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TO: Most Worshipful Grand Master, B.L.
Hooks, Deputy Grand Master Bennie Griffey Jr., SGIG Charles L.
Kinslow, SGIG James E. Poe, Visiting Dignitaries, Grand Inspectors
General and Sublime Princes.
TO:
State Grand Loyal Lady Ruler, Katie Wilson, Past State Grand Loyal Lady Rulers,
Loyal Lady Rulers and Loyal Ladies.
I
greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I thank God, the
creator and sustainer of life, the giver of every good and perfect gift for this
opportunity to stand before you as your Illustrious Grand Deputy.
Traditionally, the Deputy of the Orient has not delivered an address at the
Council of Deliberations. However, those of you that know me also know that I
have a tendency not to be so traditional and to ever so often step outside of
the proverbial box. I think it only fitting at this time that I should address
you, not necessarily to give an account of my stewardship, for I owe that
account only to the Sovereign Grand Commander and to the United Supreme Council.
But moreover to let you know how I view our organization and what I have on the
trestle board for this orient. Since this is my first year as the Illustrious
Deputy, I have chosen to address the Council of Deliberations and the Council of
Assemblies in this joint session.
LET’S
BUILD A BRIDGE
STATE
OF THE NATION:
This
year our nation and our people have had great cause to celebrate. We stood
together not only as a race but as a nation and elected a black president.
Everyone agreed that we needed a change but what happened was unprecedented. Now
that the party is over we must cease from identifying Mr. Obama as a black
president. He is the President. He is our President. And he has
some great challenges facing him. If he can succeed in the next three years to
right some of the wrong that has been done to this nation by the previous
administration he will no doubt be a hero. If he cannot get us through this war
and through this economic down turn and set this nation back on its feet, he
will be the fall guy and will take the blame for it all.
How
can we help? We must continue to pray for the success of our president and this
nation.
2 Chronicles 7:14
reads:
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and
pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from
heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Can
you deny that our land is cursed and needs healing?
The
cow is mad, the chicken has salmonella and the pigs got the flu. The ice caps
are melting, the ground is too wet and the corn is rotting in the field. We have
been attacked by terrorists, storms are raging and people are killing each other
for no reason at all. Our land needs healing.
I
have said in the past that we as an organization are not to be involved in
politics but we must learn and teach our people the importance of the political
process. Let’s be proactive and make certain that the members of our
consistories and assemblies are registered voters and let’s keep our
registrations current. For generations and generations whenever a major election
is on the horizon we spend untold amounts of money and time with get out the
vote campaigns; when essentially, we should be encouraging and making provisions
for our people to register immediately on their 18th birthday. Let’s
work to increase the numbers and voting strength in our Scottish Rite
Organization so that we can be recognized as a force to be reckoned with. The
power is in the ballot box.
STATE
OF THE RITE: The United Supreme Council is alive and well. However, it can be no
stronger than our Councils of Deliberations and Councils of Assemblies. And our
Councils can be no stronger than its leadership and its membership.
Somewhere in our past someone decided that Tennessee should be structured into
3 divisions. East, West and Middle. And that’s well and good and has its
purpose. But it was not meant to divide us as a body. We are one Orient and we
must think and act as one. We must have plans and designs on our trestle boards
that inspire and excite us as an Orient. We know all about benefit now lets
learn to be benefactors. Lets see what we can do to help others.
RITUALISTIC MATTERS: I have found during my visitations to the various sections
that there is a great deal of disparity within our Orient. The fraters on the
east end do things one way. The ones in the west do things another way and the
middle is doing something that neither of the other two sections are doing.
That
is something that I as your Deputy intend to correct. I will ultimately include
more schools of instruction and information in every Sectional and State Grand
Council of Deliberations. I will provide standardized forms of information to
the Commander in Chiefs and I will demand that each Commander in Chief give or
cause to be given a Scottish Rite Lecture at each meeting. I will over time,
visit each Consistory and I will have traveling with me a Grand Lecturer who
will assist me in standardizing ceremony and ritualistic matters in the
Tennessee Orient. Already there is a web site in place that will provide the
means for us to be in constant communication with each other and will be a
vessel filled with information for the Fraters and Loyal Ladies alike. I have
included in this years Bulletin the minutes from the Tennessee Council of
Deliberations organizational meeting of February 1953 and the minutes from the 1st
Council of Deliberations dated June 14th 1953. Thanks to GIG Robert
Wilson for providing those very important documents to us. I believe that
knowing our history will assist us in charting our course for the future and we
must archive our history for the sake of posterity.
ORDER OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE:
I will work closely with the State Grand Loyal Lady Ruler so that I can be more
in tune with the issues, needs and concerns of the Assemblies.
Loyal Ladies please be aware that I am the
supreme Scottish Rite authority in the State. But because one is in a position
of authority doesn’t mean that one has to be authoritative. I want to work with
you and for you so that Tennessee can one day have one of the premier Council of
Assemblies within the Southern Jurisdiction. But I need you to come up with ways
to strengthen your Assemblies and this is done by increasing your membership. If
you don’t have enough Loyal Ladies to fill the stations at a Sectional meeting I
can only imagine what it looks like in your Assembly meetings.
Let me know what ideas you have on this issue. I
have a couple of solutions but its your organization and I want you to provide
the fix.
I cannot say enough about State Grand Loyal Lady
Katie Wilson. She has a beautiful cooperative spirit and she without a doubt is
very passionate about the Order of the Golden Circle. She has been a joy to work
with over the past 2 years and has been very instrumental in getting me up to
speed on Golden Circle matters. Thank you Loyal Lady Wilson!
TIME AND PLACE:
Many of you may be aware that I had the distinguished honor and pleasure of
hosting the 2009 Scottish Rite Deputies Conference here in the Tennessee Orient.
We had as our guests 22 Deputies and 3 of the Elected Staff to include our
Sovereign Grand Commander, The Illustrious Dr. Deary Vaughn.
We spared no efforts in receiving them royally
and treating them graciously during their stay. We had a representative from the
Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau to come in and welcome the delegates. Our
County Mayor, The Honorable A. C. Wharton joined us for lunch on Saturday and
thanked the delegation for choosing Memphis as the Conference Site. As customary
the Council of Deliberations provided 4 days of Tennessee hospitality which
included fish and barbecue on Friday evening at the Scottish Rite Building. The
Deputies were so impressed with the facility, the hospitality and the Orient
that they voted unanimously to make Tennessee the permanent site for the Annual
Deputies Conference.
In light of our good fortune, I have asked the
Sovereign Grand Commander to allow me to submit a proposal for Tennessee to be a
future site for a United Supreme Council session. He has instructed me to submit
the package and it will certainly be given careful consideration.
That Fraters and Ladies will call for a lot of
hard work and a concerted effort from each and every member of this Tennessee
Orient. Now I want to know! Before I stick my neck out! Before I put the
reputation of Tennessee on the line! If this opportunity presents itself to us
can I count on each of you to work with me in making this venture a success?
Deputy Kinslow hosted a session here back in 92
that went on record as one of the best attended sessions in the history of the
Southern Jurisdiction. I think we can do it again.
NECROLOGY: The Black Eagle invaded our camp and
took from our midst several of our stalwart soldiers.
It has also come to my attention as a result of
the Deputies Conference that it is not an acceptable practice for the Loyal
Ladies to perform a Memorial Service and have it substitute for the one that is
performed by the men. Which means that even if we allow the Ladies to come over
and perform their memorial service we will still have to perform one as well. I
don’t think that we have the time to have two memorial services so we will have
to change the way that we have been taking care of this piece of business. We
have been guilty of this infraction for years and I know that the Ladies have
gone to great length to prepare for this service, so I am going to allow it. But
this will be the last time unless we can come up with more time to do them both.
I am not asking you to like this ruling, I am asking you to understand that it
is the rule and it is my duty as Illustrious Grand Deputy to enforce it.
I received an email from my good friend Alvin K.
Wilkins who is the Illustrious Deputy for the Orient of Korea. That email
contained a poem that Illustrious Wilkins had ran across and wanted to share
with me.
As I read it I realized that the poem expressed
all that I have been trying to convey to the Council about our history and
paving the way for the next generation. Our council of deliberations has been
successful for 56 years and we need to build on that success. Not rest on it but
build on it. If you get up in the morning and find you a spot in the yard and
just stand there. I mean literally stand there and don’t move. At some point
during the day you will see your shadow advancing toward you. As the sun
continues it southerly path to the west, your shadow will pass you and disappear
over the horizon with the setting sun. At the end of the day you can say that I
didn’t go forward so I didn’t make any progress but that’s okay because I didn’t
move backward which means I didn’t loose any ground either. And that would be a
true statement to an extent but what really happened is: The world went by you
and left you standing still. We cannot be content to stand still and hold fast
to what we have. We must continue to move forward and strive to make our good
better for the sake of our future. And that’s what’s on my trestle board.
Improving the way we do business as a Council. Building a bridge to our future
and for future generations. Anyway I want to conclude my address by reading this
poem to you.
It’s a poem written by Will Allen Dromgoole, who
was an author and poet from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. You may already be familiar
with it. Its entitled :
THE BRIDGE BUILDER
An old man, going a
lone highway,
Came at the evening cold
and gray,
To a chasm, vast and
deep and wide,
Through which was
flowing a sullen tide.
The old man crossed in
the twilight dim-
That sullen stream had
no fears for him;
But he turned, when he
reached the other side,
And built a bridge to
span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow
pilgrim near,
"You are wasting
strength in building here.
Your journey will end
with the ending day;
You never again must
pass this way.
You have crossed the
chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you the bridge
at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his
old gray head.
"Good friend, in the
path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after
me today
A youth whose feet must
pass this way.
This chasm that has been
naught to me
To that fair-haired
youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in
the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am
building the bridge for him."
I believe that everyone you meet is either for
a reason, for a season or for a life time.
I
don’t believe that the people in this room are here by accident. If you look at
the story of Moses, everything that he went through, everything that happened to
him was an experience that prepared him for God’s purpose. I believe that you
are all here at this time at this place so that I could tell you what I have
been inspired to tell you. That we are the Bridge Builders of today. Tasked to
Build a Bridge for tomorrow. To build a bridge so that the next Deputy of the
Orient, who is probably sitting in these Council Chambers this morning will have
a smooth path across that sullen stream.
I
don’t know what you expected to get from this Council but I hope that when the
day is done you can walk away inspired, ready and willing to help me Build a
Bridge.
Thank
you for your time and your attention.
God’s
richest Blessings to you!
Arvin
W. Glass33o
Illustrious Grand Deputy for Tennessee |
