Brotherly Love

Brotherly Love is the single most important teaching of Masonry. The Grand Lodge of Oregon’s motto is: Brotherly Love, Relief, Truth. Brotherly Love comes first for a reason.

If you only focused on this one practice for the rest of your life, you would surely build a great spiritual edifice and leave this world with a clear conscious and full heart. Brotherly Love starts with our thoughts and takes practice to master.

First, let us come to a common understanding of what is meant by the term “brotherly love”. I define this as having empathy and showing compassion for every living person. It is seeking to understand someone rather than sitting in judgement and looking for those myriad ways that we are alike instead of dwelling on our few differences. 

Brotherly love starts with our thoughts. When we see other people, often our thoughts focus on something that we don’t like about them. Our brains are naturally predisposed to put things into categories and focus on differences. Human brains are category-making machines. However, if we let these categorical practices run unchecked in our minds, we risk only having love for those that are most like us. This leads to a heart, and a life, that is small. 

In addition to the natural categorizing our brains undertake every day, external forces shape our habits of thought about others. Culture, society, our friends and family, all have a subtle influence that effect our first thoughts about people, or groups of people, to be positive or negative. If we do not take control of our thoughts about others, someone else will. 

The NPR Podcast “Invisibilia” produced an eye-opening episode on implicit bias. In the episode, a white man tells a story of a time he was waiting for a train late at night with his young bi-racial daughter. In his description of the event, he tells the interviewer that his first instinct was to move to the other side of the platform when he saw a young black man standing there. Upon further thought, he realized that there was nothing out of the ordinary or threatening about the man. His first instinct shows that he had internalized a stereotype that black men are dangerous. He had heard bad things on the news and in movies, and his brain created a category and an association with black men without him realizing it. This is what implicit bias is. It happens when our brains make a category and association without our consent. The danger of implicit bias comes when we take actions, like moving to the other side of the platform, without realizing where our thoughts are coming from. This is why many kind people that whole-heartedly do not consider themselves racist can have racist attitudes and actions.

The good news, my brothers, is that our brains are trainable. We can train our brains to look for the best in others and stave off judgement. We can train ourselves to be accepting, tolerant, and compassionate. 

In the above-mentioned investigation into habits of mind and implicit bias, scientists have found that the key to re-training our brains is to be open and practice true brotherly love for every person. Every person is worthy of our kind offices. First, we have to be on the lookout for these stereotypical first thoughts. When they arise, replace it with another thought like, “that man is waiting for a train, just like me”, or “I bet he has to get home to his family after a long day of work, just like me”. In most cases, we get what we look for. When we get past our first thoughts, and take control of our second thoughts about others, we focus on our shared humanity. This is not an easy process, my brothers. It takes diligent practice. We can help each other. Masonry advises us to admonish our brothers with kindness and to help them build their moral and spiritual temple. One Mason should feel it his duty to let another know when he is speaking or acting out of an old prejudice or bias. There is no shame in having these thoughts, but once you have found them, there is no excuse for allowing them to continue unchecked.

Our challenge, as men who have sworn a solemn obligation to treat the human race as one family and to practice brotherly love, is the practice. Like anything else, training a brain that has a long-formed habit takes time and effort. However, I cannot think of any more noble work than that of diligently opening our hearts and minds. 

In my own experience as a teacher I have met and befriended people that spoke many different languages, practiced different religions, and had many different family structures than my own. I have found, that every time old habits of mind creep in, I have to re-focus my brain and not get trapped in the ease of stereotypes. When I get to know a student or their family, and celebrate success, or commiserate a shared difficulty, I can literally feel my heart expand. I have been lucky to have the chance to be around so many different people in my life, and I will continue the practice of brotherly love forever.