to write every turn before you get there.

Sometimes the road writes part of the story for you.

And every once in a while, you get lucky enough to walk away from it, look back at the whole ridiculous chain of events, and realize you've got another story to tell.

If you want more driving stories—about the people, the miles, the unexpected turns, and the things you discover when the road refuses to follow the plan—get a copy of Chasing the Surge.

Beat LA, Even in Single-A: A Summer Night at the Lake Elsinore Diamond

There are certain rivalries that supposedly belong to the big leagues. Dodgers and Padres. Los Angeles and San Diego. Dodger blue against brown and gold. Put 50,000 people inside Dodger Stadium or Petco Park and there is no mistaking the tension. But I wondered what happens when you send that rivalry down to Single-A baseball. Does anybody still care?

Apparently, they do.

That was one of the questions I had in mind when I headed south to Lake Elsinore to see the Lake Elsinore Storm take on the Ontario Tower Buzzers. The Storm are a Single-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, while Ontario belongs to the Dodgers organization. It was also another stop in what has unintentionally become my baseball tour of 2026. Lake Elsinore Diamond was my sixth different ballpark of the year and my 13th game. I had never been there before, which was reason enough to go.

104 Degrees and Time for Baseball

The Diamond is remarkably easy to reach, sitting just off Interstate 15 in Lake Elsinore. From home, the drive is roughly an hour and 15 minutes to two hours, depending on the whims of Southern California traffic. I arrived around 5:30 p.m. for a 6:45 game, about 15 minutes before the gates opened.

It was 104 degrees. Not 104 in the afternoon, but 104 degrees at 5:30 in the evening. There are temperatures that make you question whether baseball was actually intended to be a summer sport, and 104 is one of them.

Fortunately, the stadium provided an escape. On the left-field side is the Taproom, an actual indoor restaurant with air conditioning. I use "air conditioning" generously. It was probably 80 degrees inside, but after walking in from 104, it felt wonderful. I ordered a smash burger and a beer, and the burger turned out to be the best hamburger I've had at any ballpark this season. It wasn't something that had spent the afternoon waiting beneath a heat lamp. It tasted freshly made, and it was genuinely good.

One wall was essentially a gigantic screen made from multiple large televisions, and playing across it was the Padres game against the Houston Astros. Watching the Padres play the Astros felt a little like watching two villains fight each other. You aren't necessarily rooting for anybody. You just eat your hamburger, drink your beer, and see what happens.

Eventually, though, it was time for the baseball I had actually driven there to watch.

Twenty Dollars From the Action

I reached my seat just as the Star-Spangled Banner was beginning, and what a seat it was. My ticket cost about $20 and put me in the High Tower section, roughly 12 rows from the field and just off to the right of the batter. I've had excellent seats at Dodger Stadium and other ballparks, but in terms of pure proximity to the game, this might have been the best baseball seat I've ever had.

At that distance, you aren't merely watching baseball. You hear things differently. You see how quickly everything happens. And you learn to pay attention, especially to foul balls. We were sitting in prime foul-ball territory. Pop-ups would sail backward, hit the roof behind us, and sometimes bounce back toward the seats. This was not a section where you spent much time staring at your phone.

Then came the broken bat. One of the Tower Buzzers hit a ball hard enough to shatter his bat, and a large piece of it shot over the protective netting and into the stands. It didn't float or tumble harmlessly through the air. It looked like a missile. The piece flew toward the upper seats and came crashing down in an area where, fortunately, nobody was sitting.

Nobody was hurt, but somewhere inside that ballpark, I am certain several stadium executives simultaneously felt their stomachs tighten.

A Ballpark With a View

Lake Elsinore Diamond opened in the 1990s, so this isn't a shiny new ballpark. But it has been maintained remarkably well. More importantly, it has something many stadiums don't have: a sense of place.

Each minor-league ballpark I've visited has its own personality. Fresno has an unmistakably urban setting. You feel as though baseball has been dropped directly into the middle of the city. Ontario doesn't offer much of a view beyond the field. It is functional, but there isn't much scenery pulling your eyes toward the horizon.

Lake Elsinore is different. From behind home plate, looking east beyond the outfield, you see the dry, sun-scorched hills surrounding the Interstate 15 corridor. Early in the evening, those hills look appropriately brutal beneath the summer sun. Then the sun begins to disappear, and the entire experience changes.

The temperature that had been 104 degrees when I arrived eventually dropped into the mid-80s. The seats fell into shade and a breeze began moving through the stadium. Suddenly, what had seemed almost ridiculously hot became a nearly perfect Southern California summer evening. There was baseball in front of me, desert hills beyond the outfield, and a cool breeze moving through the stands.

For a while, there wasn't anywhere else I particularly wanted to be.

The Dodgers and Padres, Just Smaller

As darkness settled over the stadium, something else became noticeable. The Tower Buzzers increasingly looked like the Dodgers. They were wearing the familiar road gray. "Ontario" was written across the front, but from a distance, especially under the stadium lights, you could almost convince yourself you were watching Los Angeles.

Almost.

The baseball itself occasionally ruined the illusion. There were errors. There were some questionable adventures on the basepaths. There were moments that reminded everyone that these were Single-A players still learning professional baseball. There were also some excellent plays, including a couple of sharp double plays and several good hits. It was good baseball, even when it was unmistakably minor-league baseball.

But the most interesting part was happening in the stands. I wore a Dodgers jersey and Dodgers cap. Other people wore Dodgers gear. Around us were fans wearing Padres shirts and caps. Apparently, nobody had informed them that this was merely Single-A, because before long the familiar chant came from the Padres side of the rivalry: "Beat LA!"

There were other comments directed toward the Dodgers organization as well, some less printable than others. I found myself laughing at the absurdity of it. These weren't the Los Angeles Dodgers. These were young players in Ontario uniforms, many of them still a very long way from Dodger Stadium. Yet the rivalry had followed them.

The uniforms were different, the stadium was smaller, the crowd was smaller, and the salaries were certainly smaller. But somehow Dodgers versus Padres still meant something.

I actually felt a little sorry for some of the players. There was some loud heckling during the game that seemed unnecessary. Minor-league players are developing professionals, and screaming abuse at them from the stands seems particularly pointless. But the broader rivalry was unmistakable. Dodgers fans were Dodgers fans, and Padres fans were Padres fans, even in Single-A.

Baseball's Most Unusual Bat Boy

Minor-league baseball usually brings a collection of promotions, contests, and between-inning antics. Lake Elsinore actually had fewer of those than some of the other minor-league stadiums I've visited this year, but it had something better: a bat dog.

The Storm had a regular bat boy, but occasionally a dog would come running out from the Storm dugout, retrieve a discarded bat, and carry it back. There is something inherently ridiculous about watching a dog perform an official baseball duty, and it was also one of the best things I saw all night.

Major League Baseball can keep the pitch clock. Give me the bat dog.

A Thousand People in a Six-Thousand-Seat Ballpark

The Diamond holds roughly 6,000 spectators, but on this particular night there may have been around 1,000 people in attendance. That creates a different atmosphere. There are enough people for the place to feel alive, but not enough to create the inconveniences that come with major-league baseball. You aren't fighting 50,000 people for parking, standing in endless concession lines, or spending another hour after the final out attempting to escape the parking lot.

There was one brief reminder that even small crowds can produce big personalities. Around the seventh inning, a few people migrated into our section who clearly hadn't started the evening there. Our section required wristbands, and these newcomers were both loud and, by all appearances, well into their evening's drinking. It became one of those situations where avoiding eye contact seemed like the wisest strategy. I started wondering where security was, but within half an inning or so, they got up and disappeared. Problem solved.

The rest of the evening was relaxed, and the baseball was enjoyable. The Storm won by several runs, sending the Dodgers' Single-A representatives home with a loss. For me, though, the score wasn't particularly important. What mattered was discovering another place where baseball feels different.

Worth the Drive

Lake Elsinore Diamond isn't Dodger Stadium. It doesn't pretend to be, and that's precisely the attraction. For about $20, I sat closer to professional baseball than I normally could at a major-league stadium. I ate the best ballpark hamburger I've had this year. I watched a bat dog retrieve bats. I saw a shattered piece of lumber become an airborne projectile. I watched the desert hills change as the sun went down.

And I discovered that apparently you can take Dodgers-Padres baseball out of Los Angeles and San Diego, send it down to Single-A, put only a thousand people in the stands, and somebody will still eventually yell, "Beat LA!"

Of the minor-league parks I've visited, I would put Lake Elsinore comfortably ahead of the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes experience. The food was better. The view was better. My seat was better, and a comparable ticket was actually a few dollars cheaper. Getting out after the game was effortless. There was no traffic jam and no long crawl toward the freeway. It was simply back onto Interstate 15 and home.

So, yes, I'll return. Lake Elsinore was ballpark number six and game number 13 of my season. I'd still like to get to an Angels game and squeeze in another two or three games at Dodger Stadium before the season ends, but that's part of what I've come to enjoy about visiting these smaller parks. Baseball isn't experienced only in its cathedrals.

Sometimes it's found in a 6,000-seat stadium beside the freeway, on a 104-degree evening, with a $20 ticket in your pocket, a cold beer in your hand, desert hills beyond the outfield, and a dog running out of the dugout to retrieve a bat.

And sometimes you discover that even 80 miles away from Dodger Stadium, somebody is still waiting to yell, "Beat LA."

This paragraph structure is a better fit for the essay style—more continuous storytelling, with the isolated lines now reserved for genuine punch or transition.

Working the Tailings: Finding Gold in Criticism

Author's Note: This essay is written in much the same spirit as many of the essays in The Temple Within. It begins with an ordinary experience, considers it through the symbolism and working tools of Freemasonry, and ends with questions for personal reflection. Although this essay reaches beyond the subjects explored in the book, it offers a taste of the approach found there: using the lessons of the Craft not merely as subjects to study, but as tools for examining how we live, work, create, and grow.

Writing a book sometimes feels less like writing than mining.

You begin with a belief that somewhere beneath the surface there is something worth finding. Perhaps it is an argument, a story, a question, or simply an idea that refuses to leave you alone. Research removes one layer. Writing removes another. Rewriting drives the shaft deeper. Ideas are followed until some reveal a vein and others end against solid rock. Pages are excavated, paragraphs broken apart, sources examined, and arguments tested. Some of the material proves valuable. Much of it does not.

Eventually, if you are fortunate, you find the vein. Then comes the processing. Words are crushed and separated. Chapters are reorganized. Passages that once seemed indispensable are discarded. Research that consumed days may produce a single sentence or disappear entirely. Editors make cuts. The author makes more. What finally emerges is the finished book: the gold recovered from an enormous amount of material.

But every mine leaves something behind.

In mining, there is an important distinction between waste rock and tailings. Waste rock includes material removed to gain access to the ore. Tailings come later. The U.S. Geological Survey defines them as the material remaining after mined ore has been milled and concentrated. In other words, tailings are not simply the dirt that stood between the miner and the gold; they are what remains after material containing something valuable has already been processed. (USGS)

That distinction makes the metaphor more useful to the writer. The abandoned research, deleted paragraphs, unsuccessful arguments, and ideas that did not fit are part of what remains from the creative process. Yet another kind of tailings begins accumulating only after the book enters the world: reviews, comments, criticism, questions, corrections, and observations from readers.

We thought we had already processed the ore.

Then someone points back toward the tailings pile.

What Remains After the Book

Reviews arrive. Readers comment. Friends offer observations. Critics identify weaknesses. Someone misunderstands an argument. Someone else sees something the author never saw. One reader loves precisely the passage another believes should have been removed. Some criticism is thoughtful and carefully expressed. Some is superficial. Some is careless. Occasionally, it is cruel.

For an author, criticism can be particularly difficult because the critic encounters the finished product while the writer remembers the mine. A reviewer may have spent three hours with the book. The writer may have spent three years. That difference does not make the reviewer wrong, but it helps explain why a seemingly casual sentence can strike with surprising force. The reader sees the gold on the table. The writer remembers every shovel of earth required to find it.

There are two easy ways to deal with that discomfort, and neither is particularly useful. We can accept every criticism as authoritative and allow other people to determine the value of our work. Or we can dismiss criticism altogether: They didn't understand what I was trying to accomplish. They aren't my audience. They missed the point.

Sometimes those statements are true. But they can also become convenient ways of avoiding the tailings pile.

The more difficult response is to return to the material and ask a different question: Is there still something valuable here?

The First Tool: The Common Gavel

Epictetus offers a useful place to begin. In the Enchiridion, he argues that when another person insults or irritates us, we should recognize the role our own judgment plays in our reaction. His practical advice is especially important: do not immediately allow yourself to be carried away by the first appearance of the offense. Gain time, and self-command becomes easier (Epictetus, 1890/ca. 125, §20). 

That is not a demand that we become emotionless. It is a demand that emotion not become the final judge.

The first reading of criticism is often emotional. The second can become analytical.

That is where the Mason might reach for the Common Gavel.

Albert G. Mackey explains the speculative meaning of the Common Gavel through its operative purpose: the tool breaks off the rough and superfluous portions of the stone so that it can be better fitted for the builder's use. Albert Pike develops the broader principle throughout Morals and Dogma: raw force accomplishes little until intelligence governs and directs it. The work of improvement requires labor applied with judgment (Mackey, 1914; Pike, 1871).

Applied to criticism, however, the Gavel takes on an interesting purpose. We do not swing it at the critic. We swing it at our own reaction.

Defensiveness may be the first rough corner that needs to come off. Perhaps the reviewer really did misunderstand the book. Perhaps the criticism really is unfair. Perhaps the person offering it has no appreciation for what we were attempting to accomplish. Any of those things may be true, but none answers the question that matters to the craftsman.

Is there a flake of gold buried in what was said?

That is the hard work of processing the tailings. A review does not have to be entirely correct to contain something useful. A critic may misunderstand nine parts of an argument and inadvertently expose a weakness in the tenth. A reader may dislike a book for reasons that have nothing to do with its quality while still identifying a passage that genuinely lacks clarity.

The reverse is also true. Praise is not automatically gold. A glowing review may make us feel wonderful without teaching us anything. A harsh review may irritate us for a week and contain the single observation that makes the next book better.

The miner cannot judge ore by whether it feels pleasant in his hand.

Anger Is Not the Problem

Aristotle understood that emotional discipline does not mean eliminating emotion. In Book IV of the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that the virtuous person is not someone who never becomes angry. The question is whether anger arises for the right reason, toward the right person, in the right manner, at the right time, and for the proper duration. Virtue lies between emotional deficiency and excess (Aristotle, 1934, 4.5). 

That matters when receiving criticism because the goal is not to pretend that words do not hurt. Anyone who has invested years in creating something understands how unrealistic that would be. A dismissive sentence about work into which we poured enormous effort may sting. An unfair accusation may make us angry. A reviewer may attack something we consider deeply important.

The discipline lies in what happens next.

We can be offended and still examine the criticism. We can believe a reviewer was unfair and still ask whether part of the observation was correct. We can reject someone's conclusion while considering the evidence that led that person there.

That is not weakness.

It is craftsmanship.

The Square: Testing What We Find

The Gavel breaks the criticism apart, but breaking material apart does not tell us whether what remains has value. For that we need another tool.

The Square measures.

Criticism cannot simply be accepted because someone offered it. It must be tested. Does the criticism identify an actual weakness? Did I fail to explain something adequately? Did several independent readers stumble at the same place? Is the objection about craftsmanship, or merely preference? Would accepting this criticism make the next work stronger, or would it simply make the work conform to the taste of one particular reader?

This is where humility must coexist with judgment. Rejecting every criticism can become arrogance, but accepting every criticism is not humility. It is surrender. The craftsman's responsibility is not to believe everything said about his work. His responsibility is to examine it honestly.

There is also a significant difference between intention and execution. The writer knows what he meant. He knows what he was trying to communicate. The reader has access to none of that private intention. The reader can judge only what actually reached the page.

That distinction can produce one of the most uncomfortable discoveries in the entire tailings pile.

The critic was right.

If several thoughtful readers consistently misunderstand the same argument, eventually the writer must at least consider that the problem may not lie entirely with the readers. Perhaps the argument was not developed sufficiently. Perhaps something that seemed obvious to the writer was never actually placed on the page. Perhaps a transition existed clearly in the author's mind but not in the manuscript.

Finding that nugget requires humility because it threatens the story we naturally tell ourselves about our own craftsmanship. Yet it may also be among the most valuable things we recover.

The Square does not care whether we like the measurement.

It simply gives us the measurement.

The Compasses: Knowing When to Stop Digging

There is, however, another danger. A miner can become obsessed with recovering the last trace of valuable mineral. Eventually the cost of processing the tailings exceeds the value of whatever might remain.

The same can happen with criticism.

Reviews can become compulsive. We reread a negative comment long after we have extracted everything useful from it. We revisit a careless sentence written by a stranger. We mentally compose rebuttals that will never be delivered. Ten readers may praise the work, yet our attention keeps returning to the eleventh who did not.

At some point, another Masonic working tool becomes necessary.

The Compasses establish a boundary.

Not every criticism deserves an answer. Not every misunderstanding requires correction. Not every reviewer needs to be persuaded, and not every pile of tailings deserves to be processed indefinitely. There comes a point when the useful material has been recovered and the rest must remain where it is.

This may be one of the hardest lessons of authorship because a book never feels entirely like a manufactured object. Something of its creator remains attached to it. Criticism of the work can therefore feel uncomfortably close to criticism of the person.

But perhaps that is precisely why the Masonic metaphor matters. The Mason is never presented as finished stone. He remains both workman and material. The working tools are not displayed merely because he has learned their definitions. They remind him that the work continues.

A published book may be finished.

The writer is not.

There May Still Be Gold in the Tailings

Here the mining metaphor becomes more than metaphor.

Modern mining operations and geologists sometimes return to material that earlier miners discarded. The U.S. Geological Survey is actively studying historic mine wastes because materials once considered worthless can contain minerals that were overlooked, unwanted, uneconomical, or technologically impossible to recover when the original mining occurred. What one generation regarded as waste can, under different circumstances, become a resource. 

That is remarkably close to what happens with criticism.

An observation we initially dismiss may make sense six months later. A question a reader asks may reveal the subject of another essay. A criticism that seems irrelevant to the present book may become central to the next one. An abandoned argument may deserve another excavation from a different direction. Even a misunderstanding can reveal something important about how we communicate.

The value was there.

We simply were not prepared to recover it yet.

Marcus Aurelius repeatedly returned to the idea that correction should not be treated as humiliation. In the Meditations, the governing concern is whether something is true and whether changing course brings us closer to what is right. The person capable of correction has not been defeated; he has acquired better information (Marcus Aurelius, trans. 1916).

That changes the purpose of criticism. The central question is no longer, Did the reviewer like my book? A more useful question is, What can this teach the craftsman who will write the next one?

Now the tailings pile looks different.

There may be abandoned ideas there that become future essays. Questions one book could not answer may become another book. A reader's misunderstanding might reveal an argument deserving clearer treatment. A critic's objection might expose a weakness in our reasoning. Even an unfair review might force us to articulate more clearly why we believe what we believe.

And somewhere in all that debris may be a few flakes of gold.

Financing the Next Mine

Eventually, however, the mine plays out. The manuscript closes. The book goes to press. The reviews arrive. Eventually even they become quiet.

But the craftsman moves on.

Before he does, he works the tailings one last time. He takes up the Gavel and breaks the criticism apart. He uses the Square to test what remains. He draws the Compasses to know when the search has gone far enough. Some of what he finds is worthless and should remain exactly where he found it. But here and there, buried among the debris, are flakes of gold: an observation he had not considered, a weakness he failed to recognize, a question left unanswered, an idea worth pursuing, perhaps even the uncomfortable realization that a critic was right.

Those pieces are recovered. The rest is left behind.

A wise miner does not haul the entire tailings pile from one mine to the next. Neither should a writer carry every criticism, insult, disappointment, misunderstanding, or unfavorable review into the next work. Those things become weight, and enough accumulated weight eventually prevents the craftsman from doing the very thing criticism should help him do: improve.

But neither should he abandon the gold he found among the waste.

He takes that gold with him—not as baggage, but as capital.

Perhaps that is the real value of criticism. We do not have to love it. We do not have to agree with all of it. We certainly do not have to carry all of it. We only need enough discipline to return to the pile, work through what remains, and recognize something valuable when we find it.

The gold recovered from the tailings of one book can help finance the excavation of the next.

Then the craftsman picks up his tools.

And begins digging again.

Reflections on the Craft: Questions for Deeper Understanding

• Working the Tailings:
o When criticism initially feels unfair or hurtful, how can the Common Gavel help you break apart your emotional reaction and search for the useful truth that may still be buried within it?

• Testing What You Recover:
o How can the Square help you distinguish between criticism that reveals a genuine weakness in your work and criticism that merely reflects another person's preferences or misunderstanding?

• Financing the Next Mine:
o Once you have used the Compasses to determine when to stop examining criticism, how can you use the valuable lessons you recovered from those tailings to improve the next work you undertake?

References

Aristotle. (1934). Nicomachean ethics (H. Rackham, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work composed ca. 4th century BCE).

Epictetus. (1890). The discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheiridion and fragments (G. Long, Trans.). George Bell and Sons. (Original work composed ca. 2nd century CE).

Mackey, A. G. (1914). An encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its kindred sciences. Masonic History Company.

Marcus Aurelius. (1916). The communings with himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, emperor of Rome (C. R. Haines, Trans.). Harvard University Press.

Pike, A. (1871). Morals and dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Supreme Council of the Thirty-Third Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States.

U.S. Geological Survey. (2024). Critical minerals in mine wastes. Mineral Resources Program.

U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). Mine waste as a resource. U.S. Department of the Interior.

The biggest improvement, I think, is that the mining metaphor now actually develops rather than merely decorating the essay: mining → processing → tailings → reprocessing → recovered gold → capital for the next mine. The USGS material makes that even better because the idea of returning to old tailings for previously overlooked minerals is something that actually happens, not just something we're inventing for the analogy. (USGS)

Masonic Petty Tyrants

What Difficult Leaders Teach Us About the Working Tools

Some of the most important lessons of my life have been taught by men who never intended to teach me—and whose example I had no desire to imitate.

We ordinarily think of a mentor as someone wiser or more experienced who deliberately guides us. A mentor encourages, corrects, and demonstrates the qualities we hope to develop. Yet there is another kind of teacher: the difficult man whose shortcomings require us to practice the very virtues we claim to possess.

He may be insecure in authority, careless in his responsibilities, unwilling to communicate, or unable to distinguish leadership from position. He may provoke anger, resentment, frustration, or the desire to retaliate. We would never select him as a mentor, and he may be astonished to learn that he taught us anything. Nevertheless, by forcing us to confront our own reactions, he may reveal more about our unfinished character than a dozen men we admire.

Over forty years ago, I encountered Carlos Castaneda’s idea of the “petty tyrant.” I did not yet possess the Masonic language through which I understand it today, but the idea remained with me: difficult people, particularly those exercising authority, can become instruments of personal discipline.

That does not make their behavior right. It does not excuse incompetence, mistreatment, or the misuse of office. It means only that another man’s failures need not be wasted upon us.

Castaneda and the Petty Tyrant

Carlos Castaneda was a Peruvian-born writer who studied anthropology at UCLA and eventually earned a doctorate there. Beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan, he presented himself as an apprentice to Don Juan Matus, whom Castaneda described as a Yaqui man of knowledge. His books combined anthropology, mysticism, altered states of consciousness, and a demanding philosophy of personal discipline.

Castaneda developed the concept of the petty tyrant most fully in Chapter Two of The Fire from Within, published in 1984. In his narrative, a petty tyrant is someone whose power, personality, or proximity can make another person’s life miserable. Castaneda’s hierarchy ranged from people possessing genuine power over life and death to those who simply torment, frustrate, or annoy others.

The “warrior” is not trained merely to defeat such a person. The deeper challenge is to prevent the petty tyrant from gaining command over the warrior’s inner life. Castaneda identifies four qualities brought into practice under this pressure: control, discipline, forbearance, and timing. The difficult person becomes the external force against which these internal qualities are tested.

Castaneda’s warts must remain visible. Serious scholars have challenged the existence of Don Juan, Castaneda’s representation of Yaqui culture, and the reliability of his books as ethnography. Jay Fikes states the criticism bluntly, describing Don Juan as fictional and identifying substantial discrepancies between Castaneda’s accounts and documented Yaqui religious traditions. Other scholarship has treated Castaneda’s writing as a hybrid of ethnography, autobiography, literature, and spiritual narrative rather than as reliable anthropological fieldwork.

We should not conceal that controversy simply because one of Castaneda’s ideas is useful. He presented his work within an anthropological framework, and readers were entitled to expect intellectual honesty from that claim.

But the collapse of the ethnographic claim does not necessarily destroy every philosophical insight contained in the narrative.

Perhaps Castaneda communicated his philosophy through something closer to myth, parable, or spiritual fiction. Perhaps Don Juan was a composite character, a literary invention, or a voice through which Castaneda expressed ideas gathered from several sources. We may never determine precisely where observation ended and imagination began. What we can say is that human beings have always used fictional and mythic narratives to communicate moral truths.

A parable does not have to be journalism to reveal something true about human nature. Myth need not be history to illuminate experience. The important qualification is that we call the narrative what it is—or at least acknowledge honestly what it may be.

We therefore need not accept Don Juan as a historical person, Castaneda as a trustworthy ethnographer, or his larger mystical system as fact. We can examine the petty tyrant as an idea: Can a difficult person become an unwilling participant in the development of our character?

For a Mason, the question naturally leads to the working tools.

The Petty Tyrant and the Rough Ashlar

The petty tyrant is not the rough ashlar.

I am.

That distinction matters because it keeps the labor where Masonry places it: upon ourselves. The difficult Brother is not a stone given to me to reshape according to my preferences. His conduct may require correction. His decisions may require opposition. He may need to be held accountable through whatever legitimate processes the institution provides. But his character does not belong to my quarry.

My character does.

The petty tyrant becomes the pressure that exposes the irregular surfaces of my own rough ashlar. His conduct reveals impatience that remained concealed when everyone agreed with me. He uncovers pride that seemed like confidence when my advice was respected. He exposes my desire for acknowledgment, my need to be proven right, and my temptation to answer discourtesy with discourtesy.

It is easy to believe that we are patient among agreeable men. It is easy to believe that we possess self-control when nothing important has been denied us. It is easy to speak of harmony when no one challenges our judgment, disregards our contribution, or frustrates our work.

Conflict tells us whether those virtues are structural or merely decorative.

The blows of experience do not automatically improve the ashlar. A difficult encounter can make a man wiser, but it can also make him bitter. It can refine his judgment or deform his character. The result depends partly upon whether he consciously applies the working tools.

The Compasses: Circumscribing Conduct, Not Denying Emotion

The Compasses may provide the most immediate lesson. They establish boundaries. Morally understood, they remind us that our passions and desires must be kept within appropriate limits.

But circumscribing a passion is not the same as pretending we do not feel it.

I once misunderstood self-control as control over feeling. If I were sufficiently disciplined, I thought, another person’s conduct would not anger me. Frustration itself seemed like evidence of moral failure. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

We do not always choose the first feeling that arises within us. Anger may be an honest response to neglect, injustice, irresponsibility, or disrespect. Hurt may reveal that something we value has been damaged. Frustration may tell us that an obligation is not being fulfilled. Those feelings contain information.

The choice begins with what we do next.

There is a moral difference between feeling anger and expressing it destructively. There is a difference between recognizing resentment and allowing resentment to compose the email, govern the conversation, or shape the next decision. The Compasses do not command us to become emotionally numb. They ask us to establish a boundary between what we feel and what we permit that feeling to do.

This is where Marcus Aurelius enters the conversation. In the Meditations, he repeatedly distinguishes between the impression that arrives in the mind and the judgment or action that follows it. In Book Four, he counsels himself not to be carried away, but to preserve understanding when an impression arises and to act justly when moved toward action.

That is not emotional anesthesia. It is disciplined separation:

This is what I feel. This is what I think happened. This is what justice requires me to do.

Those are three different statements.

The petty tyrant frequently wins because we collapse them into one. “I am angry” becomes “I have been deliberately insulted,” which becomes “I am therefore justified in striking back.” The Compasses create space between those steps. Within that space, feeling can be acknowledged without being placed in command.

A Mason may say, “I am angry, and I will not answer until I can answer on the Square.”

That is not weakness. It is moral authority exercised first over oneself.

The Square: Testing Our Own Response

When we believe another man has behaved improperly, the temptation is to apply the Square exclusively to him. We measure his words, decisions, motives, and failures. Sometimes that examination is necessary. Accountability is not unmasonic merely because it produces discomfort.

But the Square must also be turned toward our response.

Am I presenting the facts accurately? Am I separating what I know from what I assume? Am I correcting a problem or punishing a person? Am I seeking a responsible outcome, or do I want the satisfaction of humiliating someone who frustrated me? Would I consider my own language fair if it were directed toward me?

The Square does not require passivity. Square conduct may require a firm objection, a written record, a formal complaint, an opposing vote, or an honest refusal to participate in something improper. Morality without courage is ornamental. Yet firmness can remain measured, truthful, and proportional.

The petty tyrant’s conduct does not relieve us of the obligation to square our own.

Indeed, that may be his greatest unintended lesson. He tests whether our principles survive contact with someone who does not appear to share them. If another man’s discourtesy makes me discourteous, then he has established the standard governing my conduct. If his dishonesty persuades me to distort the truth, then his deficiency has become mine. If his misuse of authority causes me to hunger for the power to retaliate, I am already rehearsing for the role I condemn.

The goal is not to surrender judgment to the petty tyrant. It is to deny him command over our character.

The Level: Separating the Man From the Office

The Level offers another essential discipline.

To meet a man on the Level is not to pretend that every man possesses equal authority, responsibility, experience, or competence. Offices exist, duties differ, and legitimate authority must be recognized. The Worshipful Master and the newest Entered Apprentice do not possess identical responsibilities within the lodge.

But the office does not increase the fundamental worth of the man occupying it.

When we remove the title for a moment and view the individual simply as a man, something changes. We may see insecurity beneath defensiveness, inexperience beneath indecision, or fear beneath a display of authority. We may recognize that the office temporarily magnifies ordinary human weaknesses. The chair did not create the man’s imperfections; it merely gave them greater reach.

This does not excuse harmful behavior. Understanding is not absolution. But viewing the man on the Level can remove part of the tyranny from the encounter because it strips the office of its psychological grandeur.

He is no longer an all-powerful figure occupying our thoughts. He is a fallible man temporarily entrusted with a position.

The Level also reminds us not to answer arrogance with contempt. A man may be performing poorly without becoming less human. His office does not make him morally superior, but his failures do not make him morally beneath us. We can challenge his conduct while remembering his dignity.

That is a difficult balance, particularly when we feel that he has not respected ours.

The Plumb: Remaining Upright Under Pressure

The Plumb asks whether our conduct remains upright when pressure comes from the side.

Almost anyone can stand straight when nothing pushes against him. The true test arrives when convenience, anger, loyalty, ambition, or institutional politics invite us to lean away from what we know to be right.

The petty tyrant creates precisely that pressure.

We may be tempted to remain silent because speaking will be uncomfortable. At another moment, we may be tempted to speak recklessly because silence feels unbearable. Upright conduct may require either speech or restraint, depending upon the circumstances. The Plumb does not prescribe a single response. It establishes the vertical line against which the response must be judged.

Am I acting from principle? Are my intentions upright? Would I make the same decision if different personalities occupied the offices involved?

The Plumb tests whether our moral position changes according to whom we like, whom we dislike, or who currently holds power.

The Twenty-Four-Inch Gauge: Time, Proportion, and Timing

Castaneda includes timing among the disciplines developed through confronting a petty tyrant. The Twenty-Four-Inch Gauge gives that idea a particularly useful Masonic expression.

Not every provocation requires an immediate response. Time permits emotion to settle, facts to emerge, and words to be chosen deliberately. A response delayed by prudence may carry more moral force than one delivered at the height of anger.

But delay can also become avoidance. There are moments when failing to act allows preventable harm to continue. Timing does not mean waiting indefinitely. It means selecting the moment at which action is most likely to serve the principle involved rather than merely relieve our emotional pressure.

The Gauge also teaches proportion. How much of our limited time will we permit this person to occupy? How many hours will we spend rehearsing an argument that has already ended? How much attention will we take from family, service, health, study, and productive labor so that we can continue an imaginary conversation with someone who is not even present?

A petty tyrant’s formal authority may be limited to a meeting, a workplace, or a particular term of office. We enlarge that authority when we allow him to follow us home and preside over our thoughts.

Sometimes the most important boundary is temporal: this problem deserves my attention, but it does not deserve my entire day.

The Common Gavel: Removing Our Own Excess

The Common Gavel brings us back to the rough ashlar. Under pressure, it reveals the superfluities that still require removal: vanity, vengeance, self-importance, and the desire to control what does not belong to us.

Castaneda’s petty tyrant is especially useful in exposing self-importance. Why does this man possess such power over my peace of mind? Am I disturbed entirely because a principle has been violated, or partly because my advice was ignored? Do I want the problem corrected, or do I also need public acknowledgment that I was right?

These are uncomfortable questions, but discomfort is often the sound of the Gavel striking something that needs attention.

Self-examination does not mean that every grievance is vanity. A genuine wrong does not become imaginary merely because we search our own motives. The Mason can hold two truths simultaneously: another man may have acted improperly, and my response may still contain pride, exaggeration, or a desire for revenge.

The Gavel is applied to that excess—not to conscience, courage, or justified concern.

Forbearance Is Not Submission

The philosophy of the petty tyrant becomes dangerous if it is used to romanticize mistreatment.

There is nothing noble about remaining indefinitely in an abusive or genuinely dangerous situation merely to prove one’s spiritual discipline. Patience does not require silence when others are being harmed. Harmony does not mean concealing misconduct. Brotherly love does not abolish accountability. Forgiveness does not necessarily restore trust, and understanding another man’s weakness does not require granting him unlimited access to injure an institution.

The working tools help us choose how to act; they do not command us never to act.

A Mason may document, object, report, vote, confront, establish boundaries, or withdraw. He may do so firmly. The moral question is not whether he experiences anger or creates conflict. The question is whether his conduct remains truthful, proportionate, and directed toward a legitimate end.

Controlling our reaction does not mean allowing the petty tyrant to prevail. It means that even when we oppose him, he does not determine what kind of man we become.

The Unwilling Mentor

Good leaders teach by example. Poor leaders teach through contrast and consequence.

They show us what happens when communication fails, when authority is separated from responsibility, and when an officeholder assumes that possessing a title is equivalent to providing leadership. They teach us how quickly uncertainty spreads when questions are ignored. They reveal the institutional cost of disorganization, favoritism, indecision, or pride.

Most importantly, they teach us what those failures feel like to the people who must live beneath them.

That knowledge becomes valuable when authority eventually passes to us.

Some men have taught me how to lead by demonstrating patience, competence, courage, and service. Others have taught me by making unmistakably clear what happens when those qualities are absent. I am indebted to both, although the second debt took much longer to recognize.

Calling a petty tyrant a mentor does not honor his conduct. It describes what we have chosen to extract from the experience. He may remain unchanged. He may never understand the lesson he helped provide. Our growth cannot depend upon his insight, apology, or reform.

That recognition restores agency. We may not control the office he holds or the decisions he makes. We can control whether the experience teaches us to communicate more clearly, preserve better records, confront without humiliating, exercise authority without becoming authoritarian, and remember what it felt like when legitimate concerns were dismissed.

The Tyrant Within

The final application of the working tools is also the most uncomfortable.

Every Mason who identifies a petty tyrant in another man should look for the beginning of that same man within himself.

The critic of unresponsive leadership may someday stop answering messages because he considers himself too busy. The man who condemns arrogance may begin dismissing others because experience has convinced him that he is usually right. The Brother who resents being unheard may eventually occupy the East and discover that he prefers obedience to counsel.

Power does not necessarily corrupt a man by introducing something completely foreign into his character. Often it enlarges tendencies already present but previously restrained by circumstance.

The final lesson of the petty tyrant, therefore, is not simply how to endure him. It is how to recognize his earliest features in ourselves.

Can I receive correction without treating it as disloyalty? Can I distinguish respect for an office from personal deference? Can I communicate before confusion becomes conflict? Can I remember that authority is held temporarily and exercised in trust?

The man who has suffered under poor leadership should not merely promise that he will lead differently. He should preserve the memory of how poor leadership affected the men around him and apply that memory whenever others must depend upon him.

The Stone Entrusted to Us

The difficult man may eventually leave office, lose influence, change, or disappear from our lives. The character formed—or deformed—during the encounter remains.

We cannot always select the people with whom we must labor. We cannot control their judgment, competence, motives, or self-awareness. We cannot force another man to apply the working tools to himself.

We can apply them to the only stone truly entrusted to our hands.

The Compasses establish a boundary between emotion and action. The Square tests the morality of our response. The Level separates the human being from the temporary grandeur of his position. The Plumb holds us upright beneath pressure. The Twenty-Four-Inch Gauge teaches timing, proportion, and the wise allocation of attention. The Common Gavel removes the vanity, vengeance, and self-importance exposed by conflict.

The petty tyrant may never understand the lesson he has given us. He may leave the encounter exactly as he entered it. But if his conduct teaches us patience without passivity, firmness without cruelty, accountability without vengeance, and authority without vanity, then the labor has not been wasted.

He was never the stone entrusted to our hands.

We were.

And the question was always whether the blows of experience would merely wound the rough ashlar—or help us shape it.

Sources

1. Castaneda, Carlos. The Fire from Within. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984. Chapter Two, “Petty Tyrants.” Google Books bibliographic record and contents.

2. Fikes, Jay C. “Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998): Reading Between His Lines, a Summary Judgment.” The International Journal of Ecopsychology 2, no. 1 (2021), Article 3. Cal Poly Humboldt Digital Commons.

3. Santos, Marcel de Lima. “Translating the Sacred: Literature and Ethnography in Carlos Castaneda.” Scholarly analysis of Castaneda’s mixture of ethnographic and literary discourse. Article record.

4. Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, 4.22. Greek text, George Long translation, and commentary on the Stoic distinction between impression, judgment, and action. Digital critical edition.

5. Grand Lodge of California. “Working Tools from Emulation Ritual.” Educational material presenting the moral applications of the Gauge, Gavel, Chisel, Square, Level, Plumb Rule, and Compasses. Official PDF.