William Herbert "Skip" Boyer, 32°
15817 N 6th Place, Phoenix, Arizona 85022
Skip.Boyer@bestwestern.com

In passing Masonry on to his son, a father assures the future of our Craft.

On rare occasions in our lives, an almost indescribable moment occurs. It's as though a window suddenly opens and a flash of light illuminates whatever is happening around us. Or a fog you didn't even know was there suddenly lifts for just a moment, and you can see the horizon clearly for the first time. It's hard to describe the event, but you know it when it happens. It only lasts for a split second, but it alters your perspective on everything from that moment forward.

About a year ago, I had such a moment. The Grand Lodge of Arizona was conducting a one-day class. During that class, approximately 130 men received the three Degrees of Masonry. Around the Lodge, several rows deep, the Candidates were seated, each next to a Master Mason who served as the Candidate's Mentor and guide. Individual Bibles, held by the Mentors, served to obligate the members of the class at the appropriate moments.

It was a large event, perfectly organized in everything from the work itself to meals, supplies, Degree Teams, etc. It was fun to be part of so impressive an event even though my role was a small and important to only one man. I served as Mentor to a bright, personable young man I met in my workplace. He knocked on the door of my office one day and asked if the car in the parking lot with the double-headed eagle on the bumper was mine. I was afraid I had hit his car, so was careful in how I phrased my response. "Yeah. What of it?!" was the best I could manage.

As it turned out, he wanted to know more about Masonry. In time, with my name on the first line of his petition, he knocked on our door. Like nearly all the Candidates from my Lodge who were part of the One-Day Class, he received his First Degree within our Lodge, sort of a bonding thing.

When the One-Day Class opened, there we were, seated next to each other. Unexpected was the presence of his father, a longtime Mason from Pennsylvania who now lives in Tucson, Arizona. He had driven up to Phoenix to be part of his son's day. So I sat on one side of the young man, his father on the other.

Late in the day, which began at 7:00 am, we concluded the illustrative portion of the Master Mason's Degree. Each Mentor and Candidate rose to illustrate and practice the points of the proper greeting and recognition of a Master Mason. My newly obligated Brother and I greeted each other in fellowship as Master Masons.

Then, with a smile, he turned to his father and greeted him as a Brother. His back was to me, so I couldn't see his face. But, over his shoulder, I could see his father's face. And at that moment, that rare widow opened, and the fog parted for a heartbeat. In his father's eyes, I could see the silver thread of our Craft twisting back through history and forward through time. At that moment, complex questions of jurisdictional recognition, theories of origin, the hidden meanings of individual words, and eternal debates over the splitting of bylaw hairs suddenly jarred rudely into perspective.

As I watched, in that split second, the Craft was passed from one generation to another in a scene that has been repeated for hundreds of years. Now, I know it sounds naïve in these days of dwindling membership in fraternal organizations and a growing concern for numbers, percentages, finances, and whether this organization or that is the magic philosopher's stone of growth. But for that brief moment, as a father and son grasped hands as Brothers for the first time, I felt a sudden sense of relief. As long as men fiercely prize the values and principles of Freemasonry, there will be sons to whom those values will be entrusted for the future.

William H. Boyer is the Director, Executive Communications, Best Western International, Inc. He is a member of Paradise Valley–Silver Trowel Lodge No. 29, Phoenix, Arizona, and serves as editor of the Lodge's Trestle Board. Brother Boyer is a member of the Philalethes Society and writes a regular column in the Society's popular magazine. A Chevalier of the Order of DeMolay, a member of the Brotherhood of the Blue Forget-Me-Not and of the Scottish Rite Bodies of Phoenix, Arizona, he is a native of Omaha, Nebraska, and holds the prestigious Accredited Business Communicator (ABC) designation from the International Association of Business Communicators. Brother Boyer has earned more than 70 regional and national awards for his writing and editorial work.