‘Ben Franklin gets the Burns treatment’

    

Benjamin Franklin, revered Freemason, Founding Father, inventor, natural philosopher, statesman, entrepreneur, and more, is the subject of a two-part biography by filmmaker Ken Burns. It can be seen starting next Monday on PBS television and streaming.

I am doubtful the film will say anything about Franklin’s Masonic association. He was a busy man who milked the utmost from his eighty-four years in this world, whereas Burns’ story runs four hours.

Ken Burns, in his forty-one years of producing documentaries, has touched the periphery of Masonic history many times. Some of his previous biographies (Lewis & Clark, Mark Twain, The Roosevelts) honed in on famous Masons, and many of his histories bump into the works of others (The Statue of Liberty, The National Parks). Then, of course, his epic anthropological films (Jazz, Baseball, Country Music) unavoidably discuss the lives and deeds of a number of Masons.

It was on that basis that I once emailed him about twenty years ago to pitch the idea of a film on Freemasonry. Granted, it’s a huge subject, but it encompasses story elements that figure into his documentaries. From the giants of history astride the globe, to folks you might know living their lives on Main Street—with race relations and women’s inclusion in the mix—human progress is encapsulated in the Masonic story. There is a bottomless inventory of archives and artifacts, material culture and ephemera, art and music to drive Burns’ use of photographs and movie reels that supplement his interviews, narration, and cinematography.

I never did hear back.

     

‘Bob Cooper on early catechisms’

    

Robert L.D. Cooper

I’ve been slacking this month, so I’m late with the news of Bob Cooper’s recent visit to New Jersey. He made a few stops for speaking engagements, the plans originally done in by the pandemic two years ago but finally jump started two weeks ago. On the fifteenth he visited Eclipse Lodge 67, meeting in Clifton to take advantage of larger accommodations. A smart thing, too, being how we numbered around sixty.

Cooper, I think we can say, is the dean of Scottish Masonic historians. He is a Past Master of Lodge Sir Robert Moray 1641, and also of Quatuor Coronati 2076, the premier lodges of Masonic research in Scotland and England, respectively. He is an author of very useful and accessible books for Masonic readers, including The Masonic Magician, about Cagliostro; The Red Triangle, a chronicle of anti-Masonry; and Cracking the Freemason’s Code, among the best primers on the fraternity to emerge during the first decade of this century. You could dive safely into any of his books, and I recommend The Rosslyn Hoax? to anyone stuck on the Templar nonsense.

His topic at Eclipse Lodge was intriguing: “Early Freemasonry 1598…or Freemasonry Before 1717.” I think that period is without form and void in the minds of most Freemasons in the United States. Despite the centrality of Scotland to Freemasonry’s embryonic years, we Americans mostly see the Craft as having been born in early eighteenth century London, but the scant evidence are tantalizing pieces of the same vexing puzzle. Bob’s overall point was to walk us through the catechism of the Edinburgh Register House Manuscript, which he terms the oldest Masonic ritual, dated 1696. To get there, he had to present historical context first, so he tied together for us the Art of Memory, Hermeticism, William Schaw, and the need for an illustrative catechetical ritual to teach illiterate stone masons the secret education that goes well past mere modes of mutual recognition.

Needless to say, he did so convincingly and in only about an hour. Click here to read this seventeenth century catechism. You’ll see many things that are foreign to your lodge experience, but it’s amazing how much is fitting or at least familiar enough.

For more on the Art of Memory, see the Frances Yates book.

     

‘Gentlemen of the White Apron’

    

My close personal friend Michael Halleran, former executive editor of The Journal of the Masonic Society, will make a long awaited return to New Jersey this summer to present a talk on Freemasonry in the U.S. Civil War. This will be hosted under the auspices of the education committee of the grand lodge there on Saturday, July 30 in the “Fellowship Center.”

Of course Halleran is the Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kansas who authored The Better Angels of Our Nature, the myth-busting history of Freemasons’ actions in the Civil War.

     

‘The ALR next week’

   

The American Lodge of Research will meet again next Tuesday at Masonic Hall. That’s March 29 at 7 p.m. in the Colonial Room on the tenth floor.

Two presentations are scheduled: Worshipful Master Conor will discuss Alexander Hamilton, who was not a Freemason, but had certain connections to the Order. A related historical document, rare and precious, will be on loan to us for this evening. Come check it out.

The next paper will be presented by New Jersey’s Bro. Ron Murad, who will speculate into the ritual significance of Ethiopia.

We ask all planning to attend to make a reservation here, and remember photo ID is required to enter the building.

In lieu of a lodge collation, the brethren will adjourn to a landmark Ukrainian eatery in the East Village for dinner after the meeting.

     

‘Washington inauguration re-enactment’

   

George Washington will be inaugurated again—and, really, what would you give to have him back in the presidency right now?—next month in the post-COVID return of the annual ceremony re-enactment. This will take place in Masonic Hall on Saturday, April 30, which is the anniversary of the 1789 inauguration of the first president.

Maybe the team will be back at Federal Hall next year, but this time it’ll be in the Colonial Room on ten at noon.

Photo ID is required to enter the building.

      

‘National Grotto Day 2022’

    

Another National Grotto Day is done, and Azim in New York City is ten Prophets richer, having put that many through the ceremonial at Masonic Hall this afternoon.

It was a subdued effort, with several dozen in attendance egging on the Pilgrim Neophytes through a short form ritual, but the story of Sympathy and Good Fellowship shone through. And the booze began flowing just before noon, so we had that going for us.

Our Prepared Candidate, the exemplar who made the ritual journeys on behalf of the group, was none other than Alex, a New Jersey Mason who works professionally as an actor—and what a fortuitous choice that was! I guess he does a lot of improv work, because he was uncannily brilliant.

Note to self: Buy a costume befitting a religious leader. (I’m Chaplain for the ritual, and today I was surprised to become Chaplain for Azim’s meeting as well, so I better step up my wardrobe game.)

The Prophet in black here traveled from Michigan (whatever that is) to make these presentations.

     

‘Sankey Lecture next month’

    

Ontario Freemasonry has the kind of relationship with Brock University that I wish grand lodges in the United States would cultivate with academia. (Like this.) Since 2009, the brethren there have the Sankey Centre for Masonic Studies at Brock.

The center drives research into Freemasonry’s importance in Canadian society and in the world. Specifically, its purposes include hosting Masonic scholars for lectures. Charles Sankey was a leader in Masonic education during the last century. His personal Masonic book collection and papers are found in one of Brock’s libraries. The inaugural Charles A. Sankey Lecture was hosted in 2010 (check out 2012’s), and the next one will take place April 10.

     

‘Relief for Ukraine’

    

Grand Lodge is ready now to accept funds to help, aid, and assist the people of Ukraine. The statement from Masonic Hall this afternoon calls on the brethren to mail donations, “both large and small,” to:

Masonic Brotherhood Fund

71 W. 23rd Street

New York, NY

10010-4149

Make note that your contribution is for the Grand Lodge Emergency Relief Fund.

UPDATE: Or visit here.

From today’s letter:

Your Grand Master, Most Worshipful Richard J. Kessler, and the Grand Lodge of New York, in a strong showing of solidarity with our fellow brethren of the Grand Lodge of Ukraine, look to the members of our noble Craft to demonstrate their heartfelt compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings during this, their hour of darkness. Together, we will emerge from this tragic and dispiriting experience united with a renewed zeal for bringing back peace, harmony, and brotherhood throughout the world. The essence of True Masonic Brotherhood will be a beacon of hope for all to see and emulate.

Lodges, districts, charity foundations, appendant bodies, and even your businesses may contribute toward this unified effort.

     

‘Review: The Contemplative Lodge’

     

Through the kind offices of Michael Poll, editor in chief of The Journal of the Masonic Society, my review in the current issue of Chuck Dunning’s latest book appears here too.

The Contemplative Lodge: A Manual for Masons Doing Inner Work Together by C.R. Dunning, Jr.

Stone Guild Publishing, 2021, 312 pages, paperback, $14.95

 

This reviewer must begin with a disclaimer: He purported to speak to Masonic audiences in recent years on mindfulness techniques for lodge life, but he would have been far better equipped had he been able to digest the contents of this brand new book.

 

The Contemplative Lodge by C.R. “Chuck” Dunning is a companion to his Contemplative Masonry from 2016.Where the latter guides a Freemason on how to adapt Masonic ritual and symbol for personal meditative purposes, the new book serves as a lodge of instruction,uniting groups of brethren in prayer, meditation, breathing exercises and other mindfulness habits conducive to Masonic labors. Dunning has been writing on these subjects for decades. In his professional career in higher education and mental health, as well as in Freemasonry, he teaches meditation techniques to groups and individuals. He was raised to the Sublime Degree in 1988, and he is very well known around the United States as a Masonic educator and author.

 

The Contemplative Lodge is understood in two denominations: First, its three chapters, spanning about 100 pages, beautifully explain how and why Masonic lodges can add a previously unknown reward to their work by embracing meditative techniques. It’s not that the author reinvents Masonry as meditation class as much as he directs our attention to what already is in the language and symbols we know so well. The ensuing two-thirds of the book offer four appendices that provide the actual instruction on meditation, chanting, energy work, and more.

 

The opening chapter forcefully argues the belief that Masons are taught repeatedly to work together. Dunning quotes from the three degrees and from authors of classic and contemporary books not to point out the obvious, but to find context for his vision of the lodge as a contemplative group. He cautions us against overzealousness in advocating for contemplative practices; admonishes us to not see these practices as hallmarks of an elite Freemasonry; and reminds us that every Mason is to be respected and loved even if these meditative techniques do not interest him. In short, he says, proper applications of the Compasses, Level, and Trowel.

 

One of the highlights of the second chapter is in Dunning’sexplanation of Masonic ritual work as a group contemplative act. “The entire process of preparing for and opening a meeting or ceremony is a series of exercises in establishing a proper atmosphere and attitude for each participant to become more fully aware of the ritual’s multilayered symbolism in words, images, and actions,” he writes. “In turn, the specific form of a given meeting or ceremony makes use of numerous methods to draw attention to particular focal points, stimulating the psyche to dwell on their potential meanings in one’s life.” While a certain kind of Mason would say “Yes, of course,” it is true that most Masons would find that statement revelatory.

 

Chapter Three is for the Master of the lodge. Dunning acknowledges the need for common sense management of our fraternity’s worldly business, but his trestle board really teaches how a Worshipful Master’s duties are mentoring as an initiator, mentoring as a teacher, and mentoring as a companion. Familiar concepts, yes, but he presents them in an alternative understanding.

 

Those four appendices contain the marrow, giving step-by-step instruction for the willing lodge. If the reader accepts Dunning’s proposition that the Masonic lodge’s speculative teachings and ritualized activities are meant for more than memorization and even study for comprehension, then it becomes plain to see how speculation and reflection produce a “focused, peaceful, and harmonious state of mind” in the present moment.

 

One section presents Eight Steps of Guided Meditation, useful whether addressing one individual or a group. There also are various scripts one may follow to facilitate group meditations. These center on very familiar Masonic symbols and other elements, such as the Gavel, the Blazing Star, the Mystic Tie (naturally), and Jacob’s Ladder.

 

Pages are devoted to Silent Sitting, which is not as simple as you might think. Conversely, the Chanting Meditations set certain melodic words to labor as intonations that can only cure any emotional or psychological mood that otherwise may spoil a brother’s time in lodge. (Your reviewer can vouch for this thanks to work in an esoteric order where this sort of chanting induces a gentle euphoria. He is smiling involuntarily now merely from thinking about it.)

 

I would prefer to quote extensively from The Contemplative Lodge, but I’ll just delve into Energizing the Plumb Line on Page 251: First, extensive breathing exercises defeat any tension there might be throughout the body until a rhythmic respiration calms the mind. Then, the participants are instructed to “imagine a plumb line, a small straight line of brilliant white light running into the top of your head from the highest heavens, and down through your body into the depths of the Earth…like a magnetic or electrical current flowing…. Feel the pure white light as warm, cleansing, healing, and energizing.” After further instruction, participants are to “stop circulating the energy and breathe naturally, continuing to imagine the brilliant white plumb line running through your body between the highest heavens and the center of the Earth. Attend to any effects this work has on your body, emotions, and thoughts.” You may never see the jewel of the Junior Warden, who governs the time of refreshment, quite the same way again.

 

For the Freemason who views his Craft as a mystery school, The Contemplative Lodge delivers essential vindicating reading, while the brother for whom Masonry is a fraternity can enhance his profit and pleasure through Dunning’s instructive emphasis on how brethren can achieve inner work together. All the brethren can dwell together in unity.

      

‘Lodge with No Name 10,000’

    

S. Khan photo

The United Grand Lodge of England consecrated its 10,000th lodge Tuesday. It is a grand lodge that does not recycle lodge numbers, so this is a true sequential 10,000 since 1813.

So, what is this lodge’s name? Lodge Sine Nomine.

What’s that mean? Lodge with No Name.

Five of Nine Club photo

MW Bro. Peter Geoffrey Lowndes, Pro Grand Master, led the ceremony, which took place inside beautiful Lodge Room 10 in Freemasons’ Hall, London.

chelt_mason

It is said Sine Nomine is a lodge for young Masons. From what I’ve read, it is not grouped in the Affinity/Specialty class of lodges and, as yet, has not decided on a ritual to work (UGLE has dozens). The lodge will meet three times a year at Great Queen Street: second Thursday of January (installation), third Friday of June, and fourth Friday of October, always at six o’clock.

Congratulations to all!

Those of you who know me probably have noticed my gift for sussing the unfavorable aspect of even the best news and, so, here too I also consider the reality of these new lodges not representing growth of the fraternity. With nominally 10,000 lodges, you might think the country has half a million Masons (not that big numbers themselves are desirable), but membership actually is contracting. Furthermore, with the loss of lodges, there is an inevitable disappearance of rituals.

I wish I had the answers. The world patently needs Freemasonry, but that actually is a big part of what ails us.

     

‘Ukraine’

    

The website of the Grand Lodge of Ukraine is down, as probably all civilian communications in the country are defeated by Russian cyber warfare now that the military invasion is underway.

Freemasonry in Ukraine is nearly as old as it is in the New World. The first lodge there was organized by Polish Masons in 1742, and more lodges were set to labor through the rest of the century. In the 1800s, the fraternity acted similarly as one might expect: espousing Enlightenment values with an eye toward reinventing the government to ensure what we call Civil Rights for the people. The Grand Lodge was formed in 1900 by five lodges, and its fortunes ebbed and flowed with the country’s. Naturally, when Ukraine was diminished (and starved) as a Soviet Socialist Republic, Freemasonry was outlawed, but it sprouted anew in the post-Soviet era, although there are periodic noises from politicians about banning the order again.

Grand Lodge of Ukraine photo

In 2005, the National Grand Lodge of France (that’s the French one we recognize) and the Grand Lodge of Austria consecrated the current Grand Lodge of Ukraine.

Past Grand Master Bill Sardone with Ukraine Grand Master Anatoly Dymchuk last November in Berlin during the International Conference of Regular Masonic Grand Lodges.

I hear there supposedly has been a Ukrainian Masonic Club in New York.

I’m sure a Masonic relief endeavor will be launched here to help, aid, and assist our brethren there. If so, I’ll publish the details when they are known.

     

‘It was twenty years ago today’

    

Random House USA

On this date in 2002, New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786 was constituted by Grand Master David A. Chase. This singular occurrence more than likely is what resulted in me remaining in the fraternity beyond a couple more years.

At that time, my uninspiring mother lodge was dying, and its merger with our landlord lodge the following year was anything but certain. My York and Scottish rite groups were equally unimpressive. AMD was nice, but lacking. My invitation into the Knights of the North, where I finally would meet like-minded brethren, was three years off. The Masonic Society wouldn’t even be a concept for another six years. Then, approaching my fifth anniversary in Freemasonry, there appeared this purposeful lodge of learning.

It was 1) a meritocracy that 2) hardly anyone in that jurisdiction wanted to know about. Those two characteristics convinced me it was the place to be. (Plus, a gaggle of old hens in my mother lodge—elderly uneducated men who couldn’t understand why anyone would read a book about Freemasonry—made clear their dissatisfaction with my research lodge activity and pleasure. Further proof I was on the right track.)

It was just one of the great accomplishments of MW Chase, with securing recognition of our Prince Hall neighbors and bringing Sons of Liberty Lodge into the family being two others. For that one year, I believed that grand lodge could achieve important forward-thinking successes.

Happy anniversary to my Masonic first love.

     

‘Washington Masonic bio is out’

    

On the day George Washington was born, the date was February 11, but today is Washington’s birthday because of the change in 1752 from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. That’s a long story involving Astronomy, Arithmetic, Logic, and a pope, but what better occasion than this to buy Mark Tabbert’s new book?

A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry is available at last. It is published by University of Virginia Press (released today) and can be had from your favorite booksellers.

From the publicity:

Like several of America’s Founding Fathers, George Washington was a Freemason, yet Washington’s ties to the fraternity and the role it played in his life have never been widely researched or understood. In A Deserving Brother, Mark Tabbert presents a complete story of Washington’s known association with Freemasonry.

Much more than a conventional history, this book has curated an exhibition of artifacts and episodes to fully contextualize our first president’s Masonic life and experiences. Consulting the Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, the Boston Athenaeum, and numerous private Masonic lodges, libraries, and museums, Tabbert chronicles all known instances of Washington’s association with Freemasons, confirming some existing knowledge, adding new insights, and debunking unsubstantiated myths. The record of Washington’s masonic ties is presented through contextualizing descriptions and color illustrations, ranging from lodge minute books recording Washington’s attendance to his Masonic aprons, from the tools used at the U.S. Capitol cornerstone ceremony to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts’ gold urn, made by Paul Revere, containing a lock of Washington’s hair.

A Deserving Brother documents the significance of Freemasonry in Washington’s life and career in a way that separates fact from fiction, and will satisfy both historians and general readers, including today’s Freemasons.

Mark A. Tabbert is Director of Archives and Exhibits at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, and is author of American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities.

     

‘The very cement and support of society’

    

It’s not often a lodge thinks to tender a formal statement of contemporary social importance. Of course that’s not easy to do. Government intrudes into our lives so often and so directly, it’s nearly impossible to form a civic-minded opinion that doesn’t trespass into partisan politics. Like sectarian religious views, political opinions are forbidden in our lodges. That is a key ingredient that makes our essential harmony possible, but it also has stifled much potential discussion of ideas. We seem to have filled the silence with less provocative conversations, and the fraternity expects its lodges and their members to act, and make Masonic charity evident in their activities.

Late last year, one of the cofounders of Columbia Lodge 1190, part of Grand Lodge’s academic lodge program, contacted me for an opinion on a statement the lodge crafted. Columbia Lodge should be commended simply for thinking and speaking on what’s happening outside the Temple today. And, since today is World Day of Social Justice, I hereby share with you Columbia Lodge’s recent proclamation:

Freemasonry, at its core and throughout its ritual, promotes the principles of Social Justice. By meeting “on the level,” we are summoned to recognize all with whom we stand as Brothers without regard for any differences that may, in the profane world, serve as pretexts for exclusion, prejudice, intolerance, or hatred. Columbia Lodge 1190 affirms and embraces the principles of Social Justice so eloquently expressed within our ritual, and strives to become a beacon of inclusion and Brotherhood within the Craft.

Columbia Lodge was constituted for Masons with a connection to the Ivy League university uptown in Morningside Heights: alumni, students, faculty, etc. The lodge has no affiliation with the university.

I am flattered my opinion was sought. I am neither a member of the lodge nor connected to the university. (I graduated from the downtown behemoth private university.)

What first comes to mind is Freemasonry’s teaching of Justice. It is a Cardinal Virtue in Freemasonry, just as it was to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and others. As we reveal in the Entered Apprentice Degree:

Justice is that standard which enables us to render to every man his due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with Divine and human law, but is the very cement and support of society; and, as justice, in a great measure, distinguishes the good man, so should it be your practice to be just.

Unlike Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance, which are inner qualities, this fourth Cardinal Virtue is exhibited outward. Justice is social, so, to my mind, “Social Justice” is a redundancy.

More problematic is a modifier prefixed to Justice. Any qualification limits the meaning of the subject. For instance, today also is International Pipe Smoking Day. Without that second word, we have a general image of stressed addicts huffing their drug and littering the world with discarded butts, but with the modifier “Pipe” in place, we may envision serene hobbyists sweetening the air with gentle Cavendish in hand-carved briars, perhaps whilst reading Tolkien or playing chess in the study.

Words matter, and prefixing “Social” to “Justice” crimps the universality of justice. Lesson in Grammar and Rhetoric.

Then of course there is the politically combustible usage of the term in today’s hyper-partisan society. “Social Justice” is the all-inclusive excuse for everything from the “decarceration” that makes public spaces dangerous to the spectacle of grown men putting their hair in pigtails to steal the championships and scholarships of women’s sports. Most of the people outside who would use the term probably would have no love for Freemasonry. Read Columbia University’s thoughts.

About a year and a half ago, I reproduced the then current message from the then president of the Masonic Society, which dubs Freemasons the “Enlightenment Social Justice Warriors” but invokes the Cardinal Virtues because all we have to do is uphold the meaning of Masonry with its familiar anodyne language.

     

‘Masonic Week 2022’

    

I meant to post this a week ago, but it’s been busy and, frankly, social media renders Magpie coverage of Masonic Week redundant. I mean, during last Saturday’s AMD Grand Council Annual Communication, Barry was tweeting and I was Faceypaging progress of the meeting in real time. And then came tons of everyone’s photos. So this edition of The Magpie Mason is brief—I attended only several events anyway—and it is light on photography. There were No Photography signs posted around the meeting room but, unknown to me, they referred to the degree conferrals and not to the business meetings. So I inadvertently denied you my customary lens work, capturing the scenes of the same ten guys appointing each other to the officer lines.

My first Masonic Week (called AMD Weekend back then) was 2002, and this weekend, like that one, was blessed with unseasonably warm weather for the dead of winter. I wistfully recall sitting at the bar in the Hotel Washington’s lobby, enjoying a pint and a cigar, writing postcards to the brethren back at lodge, and noticing the tourists outside were wearing shorts and T-shirts. The temperature reached as high as 61 degrees this time. But no smoking anything anywhere in any hotel these days, just to illustrate how far our society has collapsed in only two decades.

I reminisced with Rashied for a few minutes about those old times and about all the friends who we don’t see anymore. Janet, who organized the annual luncheon at Old Ebbitt Grill; Scott, who played his bagpipes; and so many more Masonic Light members, some who have passed on, or no longer make the trip.

Heather Calloway was there, allegedly. I’m told she was representing Indiana University’s Center for Fraternal Collections and Research, supposedly. I’m doubtful because I staggered around the atrium, where stood everybody’s display tables, repeatedly, but didn’t see her. I probably need some kind of cognitive testing.

I didn’t even get a chance to shake Mark Tabbert’s hand. Just a fast wave. Mark’s book, A Deserving Brother, is due out this month. But I did get to meet Scott Schwartzberg after all these years.

It was a great Masonic Week thanks, in part, to the absence of a few of the usual groups that still were skittish over the pandemic. No offense, but without Athelstan and Knight Templar Priests, there was room on the schedule for degree work open to AMD brethren. What a concept.

The Masonic Society

Attendance this Masonic Week reached an all time high (at least as records and memories go), with about 430 registered. So it was exciting to see a record high 112 signed up for the anchor event of the weekend: the Masonic Society’s annual dinner. Because the pandemic pre-empted last year’s Masonic Week, this was our thirteenth, instead of fourteenth, meeting, and it felt good to be back.

Having been awake for twenty-two hours by the time we entered the banquet room, an endodontic job, sans anesthesia, would have been fine by me, but this was a true pleasure and a high note on which to conclude my term as president.

The new leadership team:

President Oscar Alleyne

First Vice President Greg Knott

Second Vice President Mark Robbins

Our seven-member Board of Directors has been reorganized with Mark joining the officers and John Bizzack retiring (he’s a new VP at Philalethes now). We have added Kevin Wardally of the MW Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New York, and Mason Russell of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Coincidentally, both are grand treasurers of their respective grand lodges.

And I also had the honor of announcing two new Masonic Society Fellows: William Maurer and Michael Moran. Bill has been published in the pages of The Journal of the Masonic Society, is a valued historian of early America, and is a long-serving trustee of the Livingston Library here in New York. Mike is the book reviews editor of The Journal. He also is central to Masonic education at home in the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. We’re lucky to have so much talent in the family.

After a savory meal of roast beef and winter vegetables, it was time for our speaker. Chris Ruli was the grand historian and librarian of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia (on sabbatical now to work on another project) who has been studying Freemasonry’s historic activities in the Federal City for many years. He presented us “Masonic Myth of Our Nation’s Capital,” a discussion of some of his research that is intended to dispel the frivolous tales we sometimes hear about the Craft’s role in building Washington, D.C.

Chris told us of the persons, places, and things involved in how the District took shape with Masons participating, from the placement of the Boundary Stones that marked the city’s borders in 1791, to the construction of the Executive Mansion in 1792, to the cornerstone ceremony at the Capitol in 1793, with a lot more around town and into the next century too, including recovery from the arson of the War of 1812, and up to the Lincoln years. (I resisted the temptation to say that very day, February 11, was the anniversary of the start of the surveying process in 1791 that established the District’s boundaries.)

He exhibited not only command of his subject, but also command of his audience. You had to see it! I’m not enthusiastic about video recording our doings, but I’m sorry we didn’t preserve this lecture. It was a performance, and it was praised throughout the weekend at the hotel and for days after on social media. Chris has an uncommon gift for oratory, engaging listeners with humor to make a fascinating story doubly memorable. Not having the speaking skill or that confidence myself, I am really impressed and am in agreement with all who said this was one of the top Masonic talks I’ve seen.

The Q&A took us beyond the hour we were entitled to have the room, so we broke it up reluctantly. I really had to get some sleep anyway. But before our Friday night dinner, I attended the Blue Friars and the Nine Muses.

The Society

of Blue Friars

The Society of Blue Friars is a small Masonic institution that honors authors with membership in its select ranks. This year Adam Kendall of California became Blue Friar 111. He is a member of Quatuor Coronati Lodge 2076 and is editor of The Plumbline. Adam presented his “The Scandals and Secret Rites of Benjamin Hyam,” found in QC2076’s Freemasonry on the Frontier anthology. It’s a story as wild as the Wild West and as confounding as any you’ll find in Masonic history.

Adam, Balvin, and David.

I encourage you to seek the several videos on YouTube of Adam’s previous tellings of the tale.

Council of Nine Muses 13

Then, at the meeting of the Allied Masonic Degrees’ Council of Nine Muses 13, James Winzenreid of West Virginia was seated, becoming both the fiftieth member in the elite council’s history and the warm body needed that afternoon to achieve a quorum. He succeeds Tom Jackson of Pennsylvania who died last year.

Tom’s death added another dimension to Masonic Week; he was eulogized repeatedly and extensively in multiple meetings. To hear different summations of his eighty-seven years is to wonder where one’s own life is going. His too numerous feats in Freemasonry comprise only a subplot in a life that couldn’t have been more productive without elongating the weeks and adding more months. Successes followed successes in his personal, professional, academic, and civic lives. Did you know he was a weightlifting champion as a young man in his early twenties?

Grand College of Rites

After about ten hours of deep sleep, it was time for the Grand College of Rites. I haven’t attended one of our meetings in several years, mostly because of repeated schedule changes. I think Saturday morning is a good time for it.

A lot of news from this meeting. Our new Grand Chancellor is David Kussman of California. If the name rings a bell, he is the Knight Templar who was illegally removed from his elected office as deputy grand master of the KT Grand Encampment by the grand master of the Grand Encampment—and is that guy gonna get his comeuppance next month! Read the Dummies blog for that story.

Joining the officer line as the grand seneschal is Clyde Schoolfield of Oklahoma. Clyde is grand secretary of the AMD. Jerry Klein retired as our grand registrar, and has been succeeded by Christopher Gamblin of Indiana. Duane Vaught exited the grand chancellor’s chair and took over as grand treasurer.

Arturo de Hoyos, grand archivist, was absent, tending to family needs, so there was no report on the upcoming edition of Collectanea, but we know it will be a continuation of the 1807 Cerneau Scottish Rite rituals. In the meantime, however, a bonus Collectanea has been mailed to the membership. Forget what I said about the Masonic Book Club possibly publishing Burlesque Degrees. The text of humorous, if hokey, rituals from the Golden Age of Fraternalism now is among the GCR bibliography.

Ark and Dove Degree

Somewhere in the weekend I, and maybe about a hundred others, received the Ark and Dove Degree. I have to hit the books and learn about this one; I’m not sure I’ve even heard of it before. From its name you’d connect it with Royal Ark Mariner, but it is different. Whether it’s derivative of, or adjunct to, R.A.M. I don’t know. It imparts a lesson in temperance, particularly with food and drink. I can’t decide if that message is ironic for Masonic Week, or if it is especially needed there, but it is a thoughtful brief degree. The ritualists performed well, and it was appreciatively received.

(You ever notice the word “peradventure” is used in a couple of our degrees?)

Grand Council

of Allied Masonic Degrees

And speaking of the AMD, Grand Master Mohamad Yatim enjoyed a dynamic year in office. The poor man was installed in quarantine conditions and via Zoom last February, but that humble start sparked a ceaseless tornado of activity that improved AMD at home and was felt abroad from the Philippines to the Congo. The accomplishments literally are too numerous to list here, so I’ll have to refer AMD members to the first four issues of the Allied Times newsletter. I will point out though how Prince Hall brethren now are able to be invited into AMD councils.

The Marvin E. Fowler Award was presented to Moises Gomez in thanks for his expert stewardship of the planning and execution of Masonic Week each year. To be clear, there is a committee. Its members get us attendees signed in, paid up, credentialed, inspected, injected, detected, and rejected—but it is Moises who is the omnipresent force in the hotel before we arrive, while we run amok, and after we’re gone. He checks the meetings to ensure the hotel is performing correctly. He provides his personal equipment so Chris Ruli can screen his slides during his presentation. He visits the brother who became ill and needed to be hospitalized. Moises is the Indispensable Man.

Aaron Shoemaker of Missouri is our new grand master. I think it’s reasonable to expect a similarly productive year for him. One of his first acts was to make Moises the grand superintendent for New Jersey.

So this, the 130th Annual Communication of the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees, was the final meeting of the last Masonic Week I plan to attend, and even I was part of the ceremonies. My thanks to Mohamad for recognizing my work on the newsletter with a handsome plaque. Editing Allied Times last year was the least I could do—and let it never be said I don’t do the least I can do!

     

‘At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier’

    

Moises Gomez photo

Without yet being present, I’ll begin coverage of Masonic Week 2022 with word from the Grand Council of Allied Masonic Degrees. Yesterday, MVS Grand Master Mohamad Yatim, accompanied by Grand Council officers, visited Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

While this solemn activity has become especially important in Masonic circles in recent years, the fraternity paying respect at the Tomb is a tradition. For instance, on October 19, 1925, the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction) visited the Tomb, taking a break from its deliberations at the House of the Temple.

In 1922, just several months after the Tomb’s installation, New York’s RW Bro. Solomon Holzer, Past Master of Daniel Carpenter Lodge 643, wrote to Grand Secretary Robert Kenworthy, saying he thought our Grand Lodge ought to encourage the Masonic Service Association to “place a suitably inscribed bronze tablet” on the Tomb, and should the MSA not succeed, the Grand Lodge itself ought to do it with the goal of holding a ceremony on November 4, the Masonic birthday of George Washington. I don’t think the idea went anywhere.

I expect to arrive at our hotel this afternoon, just in time to witness Adam Kendall take his place among the Society of Blue Friars. See you there.