It is something of a custom for a Grand Master-elect to announce a theme for his tenure. Acceding to that tradition, Brethren, I ask that you simply and directly be guided by those Masonic tenets of Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. With these succinct tenets, we can govern our words, we can govern our actions, we can govern our Gentle Craft. Let me address each in turn.

Two years ago Past Grand Master Woodward emphasized civility among Brother Masons. That is nothing less than one example of exercising brotherly love. There is no room for verbal abuse of a brother, for websites insulting brethren, or even for debative score keeping at a brother’s expense. At the Feast of Ego, we all go away hungry. I say, “we”, as I know that I have also fallen short of this mark. I would urge that we realize when there are disagreements amongst us, they are usually among well meaning brethren who each have the welfare of the Institution at heart, but hold sincere differences in the means to achieve the same goals.

We must demonstrate forgiveness, brethren, as part of our brotherly love. If I say I can forgive, but I cannot forget, I am simply saying, I cannot forgive. Henry Ward Beecher. When we perceive that we have been offended, it is well to remember from the Entered Apprentice degree that we are here to learn to subdue our passions and improve ourselves in Masonry. Admittedly, some of us need time in summer school and failed the GED exam in subduing our passions, but it is still our goal.

Secondly, we also commend in our ritual the principle of Relief. Brethren, we must re- dedicate ourselves as men of charity. I commend to you the Masonic Foundation of Utah as an instrument for the accomplishment of this obligation. In the next month, you should receive a mailing from the Grand Master providing you the opportunity to perform this Masonic Duty and contribute to our Grand Lodge Charity. I encourage your fullest consideration.

To shed Masonic light and Truth, our Third Principle, we must teach in our Lodges those great concepts which unite us. In many Lodges, the supposed burden of this principle falls to the Senior Warden. I would encourage the Senior Wardens to delegate this duty; to act as organizers of education, but not to feel they have to present all the topics. Your Grand Lodge Officers, remembering that you Wardens are now members of Grand Lodge, your Grand Lodge officers are ready and willing to assist, particularly noting the Grand Orator and the Grand Lecturer.

Especially for our new brethren, l also ask that each candidate be provided the Handbook appropriate to that degree.

So, we of course need a Lodge program to accomplish this. My Lodge program is to work our Lodge programs. My predecessors have created programs for us. If your Lodge participates in the Master Builder Program, the Mark Twain Award, the Ritualist Proficiency Program, and Support of the Masonic Foundation, your Lodge has the tools to be a vibrant, active Lodge.

So, I’ve remonstrated on what Lodges can do. What are the Grand Lodge officers going to do to help? And if the answer is “stay out of our way” I don’t know that I disagree with you.

1. Masonic Open Houses are a proven tool in attracting members and are part of the Master Builder Program. We ask that all Lodges participate in a State wide open house on the same day, with all Masonic buildings open to the public. The Grand Lodge with the hopeful aid of other bodies, will purchase ads in selected papers throughout the State announcing these and listing the addresses of each of our buildings.

2. The Grand Master will provide a quarterly newsletter to all Masons in the State.

3. We have commissioned the Worshipful Grand Marshall designate, Br. Drew Sanders to conduct a study of Masons in Utah to evaluate attitudes and reasons for Masonic membership and activity to (a) help provide input to our Lodges in areas where the can re-evaluate their programs; and (b) serve as a foundation for a letter from the Grand Master to Masons who have recently been dropped for non-payment of dues.

4. The Grand Lodge Officers will sponsor a Masonic Leadership Academy at a reduced cost on 29 March in this building for all Masons, with particular emphasis on the officers, to include Secretaries and Treasurers. The Deputy Grand Lecturers will also have training and we will culminate with a ritual workshop for all in the Entered Apprentice Degree. I would particularly encourage our seasoned brethren to attend. While you may know how to run the Lodge, we would like to benefit from your experience.

5. We will continue to develop our online resources, so you can find our Grand Lodge Code, our Book of Ceremonies, The Trial Code, the Mark Twain Award and the Degree Handbooks at any time of the day all in one place

6. We will publish Prater’s Second One Hundred Years of the Grand Lodge of Utah.

7. The Grand Historian and Assistant Grand Secretary/Grand Librarian, under the direction of the Grand Secretary, have already begun developing an aggressive plan for preservation of records.

8. The Grand Lodge Public Relations Committee will develop an organized campaign. Some of you heard the recent interview on X-o6 and we have already sent out our first press release for this year.

9. If the Lodges choose, a two day Grand Master’s Class will be held, commencing on Friday night, with a lecture and review of the proficiency book for the degree. We will reconvene Saturday and confer the Second Degree that morning, with additional instruction and a luncheon. We will then have the Master Mason Degree and a Banquet that evening, sending the new brethren home with the proficiency workbook for that degree.

Now, Brethren, as you heard in our Grand Master’s address yesterday, a leader cannot avoid the difficult issues. This would be an abrogation of the charge of his office. If you hear the same points covered in both of our addresses, it is not because we cooperated in our preparation, but because both of us, having studied the jurisdiction for some time, have the same concerns. There are two types of capital. With one you are familiar, the financial resources to carry out certain objectives. In the case of the Fraternity, those objectives are brotherly love, relief and truth. We, as a fraternity, are NOT sufficiently capitalized. It is simply impossible to fund a lodge of this century, with a budget from the last. Should we fail to support our Craft in the same manner as did our forbearers, there are Lodges founded in the second half of the last century, who will not see the second half of this one. Lodges in this building which have set their dues at $85.00 a year are not, I submit, confronting reality. It costs approximately $350 to confer the degrees in this building, yet the fees for the degrees are only $300.00. I believe in loss-leader as a economic principle of marketing, but I don’t see it working, when the future earnings are only $85.00 a year dues.

My brothers, we love that for which we sacrifice. I put it to you that there will be greater commitment to our Lodges when our Lodges decide Masonry is worth that greater commitment.

The men who came to these mountains and valleys and established an inheritance which we enjoy; sacrificed for their Masonic descendants, for us. They did this without the availability of Social Security Retirement and other governmental benefits which today prevent most of us from ever living on fixed incomes.

I know you brethren. I’ve labored in the quarries of Masonry with you. You have been my mentors. We’ve stood and knelt across the sacred altar of Freemasonry from one another. You have fulfilled your Masonic duty in caring for my family and for me. You are men equal in every way, to the contributions and sacrifices of those who trod these halls before us.

Which brings me to another, a second type of capital: human capital. This is a fraternity, not just a building, magnificent though it may be. Moreover, we are not just a club. We are not men of ’spiral shaped convictions, non-committal souls and non-committing hands.’ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. We are men who take solemn obligations and call upon The Great Architect as our Witness. We are different, and we exult in that difference. ‘The Brotherhood is specifically intended to be a group of men of high ideals and moral purpose, who believe omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of a Supreme Being…Wallace McLeod, The Philalethes, V. ‘LX, April 2007, p. 44. ‘We must … be especially careful not to introduce anyone as a candidate who is unlikely to meet our standards.. .We should remember that mere numbers are less important than quality.’ HRH The Duke of Kent, 26 April 2001.

These men who join are looking for something different, something special, something of import. I ask you if we dress for Lodge consistent with the claims we make regarding the Fraternity? We are ever so proud to claim Presidents and Kings as members of Freemasonry. If we make these great claims as to what we are as Freemasons, surely we should live up to them and show our respect for this institution who claims as its members the Great and the Good. I am not sure that when emulating our ancient operative brethren, we too have to dress as if we were working in the quarry when we enter a tyled Lodge.

Brethren, it is a great thing we are about. I find Freemasonry to be something at which to marvel, to be something which I view in awe. In a world in which men war and shed the blood of the innocent based on race, ethnicity and tribe, we have united the last two days without regard to the color of a man’s skin, caring only about the tenor of his heart.

We are of a world in which men who claim to worship the same G-d kill each other in the name of that very same G-d. Yet we, this day, now, meet together with men regardless of professed creed, regardless of the nature of the Great Architect in whose name a man takes his obligations. We care only about the manner in which he performs those obligations.

It is something marvelous. It is something which is awesome.

“Believe in your[selves]…Believe in your capacity to do good in the world, to spread light and truth and understanding; to reach out to those in distress and need to help and bless them.” Gordon Bitner Hinckley, 1910-2008.

I close, with an emotive but familiar prayer:
May the blessings of G-d rest upon us and all mankind. May brotherly love prevail and every moral and social virtue cement us.