Grand Secretary
Most of us were told by our parents or guardians to “Watch what you say”. Whether their guidance was based on their own practical experience, or perhaps from lessons taught to them, such as “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3), the message was clear – words, once spoken, are impossible to fully retract. These may be words said in times of sorrow, frustration, or anger, but also applies to the risk of unintentionally speaking that which was not meant to be known by others.
Every one of us has thoughts we know better than to speak. Today when someone blurts something out we might simply say that they forgot to engage their filter. I contest that this is a real thing – that the literal process of verbalizing words allows us an opportunity to judge if what we are about to speak is something we truly mean.
But here is the rub: Few of us speak out loud while typing. We get on Facebook and other similar mediums and we allow our thoughts to flow directly through our fingers and out to the universe, to live on perpetual record, never having engaged the filter of if these words were something we would truly say. And, what is worse, is that this disease, this diarrhea of the fingers, can quickly spread to others who read our words.
I encourage each of you, Brethren, along with myself, to take a moment to proofread anything you post to Social Media. If you do not have the time to proofread, then you ought not make the post. Read your words aloud to yourself, which will let you engage your filter, which is that very first Cardinal Virtue, Temperance, and enact those first Liberal Arts & Sciences of the Trivium: Grammar, Logic, & Rhetoric, and thereby keep your own Book of Constitutions guarded by the Tiler’s sword.
“Thus you will render yourself deserving of the honor which we have conferred and merit the confidence that we have reposed.”
Jared Stanley, Grand Secretary
The Grand Lodge of Mississippi, F. & A. M.
