7 minute read
Friend and Brother Eternal
by Charles Dunstan Boddy Jr., 32° Valley of Boston
The 26th degree, Friend and Brother Eternal, is an updated degree (Ritual of 2012) which wrestles with the balance between duty and fraternal loyalty. While the ritual is fictional, it presents circumstances that actually existed during the war: brothers by blood, and more often Brothers in fraternity, with loyalties to opposing sides. In spite of the subject matter, it does well to sidestep politics of that era—and of the present—to address universal truths. The title not only foreshadows the core values of the degree but also calls out the distinction between friendship and brotherhood, indicating that while they are separate and distinct (Brothers are not necessarily friends and vice versa), they can be both harmonious and perpetual.
I chose this degree because I have always been a student of the American Civil War. While the Revolutionary War threw off the bonds of monarchical servitude and established a legal code which implemented many Masonic ideals, it was the American Civil War which tested the American faith to that legal code and challenged our commitment, as a country, to live up to the ideals espoused by our forefathers. The Civil War era was one of suffering, infighting, distrust, and abuse of power. Yet, when all was said and done, that horrific war led to a time of peace, healing, and forgiveness. The boundless capacity of our people—who had lost land, possessions, freedom, and family—and leaders to join together in forgiveness and reconstruction said more about the character of Americans as a people than any other event up to that date. While our country plodded ahead and continued to subject Native Americans to unconscionable fates, the stage was now set for Masonic and moral values of respect, affinity, acceptance, and dignity to expand within our country, to improve our society, and to move our people toward a higher wisdom and vision of who we are and what we can become. It is within this context that the ritual is presented. That background and the real circumstances which underlie the ritual increase the powerful messages imparted by their stated core values of integrity and devotion.
The work of this degree is divided into four parts. The Prologue establishes the setting of the era and introduces the core values. Scene One is set at a United States Army post in Los Angeles, California immediately prior to the Civil War, when the United States Army was comprised of patriots from both the North and South. There is one country, one government, and one army. Yet, despite this, the soldiers see trouble and division ahead. They contemplate what will happen, where their loyalties may lie, and what their obligations and duties may be, even in the face of divisive issues and politics.
Scene Two occurs on the eve of Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Many academics and historians today acknowledge the Battle of Gettysburg as a turning point in the war. It is also a turning point for our characters, whose conflicting loyalties have passed from conjectural to factual. The soldiers who served with a common purpose in Los Angeles now discover themselves saddled with the same obligations of defending their country’s interests, but now those duties are imposed on opposite sides of a line of battle.
Scene Three takes place late in the Battle of Gettysburg, where Brother and General Winfred Hancock lies wounded in an army field hospital. He learns that his Brother Mason and former fellow soldier in Los Angeles, General Lewis Armistead, has died in battle exercising both courage and gallantry. Lying mortally wounded, Armistead’s concern is not for himself, but instead for his Brother, Hancock, with whom he shares both the bonds of soldiering and the bonds of our Masonic fraternity. As a dying act, Armistead expresses his sorrow. It is left to the candidate to determine whether his sorrow is due to the conflict or Hancock’s wounding, which Armistead assumes to be mortal. Finally, Armistead entrusts his valuables—a Bible and watch with Masonic fob—to Hancock. The entrusting of a dying Brother’s legacy to a fellow Mason is an act that is often recounted throughout our degrees. It is a form of comfort to the dying. It also eases the dying brother’s mind, knowing that he can entrust his worries to another who is pledged to act morally and with integrity to carry out his final wishes.
The Prologist announces that the core values of the degree are that all men are children of one living and true God, and thus brothers, one with the other. Masonic unity, harmony, courtesy, and charity survive between us even when challenged by partisan strife so long as we practice the principles of forbearance, charity, and fraternal love. Finally, the virtues of a good and true brotherhood give rise to the practices of good citizenship. Amid the trauma of conflict and dissension, we must practice understanding and forgiveness and realize our common bonds and interests do far more to join us than any conflict can do to separate us. The Scottish Rite, NMJ, assigns the values of Integrity and Devotion to Country to this degree as well.
This degree reminds us that our Masonic obligations have consequences beyond what our eyes and senses can discern. In Scene One, General Albert Sydney Johnston responds to the question as to whether war can be averted by saying, “Yes…in my opinion it can be prevented…provided there are men of good will on both sides— Freemasons, if you will.”
In Scene Two, General Armistead addresses the obligation to duty stating, “…obedience to duty is… the highest virtue.” By Scene Three, General Armistead is dead, and General Hancock is left to hear of his valor and adherence to duty. While the degree acknowledges that honorable men and Masons have to do their duty, it juxtaposes such obligations with the Masonic obligation to do what is right regardless of our self-interests. In the end, Armistead’s words in Scene Two stand out, “There are times when God’s work here on earth must be our own.”
The conflict of competing obligations is a universal experience and certainly one that affects me daily. In my role as an attorney, I may be called upon to resolve complaints between departments and individuals who work for my employer. Often, the disputes involve people whom I know as friends. The loyalty to friendship is strong and can often divert us from doing what is right. Our friends are as human as we are. They fail too! It is not enough for us to simply justify their error out of the obligations of friendship. Instead, we must step back, disrobe ourselves of personal bias, and truly try to see and do that which is right. My career forces such analysis upon me almost daily. Regardless of the dispute or the parties involved, I am always most comfortable with my decisions when I can say that my work was also God’s work here on Earth. And so, I always strive and yearn—not always successfully—to do God’s work here on Earth.
The degree exemplifies both integrity and devotion on the part of the soldiers. Each is devoted to his duty, to his country, and to his fellow soldiers. Each is similarly devoted to his Masonic brethren. Because of these devotions, when the union is set asunder, the devotions come in conflict as each must choose loyalty to the Grand Union or to the Confederacy. This choice often creates conflict both internal and external—internal conflict as to which loyalty takes precedence over another and external conflict as competing forces battle for supremacy. The Mason-soldiers undertake their responsibilities with devotion, fulfilling their duties, including giving that “last full measure of their devotion” by sacrificing themselves for their countrymen. The core value of integrity is exemplified by the soldiers who live up to their Masonic obligations by showing mercy and respect for their fallen adversaries. Further still, they care for their Brethren in death by carrying out their final wishes and seeing that their remains are treated respectfully. There is little that is more Masonic than that.
