Jim Tresner, Grand Cross

One of the valuable lessons of Freemasonry is that you can begin again.

It was my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma, and it was Ash Wednesday. That evening my friend Dale and I went to St. John’s Episcopal Church for the “Imposition of Ashes,” a ritual in which the congregation kneels at the altar rail while the priest makes a cross-shaped mark with ashes on the foreheads of those kneeling. It is a solemn and beautiful service. Father Frank, a man small in stature but large of heart, was officiating. He carried the powdery ash in a silver container, about the size of a shallow cereal bowl, with his left hand, and marked the sign of the cross with his right thumb, after dipping it in the ash.

As Father Frank paused in front of Dale (who later became a priest himself) and reached for his forehead, there may have been a little ash floating in the air, but, whatever caused it, Dale let loose a mighty sneeze.

Instantly, the bowl emptied as the ash took flight, covering everything with a soft grey patina. Father Frank, who had reflexively squinted his eyes as the powder flew at them, looked up with a white circle around each eye in his otherwise grey visage, looking like a pale copy of Al Jolson in blackface. Dale was kept from rising and running only by the press of those standing behind him. The congregation was making a masterful effort to suppress its mirth, but there were not infrequent bursts of laughter, instantly suppressed.

“ It’s all right, my son,” said Father Frank. “Just wait a moment.” He departed toward the sacristy and, very quickly, Father Don appeared. He was a young priest, serving as curate for a while to gain a little experience before going to a church of his own. A football player in high school and college, he carried the refilled bowl of ashes in a massive hand. As he stopped in front of my friend, Dale took on a look of pure terror. It was obvious that another sneeze was coming. He quickly turned away to his left. Father Don saw the expression and correctly interpreted it. He quickly turned away to his right. And so, of course, the bowl was perfectly exposed when Dale loosed a second mighty sneeze, emptying the bowl and bestrewing Father Don with its contents.

That was more than the congregation could take; laughter became general and prolonged. Father Don looked down at Dale, rather like a gray mountain inclining its peak. “Well, Dale,” he whispered, “You’ve taken out the priest and the curate. Would you care for a shot at the altar boy?”

Then he raised his considerable voice and said to the congregation (and this is the reason I bring the whole thing up), “Remember, now, the Good Book teaches us that, no matter what we’ve done, we can start fresh. If you will all go back to your seats for a minute or two, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

This anecdote always reminds me of one of the most valuable lessons of the Masonry and the Rite—you can begin again. I don’t mean in the sense of forgiveness of sins; that’s a matter for a church, not a fraternity. I mean the simple idea that we really can start over; we don’t have to carry the emotional baggage of the past.

Many of us see that symbolism in the Fellow-craft Degree, when the young Entered Apprentice passes between the two pillars. The tradition is that they were hollow and that the archives of Israel were stored inside. The symbolism is that the Entered Apprentice can rid himself of the past, can deposit the past in the pillars and leave it there, as he passes between them toward the winding stairs.

You’ll find the same idea, symbolized in many different ways, in several of the Scottish Rite Degrees. Sometimes the symbolism is of death and rebirth, sometimes of passing from one apartment to another, sometimes of washing the hands, and there are others. Most of them carry additional meanings as well, but the background lesson is simple: whatever the errors, the mistakes in judgment, or the lapses of the past may have been, you can put them aside and go on.

Albert Pike said it beautifully. “The Mason does not sigh and weep, and make grimaces. He lives right on. If his life is, as whose is not, marked with errors, and with sins, he ploughs over the barren spot with his remorse, sows with new seed, and the old desert blossoms like a rose” (Morals and Dogma, 163). My Father was wont to phrase it more bluntly: “Neither God nor nature forces a man to make the same dumb mistake twice.”

It’s an important message. The goal of Masonry is that Masons lead good, happy, helpful, productive lives. We are to benefit others and ourselves, and, through a progress of growth and self-discovery, learn how to be of benefit at ever-higher levels of mind and spirit. But while we cannot do that without learning from the past, we cannot do it by lugging the past with us. If we are to live positively, we must keep the knowledge and insight, and leave behind whatever negative content the past may have.

The ashes of the past are just that, the ashes of the past. We bear their marks—the things they taught us—upon our brows, but we leave the burdens behind as we continue to climb the stairs.

Jim Tresner, Valley of Guthrie, Okla., is the Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute; Editor of The Oklahoma Mason, Member of the Steering Committee, Masonic Information Center; Director of Work in Guthrie; and author, among other books, of Albert Pike: The Man Beyond the Monument and Vested in Glory: The Regalia of the Scottish Rite. Contacts: Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, P.O. Box 1019, Guthrie OK 73044; Tel. 405-282-3212; Fax 405-282-3244; okmasonmag@hotmail.com