‘The Elements of Life’

    

Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team’s gavel.

Masonry endeavors to instruct men about the elements of life that are worthwhile and have lasting value; to teach of the relationship in which men should stand, one to another; and to impart the lesson that he who gives the best and richest in himself to those around him, receives the very same in return, with added measure. A Masonic Lodge is a gathering of men who believe in Creator and society; men who uphold the principles and ideals revealed in the Volumes of Sacred Law; and men who promote the universal ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom.

 

Installation of Officers

Grand Lodge of New York

Great flying weather, but four flights in thirty-three hours was a workout for me. (I find American is better than United.)

Cripes, now I know how Craddock feels!

The Magpie Mason recently undertook a whirlwind tour of the Midwest, flying to and from Tulsa, Oklahoma by way of four airports in about thirty-three hours. I’m an infrequent flier, so this was a workout for me, but it was totally worth it, having been able to attend the Joint Traditional Observance Lodge Festive Board on St. John’s Day. This, the third annual event, is sponsored by the four Traditional Observance lodges in Oklahoma: Guildhall Lodge 553, Veritas 556, Vitruvian 557, and Providence 558.

At Oaks Country Club in Tulsa.

Our host on St. John’s Day was Vitruvian, whose Worshipful Master, David Dill, contacted me last year to ask if I might be available to serve as speaker at a not-yet-defined event in 2026. I shouted Yes!, with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. I figured I’d be forgotten or replaced with a better choice before too much time passed, but there I was at Oaks Country Club, after some time assessing the qualities of several area craft beers with David and others at McNellie’s South. (I wouldn’t say day drinking makes me a better speaker, but it lets me not mind it so much.)

Brethren donated top shelf stuff for auction.

It was a great night. Festive is the operative word in Festive Board, and the great food, quaffable beer, wine for toasts, and camaraderie ensured a convivial evening. Our ritual had been sourced from a few places, including London, where David once visited twelve lodges in two weeks(!), with each hosting a Festive Board. And there was singing. The usual tunes, plus “Viva la Compagnie!” We had the room only a few hours, so brevity was key; I kept my remarks at the lectern to about twenty minutes. Titled “The Elements of Life,” this new talk extolled the value of tradition in Freemasonry. That could cover many areas, but I zeroed in on certain things we think, say, and do in our lodges.

That excerpt at top, from our New York Installation of Officers, talks specifically about our relationships to each other and to God as upholders of a free society. I thought it apt, as Independence Day neared. That gavel belongs to the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team, which was well represented that night by W. Dill and others.

(If you are wondering about the T.O. term, that’s how they like it in Oklahoma. In New York, we designate such lodges as O.M., for Observant Masonry, echoing the Masonic Restoration Foundation. For me, the terminology is less important than the best practices, as culled from our rituals, orations, jurisprudence, etc., that should guide lodges.)

I got to shake hands with MW Robert G. Davis for the first time in a long while. Bob spoke first, rendering a spiritual introduction to St. John Baptist Day in relation to our place in the cosmos via the summer solstice. I didn’t know he was to precede me, and I felt terrible having to contradict him when it was my turn to speak.

I broached the topic of tradition by explaining how sometimes they get started in ways we today do not remember. I relayed Pete Normand’s explanation of how June 24 became an occasion of Masonic feasting. (Pete, I hope you don’t mind, but I urged the Master of next year’s host lodge to book you as speaker for this event.) In short, June 24 was one of four Quarter Days, holidays throughout the year when everyone was off from work. However, the saint we read about in the Old Charges is St. Alban, who looked after masons in England during the third century. Meanwhile, neither Saint John is found anywhere in that vast body of literature penned between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. Alban’s feast day is June 22, not the day off from work everyone got in 1717, so he was supplanted with St. John the Baptist for convenience.

If that thinking lacks gravitas to you, as today is Independence Day, for another hour, in the United States, I’ll point out another two-day discrepancy: July 2 was the date in 1776 when the Second Continental Congress voted to declare “That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” July 2 was the date John Adams predicted “will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival… It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Yet, here we are every Fourth of July.

I have found how, when we study history enough, we realize inevitabilities, like truth can be stranger than fiction. Other times, coincidences become visible in hindsight, and that sometimes “you can’t make this stuff up.” And, especially, there are instances when the simple explanation works best.

In contrast, here are Faceypage posts in reply to someone’s innocuous St. John’s Day message:

Wut.

Not everybody plummets down this kind of rabbit hole, but, when a less-than-obvious explanation of something simple takes root, some will explore tangents that lead even further from tradition. Thanks to Pete, I think Masonry’s standard accepted Holy Saints John-parallel lines-solstices theory represents an accretion of ideas that doesn’t withstand scrutiny. It never made sense to me, but it became our tradition.

But my main point in Tulsa was to note a few traditions in what we think, say, and do in our lodges. For this, I covered territory familiar to regular readers of this website. I think understanding this material is very important—they are “elements of life”—namely:

‣ The centrality to Freemasonry of belief in God, as presented in Charge I of Anderson’s Constitutions, which lives on today in many grand lodges’ law books; in the meaning of our term Great Architect of the Universe, borrowed from John Calvin; and in Anderson’s history of the fraternity, beginning with Adam, “who taught his sons Geometry.”

‣ How Masons of diverse religious opinions coexist by “leaving their particular opinions to themselves” and allowing Masonry to be “the center of union.”

‣ How a Mason is peaceful “to the civil powers, wherever he resides and works,” upholding a tradition dating to the time of Henry VI.

‣ How we, as Masons, subdue our passions and improve ourselves, in a tradition that takes us back to Plato.

‣ And more.

I rarely feel positively about my speaking engagements, but this one went well. I was alarmed by the lack of Q&A (always a bad sign), but a number of the brethren took me aside near the end of the night to thank me for specific points in the talk. I’ll take it.

I even met a brother from Independent Royal Arch 2. I spotted his lodge necktie, and we chatted about New York and Masonic Week.

Vivat! Vivat! Vivat!

In souvenirs, I made out like a bandit, scoring not only the evening’s official beer glass and English-made firing glass, but also one brother’s gift to me of his personal Guildhall 553 firing glass, plus an Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team coin. And I managed to get all that fragile glass home intact.

Obverse of Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team’s coin. The state is rendered in red because ‘Oklahoma’ derives from the Choctaw language, meaning ‘red people’ or ‘red nation.’

I wished I could have stuck around longer, maybe just another day to visit the Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan museums, see some of Route 66, and try the smoked bologna (talk about elements of life!) at Big Daddy’s. I’ll have to get back some time.

I lack the talent to join that top tier of Masonic thinkers who regularly travel the country on the lecture circuit, but it is flattering to be invited and receive the red carpet treatment. My next turn at the lectern will be “across the river to the Jersey side” to discuss the Anti-Masonic Party in New Jersey at the research lodge on September 12, the 200th anniversary of the alleged disappearance of William Morgan. No singing and drinking there, I’m told.

     

‘Annual St. John’s/St. Alban’s gathering’

   

If you’re lucky, you look forward to all your Masonic gatherings. (The secret is to purge your calendar of events that don’t do “it” for you.) Saturday, the annual huddle of New Jersey research lodge guys happened at The Cranbury Inn, our usual haunt.

Invitations went out, but only four of us could make it for a square meal and brainy conversation. It’s our St. John Baptist Day Luncheon (I think of it as St. Alban’s Day Luncheon) for the stalwart supporters of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786. We went four hours, finally wrapping it up at five o’clock, as the dinner crowd began taking over the place.

The Cranbury Inn strives to display an adequate number of Washington portraits and firearms...

…and, in my opinion, they come fairly close.

Conversation ranged from lamenting the cancellation of this year’s John Skene Masonic Conference to upcoming conferences in California and Cambridge to the benefits of authors achieving a balance of historical overview and experiential knowledge of the Craft to the bizarre sexual content of a novel, supposedly based on the Hiramic Drama, penned recently by a New Jersey Mason. And a lot more. (Someone pitched the idea of Magpie Mason merch! So look for Magpie T-shirts, trucker hats, tote bags, pens, key rings, koozies, etc. in time for Christmas.)

Of itself, The Cranbury Inn says:

In the mid-1600s in the center of the colony of New Jersey by Cranberry Creek, a mill town began to develop along an old Indian trail that had widened into a road. This road connected the colonies and was becoming a main thoroughfare for colonial travelers. In 1697 Cranberry Towne received its charter from England. With increasing development, a need arose in central New Jersey for a place to eat and drink, get fresh horses, and spend the night; thus, in the mid-1700s (1750 and 1765) our taverns were built to meet these needs of the travelers passing through this area.

After the colonies declared their independence from the motherland, this business officially established itself in 1780. What is now The Cranbury Inn has been functioning as a place to eat and drink since the 1750s.

In the year 1800 Hannah Disbrow Dey & Peter Perrine were married in the Presbyterian Church across the street from The Cranbury Inn. Middlesex County Courthouse records tell us “they built as their home the house that is now The Cranbury Inn.” Their house was built across the front of our two original taverns built in 1750 and 1765, thus further developing and upgrading their business.

Rev. William S. Hall, their grandson-in-law, was a Quaker and a declared abolitionist, the time frame of which seems to coordinate well with the date the New Jersey state historian put on the conversion/remodeling of a flue space on the east wall of our oldest tavern. This converted flue space is an alleged slave hiding space from the days when what is now The Cranbury Inn was an alleged stop on the underground railroad...

Read more here.

It’s a lot of driving for all of us, but we really enjoy it. I wouldn’t mind if we added a St. Andrew or St. John Evangelist celebration.

     

‘St. Alban Masons coming to Philly’

    

St. Alban Lodge 529 in Philadelphia celebrates its sesquicentennial anniversary this year, in part, by hosting the 71st Annual International Gathering of Lodges Named for St. Alban. This will be the weekend of September 13 at the Masonic Temple in the City of Brotherly Love.

In Freemasonry, there used to be an interesting practice of lodges sharing a common name, but that are spread across grand jurisdictions around the country, uniting in a chain and occasionally meeting for fellowship—and, I guess, celebrating how their lodges’ name rocks. For example, there once was a St. John’s Lodge brotherhood.

Of course, the Holy Saints John are integral to Masonic ritual and symbolism, and I imagine every grand lodge in the United States has a St. John’s Lodge, very often numbered first. New York’s eldest extant lodge is St. John’s 1 in Manhattan, dating to 1757.

There is another saint whose name figures prominently in lodge nomenclature around America and beyond: St. Alban. His presence in Masonic culture is not obvious. First, let’s look at some biography, courtesy of Catholic Encyclopedia. Excerpted:

St. Alban. First martyr of Britain, suffered c. 304. The commonly received account of the martyrdom of St. Alban meets us as early as the pages of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” (Bk. I, chs. vii and xviii). According to this, St. Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium (now the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire), when a persecution of the Christians broke out, and a certain cleric flying for his life took refuge in Alban’s house. Alban sheltered him, and after some days, moved by his example, himself received baptism. Later on, when the governor’s emissaries came to search the house, Alban disguised himself in the cloak of his guest and gave himself up in his place. He was dragged before the judge, scourged, and, when he would not deny his faith, condemned to death. On the way to the place of execution Alban arrested the waters of a river so that they crossed dry-shod, and he further caused a fountain of water to flow on the summit of the hill on which he was beheaded. His executioner was converted, and the man who replaced him, after striking the fatal blow, was punished with blindness. A later development in the legend informs us that the cleric’s name was Amphibalus, and that he, with some companions, was stoned to death a few days afterwards at Redbourn, four miles from St. Albans.

With Freemasonry arising in the British Isles, it is easy to understand how the first martyr in Britain could be cited as a kind of spiritual founding father. The earliest mention of him in Masonic literature is found in the Cooke Manuscript from the early 1400s, which is the second oldest known publication in Masonic letters, junior only to the Regius MS, and is the oldest of the Gothic Constitutions. It echoes in Anderson’s Constitutions and in the ritual probably used in your lodge. Cooke, at line 602, briefly says:

“And soon after that came Saint Adhabell into England, and converted Saint Alban to Christianity. And Saint Alban loved well masons, and gave them their first charges and manners first in England. And he ordained convenient [times] to pay for the travail.” (Spelling modernized.)

Another document, known as the Grand Lodge Manuscript, that is said to date to 1583, illustrates more:

England in all this time stood void of any Charge of Masonry, until St. Albons’ time, and in his days the King of England, then a pagan, did wall the town that is now called St. Albons. And St. Alban was a worthy Knight and Steward of the King’s household, and had the government of the realm, and also of the walls of the said town; he loved and cherished Masons right well, and made their pay right good (according the standing of the realm), for he gave them 2 shillings 6 pence a week and three pence to their cheer [food and drinks]; for before that time, throughout all the land, a Mason took but a penny a day and his meat, until St. Alban amended it. He procured for them [the Masons] a Charter from the King and his Council, to hold a general council together, and gave it the name of Assembly; and after having himself [become a Mason], he helped to make men Masons, and gave them a Charge, as you shall hear afterwards right soon.

Personally, I believe St. Alban endeared himself to masons through the act of improving the food and drink allowance! His feast day is June 22. Vivat!

A quick look through a search engine shows there are St. Albans lodges at labor in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and, of course, St. Albans in Hertfordshire!

To register for the Philadelphia event, click here.

     

‘Make St. Alban’s Day great again’

    

Catholic Online

St. Alban

Another very pleasurable Saturday at The Cranbury Inn is in the books.

A group of us from New Jersey’s research lodge are making an annual tradition of this. Last June, St. John the Baptist Day was nice enough to land on a Saturday, so to celebrate that and the 300th anniversary of The Constitutions of the Free-Masons—more commonly known as Anderson’s Constitutions—being published, we gathered for lunch at this historic eatery. Today, being St. Alban’s Day, we did it again.

About The Cranbury Inn from its website:

In the mid-1600s in the center of the colony of New Jersey by Cranberry Creek, a mill town began to develop along an old Indian trail that had widened into a road. This road connected the colonies and was becoming a main thoroughfare for colonial travelers. In 1697 Cranberry Towne received its charter from England. With increasing development, a need arose in central New Jersey for a place to eat and drink, get fresh horses, and spend the night; thus, in the mid-1700s (1750 and 1765) our taverns were built to meet these needs of the travelers passing through this area. After the colonies declared their independence from the motherland this business officially established itself in 1780. What is now The Cranbury Inn has been functioning as a place to eat and drink since the 1750s.

We ate, we drank, but it’s a shame you can’t smoke in the place. Conversation remained in the orbit of Masonic history, particularly how one event in the 1800s gave shape to much of what we do today. That discussion just might develop into a conference, so I’ll sit on the details there.

But, St. Alban! I was asked in advance to provide the postprandial remarks, so the brethren patiently listened to “Make St. Alban’s Day Great Again.” I kept it short, but this is my pitch to elevate June 22 to its rightful place on the Masonic calendar on account of this saint having a historical connection to the masons of the building trades.

John the Baptist? No connection to the masons of medieval times. Read as many of the Gothic Constitutions as you please, but you won’t find any mention of John the Baptist. Or of the Evangelist, for that matter. But there is our true patron, St. Alban, in the Cooke Manuscript from the 15th century.

Excerpted, starting at Line 602:

And soon after that came Saint Adhabell into England, and converted Saint Alban to Christianity. And Saint Alban loved well masons, and he gave them first their charges and manners first in England. And he ordained convenient [times] to pay for the travail.

Another document, known as the Grand Lodge Manuscript, that is said to date to 1583, illustrates more:

England in all this time stood void of any Charge of Masonry, until St. Albans’ time, and in his days the King of England, then a pagan, did wall the town that is now called St. Albans. And St. Alban was a worthy Knight and Steward of the King’s household, and had the government of the realm, and also of the walls of the said town; he loved and cherished Masons right well, and made their pay right good (according the standing of the realm), for he gave them 2 shillings 6 pence a week and three pence to their cheer [food and drinks]; for before that time, throughout all the land, a Mason took but a penny a day and his meat, until St. Alban amended it. He procured for them [the Masons] a Charter from the King and his Council, to hold a general council together, and gave it the name of Assembly; and after having himself [become a Mason], he helped to make men Masons, and gave them a Charge, as you shall hear afterwards right soon.

So, personally, I believe St. Alban endeared himself to masons through the act of improving the food and drink allowance!

He is the patron saint of torture victims, so if you ever endured one of my talks, Alban is your saint.

For a smattering of hagiography, see the Catholic Encyclopedia here.

      

‘Indian Degree Team coming to St. Alban Lodges’ Gathering’

    

Happy St. Alban’s Day!

Today is the Feast Day of the first Christian martyr in the British Isles, an anniversary previously employed by Freemasons for convivial observance. Maybe in some places it is still, but Bro. Pete, at St. Alban’s Lodge 1455 and Texas Lodge of Research, says St. Alban’s Day was the summertime celebration occasion for English Freemasons before St. John’s Day, on the 24th, was chosen.

Why switch? Pete says it simply was because the Baptist’s Feast Day was an official holiday in English life, so it made more sense to delay the festivities for two days and synchronize the Masonic partying with everyone else’s.

I think we deserve both, but no one listens to me. Here’s more on St. Alban.

So, a couple years ago, I told you about the International Gathering of Lodges Named for St. Alban that was scheduled for Long Island, home of St. Alban’s 56. As you recall, the pandemic resulted in everything being canceled. (The brethren did get together last year at St. Alban’s 6 in Rhode Island.) But this party—the seventieth—is on!

October 13-15 in Rockville Centre.

One added feature I heard about will be the appearance of the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team. Founded circa 1950, according to OMIDT Secretary David Dill, the Degree Team travels the United States (and has a few times to England) to confer the Third Degree in full Native American ceremonial attire. I saw them in New Jersey about twenty years ago, and remember that the ritual is Grand Lodge of Oklahoma standard work, which differs slightly from what we know in New York, but the treat is the ritual garb in the Masonic setting. It means a lot.

OMIDT

The team’s last visit to New York was 1999, Bro. Dill says. “The team is loosely based out of Tulsa. Members belong to multiple lodges in northeast Oklahoma, and we also belong to several different tribes,” he adds.

“Right now, the tribes represented are Muscogee (Creek), Cherokee, Pawnee, Ottawa, Apache, Choctaw, and Seminole. In the past there have been many other tribes represented as well. To be on the the team, you must belong to a tribe, know multiple parts in the Master Mason Degree (Oklahoma ritual), have regalia, be able to dance (a native dance like what you would see at typical pow-wow), and be able to travel up to two times per month,” Dill continues.

“Our outfits are actually dance clothes you would normally see at a pow-wow. The different outfits belong to different dances. We make our outfits ourselves. We all have real eagle feathers. New members must serve a year-long apprenticeship. Full membership is attained by a vote of the team at one of our biannual meetings. We have had non-native members in the past. These are special exceptions and in these cases these members are ‘adopted’ into the team, much like a tribe can adopt non-members.”

“For us to travel, we require three things: transportation costs, lodging, and meals while we’re away. We do not charge for degree work.”

It could be another couple of decades before the team returns to New York, so try to get to this event. For information, contact Bro. Scheu here.

     

‘Calling all St. Albans lodges’

     

UPDATE: MAY 20, 2020

This event is canceled

due to the pandemic.

In Freemasonry, there used to be an interesting practice of lodges sharing a common name, but that are spread across grand jurisdictions around the country, uniting in a chain and occasionally meeting for fellowship—and, I guess, celebrating how their lodges’ name rocks. For example, there once was a St. John’s Lodge brotherhood.

Of course the Holy Saints John are integral to Masonic ritual and symbolism, and I imagine every grand lodge in the United States has a St. John’s Lodge, very often numbered first. New York’s eldest extant lodge is St. John’s 1 in Manhattan, dating to 1757.

There is another saint whose name figures prominently in lodge nomenclature around America and beyond: St. Alban. His presence in Masonic culture is not obvious.

First, let’s look at some biography, courtesy of Catholic Encyclopedia. Excerpted:

Courtesy St. Alban's Episcopal Church.

St. Alban. First martyr of Britain, suffered c. 304. The commonly received account of the martyrdom of St. Alban meets us as early as the pages of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” (Bk. I, chs. vii and xviii). According to this, St. Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium (now the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire), when a persecution of the Christians broke out, and a certain cleric flying for his life took refuge in Alban’s house. Alban sheltered him, and after some days, moved by his example, himself received baptism. Later on, when the governor’s emissaries came to search the house, Alban disguised himself in the cloak of his guest and gave himself up in his place. He was dragged before the judge, scourged, and, when he would not deny his faith, condemned to death. On the way to the place of execution Alban arrested the waters of a river so that they crossed dry-shod, and he further caused a fountain of water to flow on the summit of the hill on which he was beheaded. His executioner was converted, and the man who replaced him, after striking the fatal blow, was punished with blindness. A later development in the legend informs us that the cleric’s name was Amphibalus, and that he, with some companions, was stoned to death a few days afterwards at Redbourn, four miles from St. Albans.


With Freemasonry arising in the British Isles, it is easy to understand how the first martyr in Britain could be cited as a kind of spiritual founding father. The earliest mention of him in Masonic literature is found in the Cooke Manuscript from the early 1400s, which is the second oldest known publication in Masonic letters, junior only to the Regius MS, and is the oldest of the Gothic Constitutions. It echoes in Anderson’s Constitutions and in the ritual probably used in your lodge.

Cooke, at line 602, briefly says “And soon after that came Saint Adhabell into England, and converted Saint Alban to Christianity. And Saint Alban loved well masons, and gave them their first charges and manners first in England. And he ordained convenient [times] to pay for the travail.” (Spelling modernized.)

Another document, known as the Grand Lodge Manuscript, that is said to date to 1583, illustrates more:


England in all this time stood void of any Charge of Masonry, until St. Albons’ time, and in his days the King of England, then a pagan, did wall the town that is now called St. Albons. And St. Alban was a worthy Knight and Steward of the King’s household, and had the government of the realm, and also of the walls of the said town; he loved and cherished Masons right well, and made their pay right good (according the standing of the realm), for he gave them 2 shillings 6 pence a week and three pence to their cheer [food and drinks]; for before that time, throughout all the land, a Mason took but a penny a day and his meat, until St. Alban amended it. He procured for them [the Masons] a Charter from the King and his Council, to hold a general council together, and gave it the name of Assembly; and after having himself [become a Mason], he helped to make men Masons, and gave them a Charge, as you shall hear afterwards right soon.


Personally, I believe St. Alban endeared himself to masons through the act of improving the food and drink allowance! His feast day is June 22. Vivat!

Where was I going with this? Yes! An organization of St. Albans lodges.

There is an international gathering of lodges named for St. Alban called for next year in New York, it was announced yesterday. It will be hosted in Rockville Center on October 2 through 4, 2020 at the Scottish Rite Valley there. For information, contact W. Bro. Harrison Greene of St. Albans Lodge 56 here.

A quick look through a search engine shows there are St. Albans lodges at labor in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and, of course, St. Albans in Hertfordshire!

Please help spread the word.