The phone call came on a Tuesday. It always comes on a Tuesday.
“The Worshipful Master says you’re my mentor,” said the voice on the other end. Young. Keen. Slightly confused.
“Right,” I said, with the confidence of a man who has absolutely no idea what that means either. “Well. Good. I’ll see you before the next meeting, then.”
I hung up and immediately Googled what does a lodge mentor actually do. If there was a manual, I’d lost mine somewhere between my Third Degree and my first stint as Junior Deacon — roughly the same period I also misplaced my ability to recite the second-degree tracing board from memory.
The questions you cannot answer
The first meeting went fine. He was sharp, polite, and genuinely interested in Freemasonry. I liked him straight away. But then the questions started.
“Why do we do that bit with the…?” He made a vague hand gesture. I knew exactly which bit he meant.
“Ah,” I said. “That’s… tradition.”
“Yes, but why is it tradition?”
“Honestly? I’ve never thought about it.”
You’d think thirty years in the Craft would make you an authority. It doesn’t. It makes you a man who’s done things so many times he’s stopped wondering why. And nothing exposes that faster than a candidate who hasn’t stopped wondering yet.
The ritual you’ve forgotten
He asked me to help him learn his Obligation. “Of course,” I said. “I know it like the back of my hand.”
Reader: I did not know it like the back of my hand. I knew the first three lines and then a sort of emotional impression of the rest — a feeling rather than actual words. I spent that evening with the ritual book propped against the kettle, muttering to myself like a man rehearsing a breakup speech. My wife asked if I was all right. I told her I was fine. She didn’t look convinced.
The festive board problem
“What happens after the ceremony?” he asked, one Thursday over coffee.
I took a breath. “We have a meal together. It’s called the festive board.”
“Like a dinner party?”
“Sort of. With toasts. And a song, sometimes. And a gavel. And specific rules about when you can and can’t sit down.”
He looked at me.
“It’s not a dinner party,” I added, unconvincingly.
Try explaining the Tyler’s Toast to someone who hasn’t heard it. Try doing it without tearing up slightly. I dare you.
The moment he made me think
It happened about four months in. We were walking to the car after a regular meeting — nothing special, a quiet night — and he said, quite casually:
“Do you think Freemasonry changed you, or did you just find people who were already like you?”
I opened the car door. Closed it again. Opened it. Sat down.
I’m still thinking about that one.
The first piece of ritual
The night he delivered his first piece of ritual, I sat in the lodge room trying to look calm. He was nervous. His voice caught on the second line. He mixed up two words near the end. The Inner Guard had to prompt him twice.
It was, by any technical measure, not very good.
It was, by every measure that matters, perfect.
Because he meant it. Every single word. You could hear it. The room could hear it. The Worshipful Master caught my eye and gave the smallest nod, and I had to look at the ceiling for a moment because something had got in my eye. Dust, probably. Old lodge. Lots of dust.
The confession
Here’s what they don’t tell you about mentoring. They say you’re there to guide the new brother. To answer his questions. To help him find his feet.
What they don’t say is this: he’ll make you remember why you joined. He’ll ask the questions you stopped asking. He’ll see the things you stopped seeing. He’ll remind you that this thing you’ve been doing for decades — this odd, beautiful, slightly eccentric institution — is still capable of taking your breath away.
I took on a mentee to help him.
I didn’t expect him to help me.
Related reading: The Tylers Toast – Long Version – by Rudyard Kipling · Songs Lodge Forgot: Five Masonic Ballads Worth Reviving