Robert G. Davis, 33°
P.O. Box 70
Guthrie, Oklahoma  73044

Every boy has his heroes. Astronaut and Masonic Brother John H. Glenn, Jr., 33°, is one of mine. On February 20, 1962, he circled the Earth three times in less than five hours on the spacecraft Friendship 7 and was the first American to orbit the globe. I was absolutely astonished!
 

"People are afraid of the future, of the unknown, If a man faces up to it, and takes the dare of the furture, he can have some control over is destiny. That's an exciting idea for me, better than waiting with everybody else to see what's going to happen." Illustrious John H. Glenn, Jr., 33°

I was 14 years old then, living on a farm in northwest Oklahoma. My family had not yet purchased a television. We were so used to evening radio, family card games, and reading our favorite books that no one in my family could see any particular reason to own a TV.

Thus, up until then, my fantasy world had been confined to make-believe heroes, storybook soldiers, cowboys, frontiersmen, and Indians. The action heroes in the books I read became my invisible playmates. I was one of them. And, in another sense, all of these were also tied to my real world in some way. In my hometown of Cherokee, Oklahoma, I personally knew real soldiers, cowboys, and Indians. Like every other child, my world was defined by what I already knew.

But John Glenn changed everything. When he left the confines of the Earth and returned safely, he changed my life. For the first time, I realized that everything I knew from the past no longer mattered very much. My generation would conquer things not of this world. At that point, I left fantasy behind and began thinking in the future, where I really started to grow my wings.

Looking back on my lifetime of Scottish Rite experience, I can see that it, too, has a strong element of fantasy that leads to future accomplishment. When the Degrees of the Rite were written, the myth of the Master Mason Degree was expanded. The story of Hiram was carried forward. New stories were added to the Masonic adventure, new heroes created, new worldviews introduced, and new techniques adopted to bring these fantasies to life so that we could learn from them and build on them.
Essentially, the Scottish Rite was created to fulfill a fundamental need in men. Men want to make their own inner connection to traditional values of importance. We want to live good and useful lives and be respected by our families and communities. We want to understand a complex modern world in which often our own family members are from a former marriage, our wives work full time, and our children are raised in daycare centers. We want to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of others.

The Scottish Rite in this new century will be there for us, teaching us what we all need to learn. It will continue to offer programs which uphold traditional values, but with techniques that have a basis in the reality of 21st-century man.
The Scottish Rite of this new century will also deliver Masonic education in both traditional and non-traditional ways. We will continue to facilitate the magical experience, which occurs when the scenes and symbols of our ethical plays, the Degrees, are integrated by body, mind, and spirit. The experience of being a Scottish Rite Mason has been, is, and will be intellectually and emotionally rewarding in this new century. We will teach what men want to know about Masonry and about being Masons. We will be known as the “University” of Masonic studies.

We will offer men leadership, education, ethics, family involvement, charity, and fraternity. As we complete the first decade of this new century, we will embrace the vision adopted by our Supreme Council at the close of the last century. The Scottish Rite will be an organization dedicated to excellence in Freemasonry. We will be recognized outside the Fraternity for the benefits we have brought to society. We will be the preeminent source for Masonic education in the world. We will be the creative center of American Masonry, the source for developing ideas and proven programs from which the rest of the Masonic community can draw. The Scottish Rite is an organization prepared to face up to its future. It will grow its own wings. It will produce its share of heroes. And it will be regarded among the best and most thoughtful of Masons everywhere as a dynamic and vital leader in the fraternal movement of tomorrow --- because men need and want fraternity in their lives, just as they need and want the quality of the Scottish Rite.

You are now invited to join us in this new renaissance, built on the same vision that lifted Illustrious Brother John Glenn to the edge of a new world in the past century. We welcome you to the feast of Scottish Rite fraternity in this new century!

Robert G. Davis
is the Secretary of the Scottish Rite Bodies in Guthrie, Oklahoma. He is Past Master of two Oklahoma Lodges, serves as editor of the Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason, is actively involved with Masonic education and renewal programs both in Oklahoma and nationally, and is the immediate Past President of the international Philalethes Society.