Playing Favorites

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Randy Sanders

What’s your favorite degree? Surely you’ve heard this question or even asked another Brother? My favorite degree apparently changes every couple of years. I started with the 3rd, then found a connection again with the Entered Apprentice, later finding that I just loved to hear the stair lecture in the Fellowcraft degree. Now throw in York Rite and Scottish Rite degrees, and you see I have a challenge.

How about you? We were mesmerized by the simple, yet extremely profound Entered Apprentice which speaks to our hearts in purification and morality. We were amazed at the depth Freemasonry goes into lessons and values, at presenting the lessons and tools for self-improvement.

Then what? Where did that lead you? Where does that resonate now?

I’m fortunate to be directly involved in the Master Craftsman work being done in the Valley of St. Louis, and that education is spectacular both in the Master Craftsman course work and the monthly walk through the different degrees. We’re already up into the upper 20’s, so we have only a few more months to cycle through the degrees. I’m also fortunate to have signed up for and received Oklahoma Grand Master Robert Davis’s new work on the Blue Lodge degrees. If you haven’t seen Robert Davis’s works, I can only say “go read them now” as a recommendation. York Rite has similar course material, also written by GM Davis who worked with Piers Vaughan on the Capitular Degree books.

So what? Well, education and performing the degrees, even in a tiny part, continues to shape my favorites. I would like to hear your favorite degree as well, and I’d like to hear why it’s your favorite.

Bro. Randy

Bro. Randy and his wife Elyana live in O'Fallon, MO just outside of St. Louis. Randy earned a Bachelors in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, and he works in telecom IT. He volunteers his time as a professional and personal mentor, is an NRA certified Chief Range Safety Officer, and enjoys competitive tactical pistol. He has a 30+ year background teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and healing arts. Randy's Masonic bio includes lodge education officer of two blue lodges, running the Wentzville Lodge Book Club, active in York Rite AMD, Scottish Rite Valley of St. Louis co-librarian, Clerk of the Academy Of Reflection through the Valley of Guthrie, a trained facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society. As a pre-COVID-19 pioneer in Masonic virtual education, Randy is an administrator of Refracted Light and an international presenter on esoteric topics. Randy enjoys facilitating and presenting Masonic esoteric education, and he hosts an open, weekly Masonic virtual Friday Happy Hour. Randy is an accomplished home chef, a certified barbecue judge, raises Great Pyrenees dogs, and enjoys travel and philosophy.

Memorial Day - 156 Years Later

by Senior Midnight Freemason Contributor
WB Gregory J. Knott

Photo Credit: Greg Knott

Memorial Day for most people marks the beginning of summer. Often celebrated by backyard BBQ parties, trips to the lake, or a day at the pool, it often seems that the original purpose of Memorial Day has been forgotten.

The history of the beginning of Memorial Day has several towns taking credit for holding the first celebration. One of the more interesting and compelling stories of the first Memorial Day took place after the Battle of Charleston in 1865 when a group of African Americans who had been freed from enslavement held a parade around the Charleston horse track. Newspaper accounts say that a crowd of 10,000 gathered to watch marches by the famed 54th Massachusetts Regiment and listen to bible verses read by Black ministers. You can read the entire story here: https://www.history.com/news/memorial-day-civil-war-slavery-charleston.

Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day, when General John A. Logan, the leader of the Grand Army of the Republic declared “The 30th of May 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Congress made this an official public holiday in 1971.

156 years later what does Memorial Day mean to us, the American people? Why does it still matter to remember those who fell and made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom?

Memorial Day is a commemoration of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. They were young and were the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives of our fellow Americans. Not coming home left a void in the lives of their family and friends. They did not get the chance to see their children grow up, attend the ball games, scout meetings, church events, family reunions. Missed seeing their daughter walk down the aisle or their son bringing home that special girl that would later become his wife. They did not know their grandchildren or perhaps great-grandchildren. This is what Memorial Day means to the American people.

Why should we still need to remember these fallen on Memorial Day? I urge you to simply look around at what their sacrifice provided to all of us. A magnificent nation based on ideals that make us the envy of the world. The freedom to raise our families and to accomplish our dreams and aspirations. The ability to worship as we choose. The chance to attend those ball games, scout meetings, etc.

It seems harder now for society to remember those who fell on our behalf. We are distracted by social media, politics, and just “being busy”. But I urge you to take one moment and think about all those who never returned home. Go visit your local cemetery and simply read the names of some of those who served. Volunteer to help make your community a better place. Conduct an act of kindness to someone that will make our society more civil. Tell someone "Thank You". Tell someone that you love them.

Take a moment to remember and be thankful and their sacrifice will not have been in vain.

~GJK

WB Gregory J. Knott is a founding member and Senior Contributor of the Midnight Freemasons blog. He is a Past Master of St. Joseph Lodge No. 970 in St. Joseph (IL) and a plural member of Ogden Lodge No. 754 (IL), Homer Lodge No. 199 (IL) and Naval Lodge No. 4 in Washington, DC. He’s a member of the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, Eastern Star and is the Charter Secretary of the Illini High Twelve Club No. 768 in Champaign-Urbana. He is also a member of ANSAR Shrine (IL) and the Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees. Greg serves on the Board of Directors of The Masonic Society and is a member of the Scottish Rite Research Society and The Philathes Society. He is a charter member of a new Illinois Royal Arch Chapter, Admiration Chapter U.D. and serves as its Secretary. Greg is very involved in Boy Scouts—an Eagle Scout himself, he is a member of the National Association of Masonic Scouters. You can contact him at gknott63@gmail.com

Portable Temples

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

Bro. Randy Sanders

While creating a presentation on Creating Sacred Spaces a few months ago, it came to me that we are our own portable sacred space. This was a bit of an epiphany in that several things came together, connecting a few more dots.

Freemasonry teaches representation of the Temple of Solomon, and esoteric anatomy points us down a more personal internal path where even Christianity teaches us that we should internalize and contemplate the same. Corinthians: "Don’t you know you are the temple of God?" Or for those who enjoy the King James version, this is from the year 1610 edition I found on the Internet: "Knowe yee not that yee are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

If you're a serious student, scholar, or even practitioner of Christianity, shouldn't you take that literally as well as allegorically?

The sacred space within us travels with us. We don't simply leave the sacred space of our home, temple, or lodge to mix again with the world. We live that whole "mixing again" with the outside world, and we might want to focus a bit more on how we use our portable temple. It may well be impractical to cleanse a supermarket with sage or carry a censer around with incense, but we have alternatives that don't have to involve banishing rituals. We are Masons. We learn to invoke! We invoke the blessings of Deity before any serious undertakings, right?

So to cut to the chase, talk to your angels, or saints, or higher self. Invoke the blessings of the divine in all your doings as prescribed by the Masonic ritual. Understand that anywhere you go can be sacred, but it's up to you to apply that lesson in your own life. The moral lessons we learn in Freemasonry create the lens, and it's our lens with which we can see.

Bro. Randy

Bro. Randy and his wife Elyana live in O'Fallon, MO just outside of St. Louis. Randy earned a
Bachelors in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry, and he works in telecom IT. He volunteers his time as a professional and personal mentor, is an NRA certified Chief Range Safety Officer, and enjoys competitive tactical pistol. He has a 30+ year background teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu, Chi Kung, and healing arts. Randy's Masonic bio includes lodge education officer of two blue lodges, running the Wentzville Lodge Book Club, active in York Rite AMD, Scottish Rite Valley of St. Louis co-librarian, Clerk of the Academy Of Reflection through the Valley of Guthrie, a trained facilitator for the Masonic Legacy Society. As a pre-COVID-19 pioneer in Masonic virtual education, Randy is an administrator of Refracted Light and an international presenter on esoteric topics. Randy enjoys facilitating and presenting Masonic esoteric education, and he hosts an open, weekly Masonic virtual Friday Happy Hour. Randy is an accomplished home chef, a certified barbecue judge, raises Great Pyrenees dogs, and enjoys travel and philosophy.

Why I Became A Shriner

by Midnight Freemason Regular Contributor

WB Christopher Hathaway 

Did I join the Masons to become a Shriner? No. Did I become a Shriner to help the kids? Also no. Stick with me because I am 100% in it for the kids, but it’s not one of my top reasons for joining. 

I became a Freemason so I could follow in the footsteps of the best man I knew. A man of character, a man of faith, and a man that could not be outworked. He spent many nights at the lodge helping new men become Masons. It was important to him and I wanted to know why. 

The Blue Lodge or Symbolic Lodge teaches the fundamentals of the fraternity and gives a man everything he needs to know in order to walk and act like a Master Mason. The Scottish and York Rite expand on that knowledge of the craft degrees. The Shriners were created as a means to have fun and celebrate the hard work in the quarries. In fact, they had so much fun the Children’s Hospital system was created as a by-product of good fun and fraternal activity. I joined the Shrine to have fun and market the fraternity. I joined to drive a little car and tell people that in order to become a Shriner, you had to become Master Mason first. 

You see, the brotherhood is what binds us together and it is what will get us through the next 100 years. Anyone can support a charity. I could drop out of the Shriners today and support our hospitals without ever attending a stated meeting again. Why don’t I just do that? Because that’s not the reason I am here. I want to build relationships with good men. I want to navigate life with people that hold the same principles near and dear to their hearts as I do. I want to know when the going gets tough, I have people that have my back through the thick and the thin. You can’t get that by sending in $19.99 to a website. Yes, it’s important! Yes, we love our hospitals. Yes, Shriners are heroes to kids across the world. So, how do we help even more kids? We initiate and create new Shrine Masons. We turn thousands of good men into walking billboards in their communities. When we do that, we will know of every kid that needs our help. We will make sure that every eligible kid can receive our top-notch care regardless of the family’s ability to pay. 

We will continue to innovate and prosper through the growth of a fraternity built on fun. A place where hardworking Masons can channel their philanthropic nature without being deep into the weeds of moral philosophy. A place where laughter reigns and the worries of the world seem distant. A place where a kid’s smile will pay back your efforts in gold. 

Do you know a good man who could benefit from our fraternity? Send them to beashrinernow.com or beafreemason.org. If you light a fire under one good man, that return on investment will be tenfold for our fraternity and our hospitals. 

“Blood is thicker than water but nothing is thicker than brotherhood” –Not Just a Man, A Mason.

~CJH

WB Christopher J. Hathaway was raised in Catlin Masonic Lodge #285 and is a plural member of Normal Masonic Lodge #673 as well as Bloomington Lodge #43, where he is a Past Master. He belongs to the Valley of Danville, AASR where he is the Most Wise Master of the George E. Burow Chapter of Rose Croix and Membership Chairman.  He is the Oriental Guide in the Divan for the Mohammed Shiners, and the 1st Vice President of the Bloomington Shrine Club. Other appendant bodies include the Gao Grotto and the Illinois Lodge of Research. Outside of the lodge, he enjoys spending time with his wife Taylor and cheering on the Fighting Illini and Chicago Cubs.