I endured my undergraduate education at a small liberal arts college in Nebraska. No jokes, please. There are more things in Nebraska than you could know. Anyway, it was a very fine college with exceptional professors, but they insisted that everyone take some fine arts classes. Music and Art Appreciation were created primarily, I think, for members of the football team and others whose educational plans did not rest solidly on the fine arts.

I was not a football player, but I was studying journalism. Now, there are those who will argue that journalism is a fine art. The dean of the College was not one of them. Consequently, I took Music Appreciation—and actually learned to appreciate fine music.

I also learned something else that applies to many areas of my life.

The professor (who clearly would rather have been teaching advanced composition theory) was adamant on one point. To be considered “music,” a work had to possess three distinct things: Melody, Rhythm and Harmony. Remove one of the three and whatever was left was certainly not music. Listening to contemporary radio today, I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom of this. And I’ve found that it applies equally to many other things.

Consider our Craft and our individual lodges, for example.

Melody, the first requirement, is really the composer’s plan for the work. Without a plan, the work becomes cacophony, a jumble of confusing sounds. Melody provides the framework for rhythm and harmony. It provides the sense of direction and purpose necessary for the success of the work. In our lodge, the Worshipful Master is the composer and provides the plan and sense of direction. In our individual Masonic lives, we are self-composers, providing a plan—a melody—that plays in harmony with our families, our friends, our colleagues and our Brothers. Without Melody, there is no plan and life becomes meaningless and unproductive. Rhythm is easy to find in contemporary music. Indeed, most of what you hear today is pretty much all rhythm! Rhythm is necessary, of course, but only when found in proper proportion with Melody and Harmony. We each have rhythms in our life. If the word bothers you, use “patterns” instead. We have patterns in our lives, ranging from simple ones—like driving the same route to work each day—to the complex ones that govern our personal and family relationships. If you doubt you have these personal patterns, wait until your children are grown. My two adult children now take great sport in reminding me of my paternal patterns and poking gentle fun at my fumbling attempts to be a kind, caring, interested and reasonably hip father. Our lodges have patterns—rhythms, too. Looking back, you can trace the rise and fall and rise of any lodge.

Harmony, for me, is the most important element. As we know, it is the strength and support of all societies…especially of ours. Without it, rhythm is disrupted and melody is impossible to achieve. Without it, our individual lives become battlegrounds filled with conflict, often leading to physical ills, as well. Without it, our lodge becomes a place of rumor, innuendo and dissension—a place that is clearly not Masonic. It doesn’t take much to upset harmony, by the way. Think about a barbershop quartet. When they’re right on, that tight barbershop harmony is a real joy to hear. But let one voice slip just a half step and the result is like fingernails grating on a chalk board.

It’s been almost 40 years since I sat in that Music Appreciation class at Hastings College. Whatever the prof did, it must have worked. I love fine music and consider my life a better thing because of it. More importantly—and much longer in coming, I must admit—I also am finally coming to appreciate just how much Melody, Rhythm and Harmony are necessary to finding balance and equilibrium in my life and the life of our Craft.