Strength?

Many of times I sit some place and listen to whats going on around me.  The one thing I get called a lot is "strange" or "weird". I have to snicker at that. Too many times I have seen it from one place or another with a group of people you will see someone that does not fit in somehow. So instead of getting to know them and trying to bring them into the fold it is just easier to sit that and find faults in them.

In that we fail to see the strength that someone has or the strength they can bring to the whole for they are being pushed under the level.  I make no bones about it, I and different but are we all just different in our own ways?  With in my travels from here and there the one thing that keeps a group going and keeps a group strong happens when they do bring others into the fold and let them grow.  There are many groups that do not do that and I have seen how they become weak and die off.  As masons we stand together as one, we are strong for the brotherhood and friendship we share.  There is something warm about it when a brother whom we have never meet comes over and right away he is brought into the fold.

It is too easy to sit there and wish ill of someone or something and just blindly say they are strange.  While on campus I tell people go forth and talk to the person sitting there, get to know them. Too many times we are unaware of what they can bring into our life. A lot of times it is this willingness and hand of friendship that becomes the hand of strength. It is at times like this do we as a person and as a group work toward a bigger and better understanding.

A Past District Deputy Grand Master once sat down with me at table and shared something about what he saw as a kid and how it shaped him and guided him in his life.  While at camp he saw a group of boys picking on someone who was a little off, different and strange. That kid stood there and got picked on and he the PDDGM as a boy laughed as the group bullied away. The camp director put an end to it and punished all the boys including him the PPDGM. The PDDGM told me he asked the director why was he also being punished, he was not picking on any one. True he was not saying any thing, and that was part of the problem. He sat back lit his cigar and looked at me and said, see even tho I was not picking on the boy I was able to stand up and stop them. He did not, he let this fellow camper be picked on and that was the problem.  After that he would never let someone get called names or be left out in the cold.  It had a real big effect on him, he became stronger when he said stop it in his life.

We become strong when we all are on the same level and we don't let someone walk away feeling out-stead.  We become stronger as a whole when we work with the people to learn and grow with us.  Many of times in today's world we loose site that each person brings something different to the table, be it skills, knowledge, and even just an ear to listen.

I know a fellow mason whom stronger then me, he can look at someone and find the good that makes them. He is always supportive of the people around him, he always looks for ways to bring them up. That takes strength, the type of strength we all need to share in and have. To reach over the divide with the hand of love and friendship.