Yesterday, the North Carolina Press Club held it annual awards day announcing the winners of the 2009 Communications Contest. It’s the 2009 contest because that’s when all entries were published. I am a past president of the group.

I was proud to learn that my UNC-bound daughter Beth was a winner of a Bettye Neff Scholarship. She’s a good writer with a social conscience, so I feel optimistic about her prospects.

I won a couple of awards also.

I took second place in editing of publications other than newspapers for my work as editor of The North Carolina Mason. You can find recent issues of The Mason here.

The North Carolina Mason

The Mason is the publication in which I publish occasional editorials. I got opinion/editorial first and second place awards in the same division.

Here’s first place:

Is any moment trivial?

I spend what seems a trivial Saturday. The mower repair was not finished, so I don’t bother with the yard. I piddle on the computer with my weekly photo self-assignment. I make trivial comments on a couple of email lists I follow. I do a little work on The North Carolina Mason.

To avoid heating up the house, my wife Kitty asks me to do burgers and chicken on the grill. Beth, my teenaged daughter pushes me to go cell phone shopping. Our contract is expiring and so is her phone. I said, “Okay,” but am not looking forward to it.

I have a beer while I grill and continue to dread the trivial shopping. We eat lunch, and after piddling a bit more on the computer, I go upstairs, lay on the bed, and take more of a nap than I intend. It’s an unnecessary nap.

Kitty offers to wake me to go cell phoning, but Beth says, “Don’t bother,” giving me a reprieve.

I wake late, pour down a Diet Dr Pepper for a kick of caffeine, and offer to phone shop. Beth gets herself together, and I grab a camera bag. Off we go to the cell phone store.

We drive an uneventful 20 minutes to Smithfield. We arrive to a locked door — they close earlier than we thought. Just another trivial waste of time. As long as we are out, we head to Selma and take a look around — we cruise by the Amtrak station and through the little downtown. There’s nothing happening, no photos seen — what a waste of time.

Loop finished, we head back out toward home. Just before our turn, I notice that the trees on the edge of a cemetery pond work well with that new wide angle lens I just got. We swerve into the cemetery for my shot. Beth is curious about a bunker-like structure, and heads off to investigate.

After taking my picture, I grab the car, join Beth to see this odd, modern barrow. We hop back in the car and take the long, circular drive out. I never knew that old burial ground was behind the newer cemetery. We go to look.

I notice a running car parked behind a line of trees at the back of the cemetery and assume lovers necking in a semiprivate spot. We walk around the old burial ground and talk about what we see. I take a trivial snap or two. Beth asks about the car, we laugh about my guess.

We head back to our car. I take a better (snoopish?) look at the parked car. Something bright green peeks through under and behind the car. Odd.

As I put cameras in the backseat, Beth asks about the car again. Our curiosity is tweaked for some trivial reason. I stop to take a better look. Yea, green like a garden hose. I move closer as Beth sits in the car texting away on the dying cell phone.

The green seems to take on a coil shape and one part seems to go up and toward the back end of the car.

I go a little closer. Yep, that’s what it is — I’m almost sure.

I go back to the car, take Be’s phone, dial 911, and tell them what I think I see.

In less than five minutes, an ambulance rolls in, sees us waving, and goes to the car. They snatch a hose lose, jimmy the locked door of the car, and pull a young, semiconscious woman from the vehicle filled with belongings and exhaust gas.

We interrupted a suicide attempt.

Shortly, we hear coughing and crying.

I counted backward through every trivial, meaningless moment of the day. No mower, too long nap, closed store, a random turn choice based on idle curiosity, a glimpse of trees reflected in a pond... Only those exact accidents and non-events would have added up to being where we were, when we were. We never aimed to be there — trivial things just added up that way.

Each moment is trivial. Each moment is momentous.

It’s a matter of what we choose to do with those moments. Sometimes, it’s a matter of what they choose to do with us.

Nothing matters. Everything and every tiny detail matters.

Here’s second place:

Fear not, invest in something bigger

At the funeral, Past Grand Master Les Garner’s minister praised him as “not afraid of new ideas,” as a man who was always “investing in something bigger than himself.”

Les, like his old friend Jack Honeycutt, embodied the antithesis of “old man’s disease.” He smiled, laughed, and embraced life. He was not the stodgy, grumpy old man complaining from the corner of the room. He was full of life and joy. He was one of those men who knew that loving life was not the same as clinging to history.

Freemasonry is old. It is the oldest fraternal organization ever. It has as many personalities as it does members. Some have no respect for the history of the craft and would make it over in their own image. Others see it as a perfected institution — perfected at the moment they took their obligation — no further changes needed or allowed.

Freemasonry has evolved over the years. It is a different creature than when it began. Otherwise, it would have died with the stone masons’ guilds. It has adapted, though carefully, to the needs of its times and culture.

Over the years, our version of the craft has become more reserved — more like Sunday School and less like a social club. We once met in pubs, now we ban any contact with alcohol in our functions or facilities. We are discouraged from playing cards or dancing in a lodge hall. As a result of our growing reverence, we must defend ourselves as not offering the lodge as a substitute for the church.

We are admonished to avoid any frivolity before we confer a degree. This is despite the fact that it is a social play to bind men to one another, not a religious ritual.

Visiting another Masonic jurisdiction is now much more available to North Carolina Masons. No longer do we have to journey across state lines to see how other Masons celebrate making new members. We can do it in our own communities.

During a recent visit to a Prince Hall third degree, we were impressed by the statement of the lodge master at the beginning of the conferral. He reminded us, his brothers, that we knew when to have fun and when to be serious. He admonished us to maintain those boundaries.

Their approach allowed much more play between the members and their future brothers. It allowed more variation for individual lodges in certain portions of the work.

Is their approach better? Is ours?

Both have their advantages. Our privilege will be to exchange visits and thoughts and philosophies. Our jobs will be to discern what it is we have to learn. What can we take away to make our work and fraternity more vibrant? What are the lessons we may apply to make ours a stronger, more useful fraternity?

Let’s make sure that Ancient, Free and Accepted Masonry in North Carolina is “not afraid of new ideas.” Let us assure that our Freemasonry is “investing in something bigger than” itself. Let us make sure that we continue to grow and thrive, not just cling to history.

My other two awards were for Internet web photography. Both came from shots in Little Washington. First place was for a shot taken at the skate park there. It is a picture of Travis Ambrose.

Second place is a photo of a local group of kayakers doing their sunset glide along the Pamlico River.