From the Worshipful Master “The Year In Review, or, What I’ve Seen From the East” It is undeniable that 2016 had been a difficult year for Wayfarers. Sometimes, I feel that as master of the lodge, I was unprepared for both the business considerations of the lodge, and the more personal aspects. I suspect I [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master With this month’s trestle board, we decided to do something a little bit different. Rather than choose a subject and discuss it from three different viewpoints, we decided to each choose an article from a Masonic site and comment on it. I chose an article on women in freemasonry, at the [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master Fellowship, according to a song I recall hearing in my youth, is “a bunch of fellows, all in the same ship.” I don’t think the songwriter got his definition from a dictionary, however. As someone who loves words (in an entirely platonic way), I will go to Merriam-Webster: “A friendly relationship [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master Anyone who has been to my apartment may have noticed something beside the front door. Hanging alongside the door is a brass plumb bob on a length of twine. It is there, not as decoration, but as a reminder, each time I go out into the world, to always strive to [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master One of the first things you learn as a mason is that there is a lot to learn. Ritual is the heart of masonry: we repeat things for symbolic purposes, and to give them weight. The words we say in lodge, and the things we do, are laid down for us [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master Dictionary.com defines “obligation” as “something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc.” Many people take obligations, for professional, religious, even personal reasons. Masons take obligations when they make their way through [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master Brotherly love. It’s one of the tenets of Masonry. But what does it mean? It is a feeling of affection and comradeship, but it goes beyond that. In the Christian Bible, brotherly love is mentioned in a deeper way: a feeling of familial care–the love extended to family–extended to other believers. [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master So, you’re a newly raised master mason. What do you do now? You go to Disneyland! No, you don’t. Well, you might, but that isn’t the point. The point is that after you’ve been raised to master, it’s often difficult to know what to do, next. Go to meetings, certainly. If [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master Masonry attracts men from all walks of life, and at all stages of life. While we talk, in our rituals, about these stages, it is not uncommon for men to come to the craft, not in their youth, but in their middle age, or even advanced years. In Arizona, a man [...]
Read MoreFrom the Worshipful Master It’s a fact that Freemasons like their food. We have dinners before or after our meetings, we often put on special events such a BBQs, pancake breakfasts, and fish fries, and we even have special terms for certain meals, and, jocularly, for Masons who only show up to eat those meals. [...]
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