‘America Lodge 57’

    

I feel like I’m the last one to see it, but there is this well produced 45-minute(!) video on YouTube about the first regular Masonic lodge for women set to labor in the United States. Women Regular Freemasonry and the Great Experiment can be found on the America57 Channel, which is named for America Lodge 57 in Washington, D.C., chartered by the Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons, which is based in England.

The word “regular,” I bet, is catching your eye. Some are thinking America 57 can’t be the first regular lodge for women because there have been women’s lodges here for years. Others will chafe at the use of the word simply because women are in the lodge. Most of the explanation is in the documentary, and I’ll add some history. America 57 is regular, it is said in the video, because it is regularly constituted by a grand lodge; it admits only women to membership; it requires belief in a supreme being; it displays the Three Great Lights on the altar; it proscribes partisan and sectarian lodge activities; and it has no tiled visitations with male lodges. So, that’s standard operating procedure. The missing historical context—or at least I didn’t catch it—involves a statement published by the United Grand Lodge of England in 1999 that calls the two oldest and largest Masonic orders for women in England regular in their practices. There’s no recognition—that’s a whole other determination—but UGLE said HFAF and the Order of Women Freemasons are regular.

Why women’s Freemasonry at all? America Lodge’s Worshipful Master explains:

“It’s very important for a woman to become a Freemason for a number of reasons,” said Lou P. Elias. “First, in the United States, women are still learning to juggle the different duties they’re expected to fulfill, so building a deeply rooted sense of confidence is very essential. Unfortunately, while the usual self-help trainings and confidence-building workshops are useful to a certain degree, their impact remains at a surface.”

“It is the initiatic path, the pursuit of women’s Freemasonry, that provides the woman with a powerful transformative self of unshakable confidence, impossible to describe in words,” she added. “Secondly, as women increasingly ascend to positions of leadership or in responsibility in business and government in civil society, women’s Freemasonry provides the teachings and the tools to help them build a stronger, wiser, more beautiful and more just society.”

“And thirdly, women in our country need to take the Great Experiment that we call America to the next level. [In] this Great Experiment in human governance, deeply rooted in the teachings of Freemasonry, the revolutionary has been dominated by men, and has reached a plateau, so we need women Freemasons to advance our unique experiment in governance to the next level.”

If W. Bro. Elias’ last name (and these Masons are called brethren) rings familiar, it’s because she is the spouse of MW Bro. Akram Elias, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. He too speaks in the video, defining that Great Experiment, a common topic in his addresses to Masonic audiences. (Maybe you caught his presentation to the Masonic Society in February.)

Well, it’s silly to keep writing about it when you could watch the documentary. There’s revealing footage of ritual, unmistakable messaging in the scenes of Washington, and keep an eye out for the Book of Ruth. Enjoy.

‘Wanted: Masonic citizens’

     

The Masonic Society

Lecture 2021

 
In lieu of the Masonic Society’s usual banquet during the annual Masonic Week festivities in Virginia, we gathered via Zoom Friday night to host one of the most dynamic thinkers and persuasive speakers on the Masonic scene today. As president of the Society, I hadn’t anticipated the pandemic would still hound us into 2021, so I in fact had been planning for our customary dinner-lecture at the hotel in Arlington when I first contacted MW Bro. Akram Elias last June. It was my desire to find a speaker who would continue a theme opened by RW Bro. Eric Diamond, one of our Board members, who addressed the group in 2019 with a speech that rightly should arouse Freemasonry’s latent desire to infuse a positive energy into the public square because, candidly, Freemasonry has turned into an introspective and persnickety historical society. Having discovered earlier in 2020 the Masonic Legacy Society, co-founded by Elias, I recognized exactly such a presenter of urgent Masonic ideals. He graciously agreed to join us, without any hesitation, mental reservation, etc.
 
MW Elias has been a Freemason since 1996, when he was initiated, passed, and raised in Potomac Lodge 5 in Washington, DC. He has presided in the East of La France Lodge 93, Benjamin B. French Lodge 15, Cincinnatus Lodge 76, and Pythagoras Lodge of Research, all in Washington, where he also is a founding member of other lodges. In 1999, he joined the Grand Lodge officer line, culminating in his term as Grand Master in 2008. He is a York Rite and Scottish Rite Mason, and a Shriner, as well as a member of invitational groups. His Masonic accolades and accomplishments are too numerous to include here. In his professional concerns and employments, Elias has been engaged in the field of international relations for more than thirty years; he is a co-founder and president of Capital Communications Group, Inc., an international consultancy that provides to governments and private clients alike an array of strategies for navigating across humankind’s varied nations and cultures.

His presentation is titled “Freemasonry in 2026: A Force for Good, or a Footnote in History?” He spoke for approximately thirty minutes before fielding questions for an hour. We are in the process of editing the webinar video to make it available online to all. The following summary of Elias’ remarks will appear in the upcoming issue of The Journal of the Masonic Society, due out in April.
 

“I hope every Freemason would take a few moments to truly think deeply and seriously about what it means to be a Freemason in our country five years before our country celebrates the 250th anniversary of our independence,” he begins. “And about the special relationship that has existed between the Founding of the Great Experiment and the role Freemasonry has played in the establishment, development, and evolution of the Great Experiment; and where we are today—at a major crossroads. Will Freemasonry rise to the challenge once again to help propel this Great Experiment into the future?”
 
Elias defines the Great Experiment as the uniquely American system of governance needed “to advance the human condition.” Not only democratic elections, which had been tried with only partial benefits to previous societies, but also “the genius of the Founding Fathers,” meaning government as a “systems engineering machine that people can use to solve their own problems.” By employing individual liberty, self-governance, and the rule of law, America, which he acknowledged was led at that time by white, Anglo-Saxon property owners, could set in motion a system that would “expand the Experiment” so as to include and embrace all the people of America.
 
“Enlightened citizens are of the utmost importance to the success of this Great Experiment,” he also says, and that is where Freemasonry enters the history. “Masonic lodges truly were incubators” where its members elected their leaders, voted on legislation, and honed their skills in rhetoric. The lodge experience produced leaders of local communities who could safeguard freedom, which is always endangered. “America created civil society,” he adds. While the world always had “society” consisting of structures—religion, ethnicity, family—that predetermined a person’s identity, it took the American Experiment to birth a place where an individual could relieve himself of constraints and enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, and other inalienable rights. “It is also, from an Enlightenment perspective, freedom from ignorance, freedom from bigotry, freedom from superstition.”
 
“Masonic lodges spread across the country. It was a place where people learned to govern themselves,” Elias continues. “They were laboratories where Masonry is taken seriously. How does Masonry take an individual and make him better? That happens by studying seriously the deeper meanings of the symbols and allegories of our Craft. It is the esoteric, the hidden aspect, that enables a person to transform from within.”
 
“Masonry was instrumental to help bring people together of different backgrounds to try to work together to build their communities.”  The result over time was making the Great Experiment more inclusive. “One way to look at the evolutionary history of the United States is to see each generation had to fight its own viruses—we live in a COVID pandemic right now. Viruses have variants and can spread sometimes like wildfire. Well, ignorance, superstition, bigotry, and extremism are viruses, and each generation of Americans would face those,” he says, referring to the revolutions in American life that ended chattel slavery and racial segregation, and that expanded suffrage and economic opportunity beyond the original Founders’ social class. “It took generations and generations of Americans to fight hard and make the Experiment more inclusive.”
 
“As Masons, we are taught in our ritual—we live it in many jurisdictions in our country—we need to attract people of different faiths, backgrounds, races, nationalities, etc.,” he explains. “We know what are the minimum criteria for someone to knock at the door and be accepted in our Craft.”
 
“Five years before we celebrate our 250th anniversary, given where our country is, what are Freemasons going to do?Are we, as Freemasons, going to go to lodges and do the stuff that we would typically do—conduct some business, maybe spend some good time together because we are fellows who like one another and spend an evening together—or  are we going to really go back to the fundamentals of Freemasonry and make it relevant again?”
 
“Freemasonry has a unique role: It is to build a better person, a more engaged, enlightened citizen, and that’s what we need, because if we don’t have enlightened citizens who take on the responsibility, engage the system engineering machine, to move us forward, solve our problems, always expanding opportunity for all—if we don’t do that, it becomes the rule of the mob,” Elias adds conclusively. “As Benjamin Franklin told that lady who asked ‘What have you given us, Dr. Franklin?’ And he said ‘A republic, madam, if you can keep it.’ And a republic needs enlightened, engaged citizens.”
 

‘Be there on Friday’

     

Join us Friday for the Masonic Society’s virtual meeting when we will welcome to the lectern MW Bro. Akram Elias, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Washington, DC.

In lieu of our annual banquet amid the Masonic Week festivities in Virginia, we shall gather via Zoom to enjoy our guest speaker’s presentation.

Just as when we meet inside the hotel, this “meeting” is open to all Freemasons and friends of the fraternity.

In all seriousness: Evidently there are grand lodges that proscribe the use of online platforms for Masonic purposes by their members. Govern yourselves accordingly.

MW Bro. Elias will challenge us to look five years into the future, to the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, for a candid assessment of Freemasonry. Will it be as vital to our world as it was in the time of the Founding?

Dress as you would for a Masonic meeting. See you there.

     

‘Masonic Week 2021’

     

UPDATE: Masonic Week 2021 is canceled, and many events will be hosted via Zoom, including the Masonic Society’s event featuring MW Elias. More info to come.

MW Akram Elias

I wasn’t going to get into an event eight months away just yet, but I see the organizers of Masonic Week have posted the preliminary schedule of events already, so let me tell you about the best part.

The Masonic Society’s annual dinner-lecture will be hosted Friday, February 12, 2021. No word yet on the menu or dining fee (I probably will have both later in the summer) but, more importantly, our keynote speaker will be MW Bro. Akram Elias, Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Washington, DC.

Masonic Week takes place at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. It will run from Wednesday, February 10 through Sunday the 14th. (If you think your lady won’t appreciate the Operatives Brunch on Valentine’s Day, well you’re just wrong!) The website will have event registration, dinner reservation, and hotel booking information—again—probably later this summer.

You’ll see the schedule has been rearranged. The Grand College of Rites was bumped up to 1:30 on Friday, so I may just stand a chance of getting there this time. But the reason you’ll want to attend Masonic Week 2021 is the Masonic Society dinner.

MW Bro. Elias’ talk will be “Freemasonry in 2026: A Force for Good, or a Footnote in History?” He will challenge us to look five years into the future, to America’s semiquincentennial year, to candidly assess whether Freemasonry will be relevant, and what we, as Free and Accepted Masons, can do today to anticipate the future we deserve.

We’re all having a hell of a 2020 thus far, and some strategic thinking most definitely is in order.

MW Elias served as Grand Master in 2008, capping a most effective career in Masonic leadership. If you want to know what he is up to these days, check out the Masonic Legacy Society.

So, mark your calendars and plan to be with us at the Hyatt Regency on Friday the 12th at seven o’clock. All Masons, our ladies, and friends of Freemasonry are welcome to enjoy a terrific meal and great company. Everyone says it is the social event of Masonic Week, and who am I to argue? I’m lucky they let me in.