The Tao of Masonry

I can’t believe that this is my fourth time blogging about Friendship Lodge at the Southington Apple Harvest Festival. My first time was in 2006 when I was Master of the lodge, and really, not all that much has changed. Local businesses and street vendors still cross their fingers about the weather (apparently, those weather-changing HAARP beams aren’t supposed to be used frivolously), and the same members of Friendship still show up for the entire weekend to keep the food going. This year, however, we decided not to sell the “Philly” steak & cheese sandwiches that Friendship has sold for the last 15 years or so., and to concentrate just on selling the fried apple wedges that we’ve been perfecting for the last eight or nine years.

This was not an easy decision to make. Although it became clear that the sandwiches actually lost money during the last few years, the sheer amount of work involved to make them created a camaraderie that certainly added to the harmony of the members. How can you be upset with somebody who stood next to you, slicing the onions that you were peeling? And few things help develop common trust like knowing that somebody will show up for the important, but oft-overlooked cleanup work.

Our initial weekend was marred by cloudy, drizzly weather that became a downpour by Saturday afternoon. But Sunday was warm and sunny, and the crowds were out in droves to taste the typical fair fare, to browse some of the craft booths, and to enjoy the weather.

This being the lodge’s largest (and essentially only) fund raiser, we count on good weather and healthy appetites for the two weekends that the festival takes place. The first weekend ended up doing fairly well, allowing us to cover our initial expenses. We’re hoping that next weekend will be even more successful.

Maybe we’ll see you there?

Pity Dr. S. Brent Morris.

A few years ago I walked into a meeting all excited. “I’ve been exchanging emails with Brent Morris all week! He reads some of my stuff, too!”

The reaction was a bit deflating. “Who?”

After I explained that he was a noted Masonic author, and editor of the SR Journal, the reaction was still less than I’d expected. “Oh, so he’s some Scottish Rite guy, then?”

Never mind.

At our Grand Lodge session in March, I met somebody who said, “Hey, I was in Washington D.C. a while ago and I ran into somebody who knows you. He said to say ‘Hi’.”

I was curious. “Who was that?”

The brother couldn’t remember. Some famous guy, or something like that, he thought.

I tossed out a few hints. Grand Lodge officer? Agent Scully? Author?

“Yeah, I think he’s an author.”

“Where were you in DC when you met him?”

“Oh, I was in the Scottish Rite building. It’s really nice.”

By now everyone around us was curious. “Wait, was it Brent Morris?” I asked.

“Yeah, Brian Morris, that’s him!”

The rest of the crowd looked blank.

“Come on, you know, Brent Morris.” I said. “Freemasonry in Context? Is It True What They Say About Freemasonry? The Scottish Rite Journal?”

Blank stares.

“A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry?”

One guy looked up. “Is he the guy who came to New Britain last year?”

:facepalm:

For those of you who do know who Bro. Morris is, or those of you who are curious and want to meet him in person so he can sign your big yellow orange book, he’s going to be visiting Connecticut at the end of the month. The Masonic Lodge of Research in New Haven will host Dr. Morris on Wednesday, May 27 at the Masonic Temple on 285 Whitney Ave.

A buffet dinner ($20 per person) will be at 6:15 pm, after which Bro. Morris will be delivering a research paper that will be suitable for non-Masons. I assume that this means it would be less dull than those papers which are suited for Masons-only, but the upshot is that you can bring a friend, or even your wife.

A handful of copies of Bro. Morris’ book A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry for Dummies will be available for sale. Anyone interested in should make reservations with RW Carl G. Ek by calling 203-469-0746 (leave a message) or by e-mail at ekscla-masons@sbcglobal.net.

Live blogging the annual Friendship 33 vs Sequin-Level 140 Dart Tournament.

Update:
One of the brothers from Sequin-Level sent some more pictures around. Click the picture to go to the online album.

Darts 2009

It’s an overcast Saturday afternoon in the middle of January, there’s six inches of snow on the ground, and the temperature is 17º F. So, what do you do for fun?

2009 Sloper Polar Plunge

Well, if you’re from Friendship Lodge, apparently you take a dip in the lake.

Friendship’s new Worshipful Master Eric Charrette, accompanied by a chilly suite of officers, took on his second “Polar Plunge” in a week to help raise funds for Camp Sloper, the the local YMCA camp. The polar plunge took place at the camp’s small lake, Sloper Pond. Known locally as the home of a semi-ficticious chelonian, a snapping turtle by the name of Mama Cass, the pond was the scene of several dozen people (accompanied by several hundred warmer supporters) willing to brave the elements – specifically, the frigid air and freezing water.

Each volunteer had to commit to a minimum of $100 in cold, hard cash, to be used for the upkeep and maintenance of the popular camp. Several local organizations sent their hardiest, or certainly, their craziest members. Friendship Lodge, which raised about $550 toward the camp benefit, was one of several other local organizations that managed to raise almost $2,000 for the camp, now in it’s 60th year of operation.

WB Eric was joined by RWB Gary Arseneau, Senior Deacon Kevin Cyr, and John Miller, Senior Warden from Frederick-Franklin No. 14 in Plainville, all of whom spent about 30 seconds in the water. . . and then another 30 minutes warming up afterward.

And according to Kevin Cyr, the adage that you don’t feel cold because the water is warmer than the air is a complete myth. “It was like thousands of stinging needles,” he reported. And while everyone agreed, they all offered to jump in again.

A1: The lights never went out in my year!
A2: Hey, my grandfather donated that light bulb!
A3: Why should we change it? It always worked before.
A4: Light bulb? In my year, all we had were candles.

Once a year, on the second Tuesday of December, the Past Masters of Friendship Lodge No. 33, along with the Past Masters of Harmony No. 20 of New Britain (which merged with Friendship back in the 1990s), and any other Past Master that happens to be within asking range gather together for an evening of complaining conviviality and story-telling, and of course, eating and drinking.

Friendship Lodge Past Master’s Dinner 2008

Like many new Masons, I figured that all lodges were like Friendship, and I had some eye-opening moments when I started visiting and really watching what happens in some other lodges. In Friendship Lodge, those “old Past Masters” do not sit around the lodge hemming and harrumphing, complaining about the state of ritual or how things were done “back in my year.” And we are very fortunate in that we only “repeat” a Past Master through the chairs about once every 25 or 30 years – a fact to which I can attest, having checked the dates once.

Oh, there’s no question that some of our PMs are active. Sometimes one will stay on as a Chaplain, and we always have them serving as a Treasurer and Secretary. Our PMs run the Trowel Club picnics and several other functions. The most recent PM is usually the Trowel Club President, and will take charge of the Past Master degree (usually a MM degree held in the fall). And the next to last PM gets stuck running the annual Past Master’s Dinner.

Because our lodge is active, we do like to joke that the PMs are no longer needed; at each annual dinner, we award the outgoing WM with a new name tag which he is to wear after the next WM is installed. It symbolizes the esteem in which he will be held as a new PM.

It’s a Friendship Lodge badge, with the name section left blank. His new title becomes “Worshipful Nobody.”

Yes, of course it’s a joke – but there is a certain poignancy to this. For one thing, it takes several months just to get used to people addressing you as “Worshipful;” whenever I heard that title, I kept looking around for somebody else. For another thing, many of us who have served as the WM of a lodge – especially an active lodge like ours – you have a very full year, what with all the programs, meetings, visiting, degrees, dinners, and the constant phone calls and emails from people who need to check in, ask an opinion, get permission, or ask questions. You are the center of attention, most of it good, for an entire year – generally starting about 10 minutes after your installation ceremony. People look to you and look up to you for twelve solid, non-stop months.

And then, suddenly, it all stops.

I can well understand that some PMs may try to recapture a bit of that sense of importance by nitpicking ritual, or by reminding people of the customs and traditions which they, the PMs observed. In lodges that do not have a constant inflow of new officers, PMs always have an opportunity to fill in a chair, but in active lodges, I wonder how many PMs simply drop out of sight after a few years, from feeling as if they they have nothing further to contribute?

Rick: Excuse me Doug E Fresh…
Doug: Yes?
R: Have you ever seen a show with fellas on the mic
with one minute rhymes that don’t come out right?
They bite.
D: They never write.
R: That’s not polite!
Am I lyin’?
D: No, you’re quite right.
R: Well, tonight on this very mic you’re about to hear
Both: We swear, the best darn rappers of the year.
R: So!
D: So!
R: Cheerio!
D: Yell -
R: Scream -
D: Bravo!
B: Also, if you didn’t know,
this is called ‘The Show.’

Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, “The Show“

So, I just finished rambling on about how I thought that long degrees with lots of information and lectures were a good thing, both for the candidates and for the brothers attending lodge. For the candidates, it’s an immersion experience; they are – or should be – awed by the amount of information in the initiatory experience, and although they can’t possibly absorb everything, it should at the very least present them with an overview of the teachings of the Craft. And for the older brothers, seeing good ritual work done allows them to gain new perspectives as their own life changes coincide with the various moral teachings available in the various lectures.

I’ve been to degree ceremonies that have gone on until very late in the evening, usually because of extended dramas or lectures that one doesn’t normally get to see in a typical Connecticut lodge. Sometimes the ceremonies go so well that few brothers leave early; nights like that point out that good ritual ceremonies really do have value for everyone, not just the candidates.

Sometimes, however, I find myself at degree ceremonies that last until very late – but not because of the rituals or lectures. Rather, it seems to be a factor of people wanting to make a large production out of the evening, for what are probably the right reasons – but perhaps missing the point in the execution. For degree work, certain situations just seem to cry out for something special: A good friend, a son, a grandson, a favorite nephew, even (as I’ve seen) a father of a member – especially if that member is the Master – are circumstances that anyone would want to make especially memorable.

But. . . isn’t being initiated or raised not memorable enough?

I’ve been to several degree ceremonies – and they are always the EA or the MM degree – at which there have been several Grand Lodge line officers, Past Grand Masters, several District Deputies, and a number of representatives from the appendant bodies. It’s very nice to see such a show of support, and admittedly I was impressed the first few times I’d seen a wide array of Grand Lodge representatives at a degree. But now I’m beginning to wonder what the lodge has in mind when the officers plan on this type of arrangement. I mean, do any of them realize how long it takes to get 7 or more purple aprons out of the room, properly lined up, escorted back into the room, and then formally introduced?

Never mind, that was a rhetorical question.

There really isn’t any answer because the more purple aprons there are, the longer it takes to line them up by year, get their names, line them up again by rank, add a couple of names for the guys still sitting in the lodge room, line them up again according to the latest protocol, get the names of the late arrivals, pass the names to the Marshal who has now despaired of matching the names to the correct titles, have them walk back into the room in only the vaguest semblance of order, and then read the hastily scrawled names off of the 3 x 5 index card, after which they will be escorted to the Master’s station to shake hands and to be offered a hard, uncomfortable seat in front of the lodge, instead of one of the nice, comfy seats on the sidelines.

The candidates, of course, never get to see any of this. In fact, by the time the candidates actually get to meet the phalanx of officers, they are often too tired or overwhelmed to appreciate the trouble to which the lodge has gone, ostensibly on their behalf. They don’t know anything about officers or Grand Lodge officers or protocol until the end of the night, when the Master is compelled to call upon them, the Grand Lodge officers, for closing remarks.

And does anyone realize how long it takes to get 7 or more purple apron types to get through their closing remarks?

Never mind, that was another rhetorical question.

The real point that I’m trying to make is that we, that is, the more experienced Masters, sometimes forget that the initiatory experience is already overwhelming; too often our inviting large numbers of Masonic VIPs who have no connection to the candidates turns what should be a moving and solemn experience into a spectacle. I once overheard an older member at another lodge tell a couple of newly raised MMs how lucky they were to have been part of what he termed “an historic occasion” at their lodge. After he walked away, the new MMs turned to each other and shrugged. “Whatever,” they seemed to say; not, I’m sure, because they didn’t care, but because they had no context, no frame of reference by which to understand the circumstance of having 2 PGMs, four District officers, and half a dozen poobahs from the local Scottish RIte Valley.

If you are one of those people of the cynical persuasion, you’d begin to think that the reason that lodges have these kinds of spectacles events is to give a big ego boost to the WM. I’m going to stop short of that assumption and instead, charitably suggest that Masters are not thinking in terms of the candidates themselves. Rather, they are thinking in terms of making the degree ceremony an experience interesting enough to draw out the brothers who might otherwise stay home.

And this reasoning I can understand; part of our job success as Master of a lodge is to get the brothers to participate, or at least, to show up. But there are other ways to get them interested:Have a special dinner, say, a cookout or a surf & turf or some other theme night. Have a few visiting brothers do one of the lectures. Have the degree in costume. There are dozens of ways to make a degree night interesting for everyone that would not make it overwhelming for the candidates – or for the 80+ year old members who have to drive home.

Getting back to my original point, I sometimes wonder if having good, well-performed ritual work wouldn’t be enough of an incentive to attract the brothers who are the fence-sitters, the people who might come if only they thought it would be worth spending a few hours down at the old lodge. By “good,” I mean officers who actually study and rehearse their parts, and who have learned to put some feeling and character into their ritual work, and who can make the quality of the work itself the spectacle, rather than the quantity of the visitors.

It has been at least a dozen years since Friendship Lodge hosted its own “Lodge at Table,” and even though the members are regular visitors (and helpers!) at other functions, WM Jim Sinclair decided that this was going to be the year that we would have our own.

WM Jim wanted to have some kind of theme to the dinner. Being proud of his Italian ancestry, he wanted to make that part of the theme, but having Italian food? Gosh, don’t Masons already eat enough macaroni and cheese or ziti with sauce? The answer soon became obvious: A Roman theme! And what better to reinforce the theme idea than to ask guests to dress for dinner… in togas ?

So the past week found a dozen different Masons wrestling with old bedsheets and bits of fabric, while the esteemed WB Richie took care of the menu. Ceasar probably didn’t eat pasta, but it’s quite possible that he ate freshly prepared vegetables, eggs, olives, chicken, lamb, pork, cheese and fruit. Oh, and in veritas, he would have had vino as well.

Roman Table Lodge Click to see the online photo album

When I got there, the food was cooked, and WB Richie was preparing the dishes in his typical artistic fashion. I found the rest of the officers upstairs trying to get dressed, assisted by several wives and girlfriends who had shown up earlier to help in the kitchen. I’m happy to see that in some ways Friendship is becoming a nice hang-out spot for the brothers, and glad that their partners feel at home when they come down.

I noticed that it seemed to take much longer to dress the officers in sheets than it does to dress them in tuxedos. More ironic, too, because there is a hell of a lot less material in a sheet. On the other hand, most of the brethren managed to be fairly well wrapped. Interestingly, both WB Jim and I dressed alike, the both of us wearing tunics with purple togas draped around it. I didn’t actually use a sheet, my outfit was the result of a half hour at the local fabric store and another few minutes of my wife working up a few stitches on her sewing machine. I was amazed at the number of “toga party” hits I found when web searching, and was able to find quite a few tips on wearing togas – almost none of which worked perfectly.

And let me tell you – it’s dang near impossible to drive in one of those things.

Anyway, visiting brothers from Sequin-Level Lodge showed up to join the festivities, so we closed the doors and opened the lodge for the first of what we hope are many more Table Lodge functions.

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What a difference a year makes! Last year Friendship Lodge finished up one of the best Apple Harvest fund raisers in recent memory, all the while dodging the rocks and ruts of the construction going on at the front of our building. This year we sold slightly more fried apple wedgies than last year – by 5:30 pm on Sunday we actually sold out of the 1,000 Cortlands that we’d bought. The word it definitely getting around about our delicious, tasty apple treats. We had an impressive number of repeat customers – some of them within a half hour of their first purchase!

Unfortunately, we had quite a bit of chopped steak left over, both cooked and defrosted. Ironically, we think that this is because the weather on Saturday was so nice – as in warm in the mid-80s – that people were too hot to eat regular food, and instead merely snacked on apple treats. Since the meat had already been paid for, some of the brothers on clean-up detail took it home (I’ve got a couple of bags in the freezer, just waiting for me to add it to a nice tomato sauce), and some of it was donated to the soup kitchen that uses our lodge hall during the day. This is the first year that we haven’t donated any healthy apples to them.

Although our profits weren’t as high as they were last year, we’re pleased that our expenses for the year are more under control. We’ve done a lot of repair and maintenance work, both inside and out in the last year, and the little bit that we have to go requires more time and sweat than actual money, so overall we’re in pretty good shape.

Here are some pictures of the 2007 Apple Harvest, along with a nice shot of the completed front of the building.

And once again the thanks go out to the unsung (‘cos I’m not singing) heroes of the annual festival. We’d get nowhere without the usual dozen or so people who come down every morning to open up or stay until late to clean up. Again, great work and I’m sure that all of the members of Friendship Lodge thank you and your wives and/or partners for the hours that you put in. We certainly could not have made it a success without you.

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Pierpont Edwards Award given at Friendship Lodge in Southington

On Saturday, September 1st, Friendship Lodge No. 33 in Southington held a Ladies Appreciation Dinner. WM David Hubbs wanted to take the opportunity to laud the wives and partners of the lodge members who support Friendship Lodge, either by coming down to the various events and pitching in to help, or by “allowing your husbands to come out and play” as he quipped.

But there was another event planned for the day that everybody knew about – except for the honoree.

At the end of the wonderful dinner (prepared mainly by the officers) WB Peter Boychuck was surprised to be called to the podium by the Grand Master, where he was presented with the Pierpont Edwards Medal in Bronze. On hand to present the award was MWGM William Greene, accompanied by most of the Grand Lodge officers, and the officers of the 5th District.

The Pierpont Edwards Award is one of the highest given by the Grand Lodge of Connecticut. It is awarded to commemorate outstanding service. A little more about it can be found on the Grand Lodge of Connecticut website.

Yes, it’s hard to believe that even the Masons could keep a secret that big for over two months, but WB Boychuck had no idea that he was to be honored for his hard work and dedication to the CTCHIP program in his capacity as the State Chairperson for the last five years. WB Boychuck has been active with the CTCHIP program right from the start, and helped in virtually every capacity, from setting up booths to running the equipment, to coordinating events with local fairs and schools. Peter has been instrumental to the success of the program, and certainly deserves to be honored for his labors.

Tao of Masonry | Freemasonry | Masonry

A decade ago, the term “mission creep” passed into the vernacular; it describes the all-too-common situation in which various elements are added to a project, until at some point one realizes that the original concept of the project is no longer relevant. This usually happens when one person after another suggests that it would be a good idea to add “just this one little thing” until all the resources are drained and the project itself becomes virtually unmanageable. I suspect that this is what happened with our own Grand Lodge website development.

I wasn’t in on the concept from the start, so I can only guess as to how it happened; but I have a suspicion that the idea to give all of the lodges in Connecticut their own website, and then to link them all started out as something pretty simple. I do know that several Masons put a lot of their own time, money, and energy into getting the project off the ground, and for that I salute them. It could not have been easy to explain to the various non-Internet savvy committee members along the way how things could or should work. Even those of us with some computer background are surprised by the number of obstacles to a smooth transition – after all, most of us merely see the web pages, and have no idea about the underlying code, the layers of protection, the database linking, and the updating of a hundred different websites.

I do know that last year at this time I was pretty disgusted with the Friendship Lodge website; several crashes had taken out all of our trestleboard data (the various dates and descriptions of events). In mid-summer, the Grand Lodge site was hacked, and even more data was lost. Worse, some of the computer geeks in Friendship had modified our site by adding things to the template that all of the lodges were using, and each crash meant that the modifications had to be re-created. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I started blogging because I wanted a place to announce events, put up pictures, and keep the members of the craft informed.

Fortunately, the Grand Lodge website problems have been resolved, and for the last several months the administrators have been doing a fantastic job of keeping things running. They’ve added some useful features, like a search function for the various lodge activities, and online copies of our newsletter The Connecticut Freemason. They have polls, and a section where one can download various policies and procedures, and tons of contact information, and links of various Masonic interest. That they have not linked to The Tao of Masonry is surely an oversight. Excellent work, brothers!

One of the few nits left to pick, however, is that all of the lodges use the same template; with a few exceptions, the site for each lodge looks exactly like the others. This has been the source of much aggravation and many sleepless nights to the l33t h4xx0rs at Friendship Lodge – a cadre of men in their 20′s who have been wanting to upgrade the plain-vanilla site. So, over the last week they formed a committee and launched a new site: www.friendshiplodge33.org. Our Junior Warden Eric Charette heads up the committee, and is joined by his brother Kyle, and two of our newest members, Bill Reyor and Eric Tetreault.

While there is still some fine-tuning to be done, they have done a fantastic job of getting the new site up and running. They’ve been using Joomla content management software, mainly because that’s what our own Grand Lodge site is using – we’re looking down the road to where we can (hopefully!) replace the standard template with the new site. The new site has a calendar that’s fed from the GL Friendship 33 calendar, a place for members to post news and event articles, a photo gallery, a user forum (including a “tiled” section) and they promised me that they would soon have our own Wiki module set up. I can foresee setting up a forum group for the DeMolay chapter and Rainbow chapter that meet in our lodge, too.

Right now the site is being hosted on Bro. Kyle’s own server, so some of the content loads more slowly than we’d like. But I’d like all of my readers to stop by and give us some feedback, especially those of you from Connecticut. If nothing else, stop to share a joke at the Humor forum.

www.friendshiplodge33.org

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