2008 Annual Meeting Master's Address
From Sekhet-Maat Lodge
Saturday, April 5, 2008 ev
by Fr. ΝΘΛΜΚΜΝΡΓ
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Before I give my address, I'd like to just read our mission for you. Please listen carefully to the following seven bullet points, and consider them in light of everything we talk about tonight.
- We are dedicated to the high purpose of securing the Liberty of the Individual and his or her advancement in Light, Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, and Power through Beauty, Courage, and Wit, on the Foundation of Universal Brotherhood.
- Our mission is to preserve and advance the religious tenets, doctrines, principles, teachings, traditions and rites of Ordo Templi Orientis, a leading proponent of Thelemic thought and culture.
- We encourage creative excellence through aesthetic expression in all areas of individual and group endeavor, and promote an ethos inspired by Liber AL II:35—"Let the rituals be rightly performed with joy & beauty!"
- We maintain and improve our physical presence near the center of Portland, Oregon, from which we offer services in support of our mission to our members and to the public.
- We uphold the highest standards of excellence and effectiveness in the practice and dissemination of our religious, spiritual, magical, and ethical teachings.
- We espouse and defend the principle of individual liberty while cultivating strong fraternal bonds within our ranks.
- We foster harmonious and constructive relationships with the academic, business, civil, and greater social communities within which we operate.
Last year I mentioned that we were not in financial panic mode for the first time in eight years. We're still sailing smooth. This is not to say we have not faced challenges. Indeed, we have faced many. The type of challenges we face has shifted from continued existence to continued improvement. These new challenges can be profound.
Previously, the question, "why are we doing this?" was in some ways much easier to answer: without this temple, we could have none of the events that we enjoyed, from initiations to holidays; we'd be back to square one looking for someone's living room to hold our central rituals. So justifying the struggle to pay the rent, whether that struggle consisted of regular begging, frequent fund-raisers, raising dues, or requiring contribution from all members, it was easy to justify by simply explaining that we needed the money to cover the cost of our existence at our current level of development.
It's even been easy to explain why we need to go beyond self-sufficiency to become financially prosperous. Everyone would like it if we held property, so that the funds we put into the rent each month could go instead toward our ownership of the property. Achieving this will require our present income to quadruple. To that end, we found that one of our primary purposes, promulgation of the Law of Thelema, actually has great potential to help us in this respect, as new members will be the best source of income in the pursuit of eventual property acquisition.
Now that the rent is paid every month without major struggle, and now that we have been able to shift the focus of our effort toward more effective pursuit of our mission instead of to just surviving, we face a deeper challenge:
Why do we do the things that we do here, and why do we try to improve things, and why do we pursue our mission? Well, it's easy to come up with an answer. I could just cite our mission and say, de facto, we do these things because these are the things that we say that we do, and all of us have decided to promote this cause. That's not a real answer though. The real answer lies in our individual motivations for being here today, for agreeing with that mission and promoting it. Why do you personally value the Lodge? Do you come here for the fraternity? Or the experience of initiation and/or weekly Eucharist? Do you value our focus on individual liberty? Do you find self-knowledge through the challenge of building a community? Do you want to give back to the tradition which freed you from the bondage of the Old Aeon? Do you find joy in the opportunities for self-expression in discussions, classes, publishing, and performance projects?
Now that we have accomplished self-sufficiency and are solidly on the path to prosperity, our culture is beginning to flower and thrive beyond what we have ever seen before. It's not without growing pains, as we each look within to consider why we are here, and our priorities shift as our self-knowledge increases. Tonight as you listen to the reports of other officers and members, think about why you are here and what you want to do here. Consider how the activities at the Lodge contribute to your discovery and accomplishment of your Will, and consider what you can do to ensure that you get the most out of it.
In the near future, we will face other challenges which will try our cohesion and our obligations to ourselves and each other. There has been an economic downturn in this country. The cost of basic resources like gasoline, household utilities, and wheat is skyrocketing. Civil liberties have been eroded and will continue to be eroded for years to come. We are likely to find find a growing need to share resources and to work together in Fraternity to ensure that we all continue to thrive.
Another challenge we may face is that with increased promulgation comes increased membership and increased attention from outside. We may find ourselves answering a lot of basic questions to newcomers, and we may even find that we experience some opposition from intolerant groups.
In facing all these challenges, as well as those we may not foresee, it is vital that each of us as individuals consider why we are here, so that we can each represent ourselves with integrity, contributing according to our Will and explaining clearly to others what it is that we value about Sekhet-Maat Lodge and Ordo Templi Orientis.
Love is the law, love under will.
