Lodge Of Sorrow: General Norman Schwarzkopf

"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."

~General Norman Schwarzkopf

America lost a great military commander today--General Norman Swartzkopf died at the age of 78 in Tampa, Florida.  Best known for his no-nonsense approach during the Desert Storm campaign that so swiftly removed Saddam Hussain from Kuwait, it earned him the nickname Stormin' Norman.

~TEC

What Kind Of Mason Are You?


by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
Todd E. Creason
originally posted 1/17/12
origin unknown




Are you an active member
The kind that would be missed
Or are you just content
That your name is on the list?

Do you attend the meetings
And mingle with the flock.
Or do you stay at home
To criticize and knock?

Do you take an active part
To help the work along
Or are you satisfied to be
The kind that just belongs?

Do you ever go to visit
A member who is sick,
Or leave the work to just a few
And talk about the "clique"?

Think this over
You know right from wrong,
Are you an active member
Or do you just belong?

~anonymous

Midnight Freemasons Contributor Greg Knott forwarded this to me about this time last year.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it a great deal last year, so I thought I'd repost it for those of you that have joined us since.  I hope it makes you think . . .

~TEC

Todd E. Creason, 33° is the editor of the Midnight Freemasons blog, and author of several books and novels, including the Famous American Freemasons series.  He is member of Homer Lodge No. 199, and a Past Master of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL).  He is a member the Scottish Rite Valley of Danville, the York Rite Bodies of Champaign/Urbana (IL), the Ansar Shrine (IL), Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees, and Charter President of the Illini High Twelve in Champaign-Urbana (IL).  He is also the author of the blog From Labor To Refreshment . . .
 

A Tale Of Two Signs

by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
Steven L. Harrison, PM, FMLR

Kearney Lodge No. 311 (MO) sign
Our Illustrious Blogmeister Todd has requested we send pictures of Masonic signs.  I guess this is my way of doing that.  I live in Kearney, Missouri (Not to be confused with Kearney, Nebraska, which it often is).  We're located about 20 miles northeast of Kansas City and in spite of the fact that civilization keeps oozing our way, we're still somewhat rural.  One hundred thirty years ago, Kearney was a thriving farming and commerce center.  The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe) stopped here, giving businesses critical access to both Chicago and Kansas City.

In that year, 1882, Kearney saw two significant events.  First, foremost and, like-it-or-not, the one that puts us on the map, our favorite but oh-so-notorious son, Jesse James met his untimely and violent end and was buried here.  There have been, over the years, those who have claimed Jesse isn't buried here and didn't even die then.  In 1994, we got fed up with all that, dug him up, ran tests, proved it was him and put him back in a shiny new coffin. So there. I attended that auspicious event where vendors were doing a brisk business selling T-shirts that said, "In Kearney, We Dig Jesse."

To get back to the point, the other big event in Kearney in 1882 was the completion of the Masonic Lodge.  I doubt Jesse ever saw the building.  He was way up in St. Joseph at the time and was otherwise occupied until they brought him back on ice (really).  That 1882 building still stands at what was the town's main intersection.  I'm certain it was, at the time, the most magnificent building Kearney had ever seen.  I don't have exact dates but probably about 25-30 years ago Kearney Lodge surrendered its charter and then re-chartered in the mid-2000s.  I affiliated immediately and since then, Kearney Lodge #311 has continued to grow.  We still don't have a permanent building, but every time I go into town, I spend a few minutes looking at that old building with its weathering concrete Masonic sign (it's not a cornerstone) and wish it was ours.  Maybe someday it will be.  No matter what happens, I hope we can at least get back that terrific old sign, a reminder of days gone by.

Liberty Lodge No. 31 (MO) sign--well worth the 5K donation!
Since there was no Kearney Lodge when I became a Mason, I joined Liberty Lodge #31, about six or seven miles south.  The town of Liberty is a whole different story.  The streets are paved with gold and cash flows from the fire hydrants.  Not quite, but almost.  It's a bustling, growing, thriving area.  And Liberty Lodge (in spite of what our budget committee might claim) has thrived right along with it.  When I joined, we owned our own building smack-dab on the town square, had paying tenants and life was good.  Then Sunday, May 4, 2003, waltzed in and spoiled the party.

That day, an F2 tornado rolled through.  Our Lodge building took a direct hit.  It actually cracked the building in half, ripped our two-ton air conditioning unit from its rooftop foundation and not-so-gently dumped it on the street below.  Engineers at first told us the building was lost, an assessment that fortunately turned out not to be true.  It took months of work and lots of money, but we restored the building to a condition better than before the tornado hit. What insurance didn't cover, we did.

Jesse James went down the year Kearney Lodge went up!
We had moved into that building in the early 1950s.  Our sign was a somewhat elaborate affair which hung perpendicular to the building.  On both sides, it had the emblems of the Masonic bodies there and whenever any of those bodies met, that portion of the sign was lighted.  Needless to say, the sign did not survive.  We found enough pieces of it that we were able to give it to an artist to recreate the glass sheets on either side, but there was a problem.

In the intervening years, Liberty had passed an ordinance that, for whatever reason, signs on the square had to be parallel to the building.  At first, the city told us we could not replace the sign in its perpendicular configuration.  We prefer to think it was our excellent negotiation skills and not the $5,000 we donated to the disaster fund that reversed the town's decision.  At any rate, if you drive around the Liberty square today, you'll recognize our landmark sign.  It's the only one on the square perpendicular to a building.  And we're still smack-dab on the town square, have paying tenants and life is good.

~SH

Steve Harrison, 32° KCCH is a Past Master of Liberty Lodge #31, Liberty, Missouri.  He is the editor of the Missouri Freemason magazine, author of the book Freemasonry Crosses the Mississippi, a Fellow of the Missouri Lodge of Research and also its Senior Warden.  He is a dual member of Kearney Lodge #311, St. Joseph Missouri Valley of the Scottish Rite, Liberty York Rite, Moila Shrine and is a member of the DeMolay Legion of Honor.

Freedom Trail: King's Chapel

by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
Gregory J. Knott
This is the sixth installment of Gregory Knott's Freedom Trail Series

King's Chapel
King’s Chapel was founded in 1686 as an Anglican congregation with loyalty to the King of England and over the years it grew and needed a new building.  In 1754 the current building was completed and was made of Quincy granite.  Over the years it went dark, converted to a Unitarian Congregation and finally to the current independent congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association.  The governance system consists of elected officers, Senior and Junior Wardens, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer (sound familiar?).

Entering the Chapel you appreciate the efforts at preservation

The bell in the Church tower was forged in England was hung in 1772 and developed a crack in 1814 and was recast by Brother Paul Revere and rehung in 1816.  You can hear the bells on You Tube.

This Chancel Table was a gift from King William and Queen Mary (1696)


As one would expect in a chapel of this historic nature, many famous persons have worshiped here including:  Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin and General Joseph Warren who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

By visiting King’s Chapel, one sees the importance that religion played in the founding of America.  This history of this church illustrates the sacrifice that so many of its members made over the last 300+ years in helping shape the American culture.

Next up on the Freedom Trail the Old South Meeting House.

WB Gregory J. Knott is the Past Master of St. Joseph Lodge No. 970 in St. Joseph (IL) and a plural member of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), and Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL). He's a member of both the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite, and is the Charter Secretary of the Illini High Twelve Club in Champaign-Urbana. He's also a member of the Ansar Shrine (IL) and the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. Greg is very involved in Boy Scouts--an Eagle Scout himself, he serves the Grand Lodge of Illinois A. F. & A. M. as their representative to the National Association of Masonic Scouters.

Masonic Relic Finds New Life Back In The Hands Of A Master Mason

by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
 Michael H. Shirley
(originally posted 6/27/12)

Curtain Rod?
One of the things I learned early in my Masonic journey is that Illinois rod work is militarily precise when done by those who are good at it. I'm not good yet, and since I'm studying for the Certified Lodge Instructor exam, I need all the practice I can get, so I was delighted to find an old Steward's rod at an antique mall in Minocqua, Wisconsin, while on vacation. It was hanging on a wall with a tag that read "Parade Pole. Great Curtain Rod! $22." It was dirty, and the metal rod top was so tarnished it looked like wrought iron, but it was exactly what I needed and I grabbed it.

When I took it up to the counter to pay for it, I mentioned to the gentleman who took my money that the description was inaccurate. "It doesn't matter," he said. I said nothing, but it bothered me, because it does matter. Saying that a thing's true name doesn't matter is to dishonor the reason it exists. My Steward's rod would probably make a good curtain rod, and it is a parade pole of sorts, but it was made for a specific purpose, a Masonic purpose, and its true name tells that story.

So now it leans in a corner in my house. The brass top polished up nicely, and lemon oil brought some depth to the wood. The base is worn where it was repeatedly taken out of its holder and replaced at stated meetings and degrees, and it's slightly curved from age, but it looks much better than when I first saw it. My rod work is improving, and somehow using a real rod for its real purpose makes me work a little better than I did with the length of PVC I used before. There's weight to it, a solidity that is its own history. Its Masonic journey, interrupted for who knows how long, continues. With its help, so does mine.

~MHS

W.B. Michael H. Shirley is Past Master of Tuscola Lodge No. 332 and Leadership Development Chairman for the Grand Lodge of Illinois. He's also a member of the Illinois Lodge of Research, the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, Eastern Star, and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon. He's also a member of the newly-chartered, Illini High Twelve No. 768 in Urbana-Champaign. The author of several articles on British history, he teaches at Eastern Illinois University.

The Greatest Challenge Of Membership

 by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
R.W. B. Michael Shirley

Freemasonry is, for some of its members, very much a spiritual, moral, and esoteric organization. For others it’s primarily a social group. For most of us it’s somewhere in the middle. I’m enamored of the spiritual and moral teachings, and wouldn’t have become a Freemason without them, but I’m also fairly practical in my approach to things, and I like solving problems. 

One of the problems I face regularly is how to figure out what to do among all the possibilities Freemasonry presents. There’s just too much going on. On any given day, there might be lodge meetings, degrees, workers’ clubs, Scottish Rite functions, Eastern Star banquets, fundraisers, child ID events, Commandary inspections, Lodge of Research programs, DeMolay activities, Tall Cedars of Lebanon events, and more. It’s all fun, it’s all worthwhile, and it’s all time consuming.  

I’ve been more and more active lately, and nearly every night I have to choose between various Masonic meetings of one kind or another. I know I’m not the first to face that problem, and I certainly won’t be the last. So I’ve been learning to say “no” to things, but it’s usually in the form of, “no, that won’t be a problem,” or “no, I have plenty of time.” 

Harry S Truman
I’ve also discovered that my Masonic forebears had the same problem, and one of them, Most Worshipful Brother Harry S. Truman, may have hit on the solution, at least in prospect. It seems that his cousin, Nellie Noland, wanted him to play piano for some visiting dignitaries, and he was busy. “She wanted me for tomorrow night,” he said, “and I have a Lodge election and Third Degree that night. The people decided not to come until next week and I am very thankful. I could neither turn Nellie Down nor miss the meeting. I don’t know what I’d have done. Probably sent my astral body one place and my temporal the other.” 

So I ask my more esoterically inclined brethren to continue their course of individual spiritual enlightenment, but also to pay attention for any tips on astral projection. I really need to know how to confer a Second Degree in Tuscola and practice for a Scottish Rite performance in Danville, all while having fun at the Shrine steak fry in Atwood. I’m pretty sure Brother Truman would approve.



R.W.B. Michael H. Shirley is the Assistant Area Deputy Grand Master for the Eastern Area for the Grand Lodge of Illinois A.F. & A.M.  He is the Past Master of Tuscola Lodge No. 332 and Leadership Development Chairman for the Grand Lodge of Illinois. He's also a member of the Illinois Lodge of Research, the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, Eastern Star, and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon. He's also a member of the newly-chartered, Illini High Twelve No. 768 in Urbana-Champaign. The author of several articles on British history, he teaches at Eastern Illinois University.

The Granary Burying Ground

by Midnight Freemasons Contributor
Gregory J. Knott
This is the fifth installment of Gregory Knott's Freedom Trail Series


From the minute you enter the Granary Burying Ground, you can feel the history emanating from the graves of those laid to rest here.   Being the third oldest cemetery in Boston with its founding in 1660, it has a special place in American history.

There are many notable persons buried here with some having prominent Masonic connections.  Amongst these is Paul Revere 1735-1818.  Brother Revere was of course most famous for being a silversmith and his Midnight Ride and the signaling in the North Church of “one if by land and two if by sea”.  He was a member of St. Andrews Lodge in Boston and served as Grand Master of Massachusetts in 1794-1797. 

Brother Benjamin Franklin’s parents are buried under a prominent obelisk that was erected in 1827 long after their death.  Brother Franklin himself is buried in Philadelphia, PA.

Other notables at Granary Burying Grounds include Samuel Adams (who was not a Freemason) a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Mother Goose and Henry Price the founder of Freemasonry in America.

Next on our trip along the Freedom Trail will be a stop at Kings Chapel.

 
WB Gregory J. Knott is the Past Master of St. Joseph Lodge No. 970 in St. Joseph (IL) and a plural member of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), and Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL). He's a member of both the Scottish Rite, and the York Rite, and is the Charter Secretary of the Illini High Twelve Club in Champaign-Urbana. He's also a member of the Ansar Shrine (IL). Greg is very involved in Boy Scouts--an Eagle Scout himself, he serves the Grand Lodge of Illinois A. F. & A. M. as their representative to the National Association of Masonic Scouters.