Not A Mason, But Appreciated Masonic Values: "built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones."

"THIS I BELIEVE"

by Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein wrote this item in 1952. His wife, Virginia Heinlein, chose to read it when she accepted NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal on October 6, 1988, on the Grand Master's behalf (it was a posthumous award).

Mrs. Heinlein received a standing ovation.
 
      "I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. "Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him."

      "My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee--no prospect of a fee--I believe in Doc.

      "I believe in my townspeople. You can know on any door in our town saying, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, 'To heck with you - I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down."

      "I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step up to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in Mac - how far you going?'

      "I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallentry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.

      "I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

      "I believe that almost all politicians are honest. . .there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the 13 colonies.

      "I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

      "And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will always make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet -- will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency.

      "This I believe with all my heart."

More from Albert Pike: "The Nobelest of Use"

Lee's note:   I always like to be aware, that I stand directly in the center of all those people who came before me in the past and all of those who will come after me when I am gone.  This idea, in no way makes me feel small, but rather, impresses upon me the importance of my life as a bridge between all the past and infinite future.

"The noblest, if not indeed the only noble use, to which we can devote our strength, our energies, our faculties, our intellect, is to labour for the benefit of others, to instruct, to guide, to enrich with physical comforts, and moral healthfulness and intellectual wealth, the less favoured of our race; not alone our children, friends, neighbors, but those remote from us and even unknown to us; separated from us even by wide spaces of time yet unelapsed' to be born hereafter; to people this earth when we have leftit; to build teir habitations and their cities, and the monuments of their ancestors, upon our unknown graves....."

New Officers, Cataract Lodge #2 AF & AM

Left To Right:  Lee Love (Tyler), Herb Berzelius, WB Dan Starks, Conrad Jackson (Worshipful Master), Ivan Smith (Junior Warden), WB Dave Wething (Senior Warden), WB Blake English (Chaplin), Scott Wood (Senior Steward), Kevin Schwab (Senior Deacon), Allan Jensen (Junior Steward), Dave Ott (Junior Deacon) and WB Terry Henthorn (Marshal).

I jumped right into the Freemasons a year and a half ago and was caught in open arms.   It has been a perfect addition to my life, giving me balance and an explained social life as a balance to my solitary work in the studio.

Albert Pike on Temperance.

"Luxury has been the chief cuase of the downfall of every Republic.  While simple, modest and frugal habits prevail, the fortresses of Freedom are impregnable..." --Albert Pike, Some Thoughts On The Nature And Purposes Of Freemasonry.