Operative Mason

My lodge has the very distinct honor of having an operative mason as our Worshipful Master and it is my honor and pleasure to call him Brother. For those unfamiliar with the terminology it means he is an actual stone mason by trade. While most of us spend our days pondering and speculating upon the ancient craft of Masonry my W.M. lives it because he is an actual mason. He spends his days in the dirt amidst billowing clouds of cement dust and heavy blocks and let me tell you nothing in our ritual comes even close to the toil of being a mason. I know this now because in a flash of brilliance my wife and I decided to tear down our old deck and replace it with stone steps and a paver patio in my spare time. My Brother agreed to help me with my little project and has come to my house for nearly a month to pay me back for all the pestering and nagging he has received from his overbearing Senior Warden, or Wicked Witch of the West as he likes to call me.

Previously at night and on the weekends I had slowly demolished my 14 x 20 deck and cleared the debris for my glorious introduction into real masonry. The pavers were chosen and delivered to my house and I got up on a Saturday with a air of invincibility and strength which rapidly faded with every shovelful of stone filled soil we removed to create the foundation for my stairs. I remember reading as a kid of how hard it was for the pilgrims to make farmland in the rocky New England soil and boy they weren't kidding. After one hour of being a real mason I found myself entirely depleted of all the strength I woke up with but I persevered because my Brother, who has a few years on me, didn't even break a sweat. As he instructed me on the finer parts of mixing cement by hand, he thought it was hilarious that I was huffing and puffing like a marathon runner at the end of 25 miles while he could wield a hoe and shovel like a feather. Now don't get me wrong, in my regular job I lift thousands of pounds of steel a day but it is in small bursts of strength not the constant grind of moving heavy earth and stone and all that goes with it for 8 hours plus a day. His patience and understanding are boundless and his Brotherhood is second to none.

I have learned many things in the past month of doing this project with my W.M. but the greatest thing I have come away with is the amazing bond that can be made by common labor among men. As we toiled and struggled day after day, all the while exchanging jokes and stories of our lives, we truly shared an experience of building something beautiful and are closer for it. That is what we are supposed to do as Freemasons.

We have two important building tasks at hand while we labor together as speculative masons.

The first task is to work together to improve ourselves as men and Freemasons. It is not an easy task, and some of us stones are allot rougher than others, but we must constantly and conscientiously strive to wield our common gavels to chip away the ugly parts of ourselves to create a more perfect stone to use in the second task and that is in the building of our lodge.

Not the building we meet in but the collective creation of men that meet every two weeks or so. As we work together to make ourselves better in our ritual and regular meetings we grow stronger by spreading the cement of Brotherly love.

Cement is not an easy building material. It requires a correct blend of certain elements mixed just right to achieve the reaction that is needed to build and patience for it to cure. The amazing differences of the Brethren of a lodge mixed just right with the patience of allowing the ceremonies of our craft to "cure" can build anything.

Our lodge is in an incredible period of growth and rebuilding. We have already had almost 10 men entered into our Brotherhood and the list of candidates grows every meeting because under the guidance of our incredible W.M., allot of fellowship, and a little help from the "Wicked Witch of the West". I have much to live up to if I assume the East next year and I know I have Brothers who will be there to help.

P.S. I now know why us masons kneel at the begining of our labor...................

The Compass

Down the hall from the middle chamber in the back corner of King Solomons Temple was a plain door. It had no markings on it or no gilded frame work just a plain wood door with a brass handle on it and behind the door was the office of Hiram Abiff. 

Its walls were stacked with all sorts of scrolls and tablets and tools of every shape and size whose purposes and uses were known only to a few. There were a couple of planks placed on wood workhorses where the trestleboard lay with plans for the labor of the craft and upon the trestleboard was the most important tool of them all, the compass. 

This tool was acquired from traders from the far East where the sun rises to rule and govern the day. The compass allowed the Grand Master to lay out exactly how the building was to be built according to the cardinal directions, regardless of the time of day, or if the heavens were visible or not because of the invisible force that surrounds the globe and keeps the needle floating on a small pool of water always pointing in the same direction. No matter which way you turn, indoors or out, on the high plains of Asia or the deep jungles of Africa the compass always points in the same direction. 

We as Free and Accepted Masons should let it remind us of the invisible hand of providence that will always guide us in the right direction. In the darkest hour, under stormy skies and in the depths of the murkiest forest, when you can find no clear indication of which way to go and you feel as if you will never find your way again all you have to do is wait for the pool of water that is your being to settle and let the needle of the Great Architect of the Universe point you in the right direction again. The direction never changed, it is always there, the invisible force of right and good just needs a still pool and the smallest indicator to guide those that will wait for it to set them on the true path of light.

Long as I See Light

Every few months or so, my wife and I get a reprieve of our parental duties and get a night on the town to dine, catch a movie and rush home to catch up on sleep. Tonight it was her turn to pick out the film and we went to see "State of Play" (because no amount of arguing on my part would get my wife into the new Star Trek movie!) and as much as I wanted to see the back story of my favorite futuristic friends I settled into the murder mystery my wife sold me on. The simple plot of the whole movie was a Washington news journalist (Russel Crowe) piecing together three seemingly unrelated murders in our nations capitol. Soon into the movie I noticed a blue coffee mug with a square and compasses on it in the residence of the protagonist Cal McAffrey (Crowe) and a ring on his pinky finger that might, or might not, have been masonic. Giddy up! A Masonic movie, right? Well not really, but the brooding truth seeker Cal was apparently a mason and I spent the rest of the movie looking for hidden symbols or a decent storyline and came up empty on both searches. Well not really, there was a fleeting screen shot of a marching band on the steps of the House of the Temple in DC which made absolutely no sense, and the story would have been all right if it were an hour shorter but it was a Hollywood movie so I was asking for too much.  

The gist of my post is, since becoming a Freemason I am hyper sensitive to seemingly meaningless images thrown at us, and there are a lot of them, and why they are there. The kicker of the whole thing was the undercurrent of the movie, which was not really developed, was bloggers vs. "real" journalists and the movie ended with a behind the scenes clip of a newspaper being printed with Creedence Clearwater Revival's "As Long as I See the Light" playing in the background, you make the connection.

Housekeeping and Other Thoughts

Here I am, again, enjoying on my back deck a few of the finer things in life; a good cigar, an Irish Whiskey and checking out my favorite Masonic Blogs. I have long been a fan of the aggregator King Solomons Lodge.  For a long time it was a daily destination of a mouse click (and still usually is) but as it has become more and more popular globally (which is quite a testament to Brother Jeff's foresight and vision) I feel as if I have to plod through a security point at J.F.K. just to see what my friends are up to, so, as of late I have used my own links (much slower but less hassle) to see what is being written about the Craft I love so well, by my cyber Brethren.

As I go down the list I recognise a few trends; centralization, "blog fatigue" (you heard the term here first), and extraction.

The first trend is coming about with powerful cyber-Masons like Brother Greg Stewart who seems to be absorbing Masonic Blogs like a "Sham-Wow". Some of my favorite blogs writers have decided to give up their independence and join Freemason Information and leave their unique identities behind. Recently I read a very interesting article about how bloggers are very much like the pamphleteers of the American Revolution and how the independent voices were slowly conglomerated, and I paraphrase here, into the New York Times (yuck!) and how Bloggers were a refreshing link to the independent thought of the past.

The second trend is blamable, (and perhaps the first also), on "Blog Fatigue". A blog, as engrossing at times as it is, is very hard work for no pay. When I started my blog and when it was in its "heyday" I tried to write at least two new posts a week, then it became one, and now I'm Lucky if I bang one out a month. Writing, like Dan Brown has shown us with the lengthy gap since his last book, is not an easy thing to do, and although we all have high hopes and big aspirations when we start a blog we soon find out we already wrote about most of the things we really cared about right off the bat and there are only so many Halcyon Lodge episodes a decade, so what is left; rants and updates and that gets tiresome after a while. Which leads to the last trend extraction.

There are too many dead blogs for my taste on my "Great Masonic Blogs" list! I know its hard,  but there were so many real quality bloggers/writers who have thrown in the towel that it hurts. My inbred Irish Catholic guilt and stubbornness stops me from deleting these links (and you know who you are) but my keen cyber reality begs me to remove them (I still just cant). I just hate seeing *&%%$@!#@blogspot.com has been removed, its like a grave stone of a friend, always there to remind you of the good past.

Anyways, its getting late see you at my next rant.

I'm starting to feel like Andy Rooney!

Curiosity

I knocked at the door of my lodge because I wanted to become a Freemason. I didn't want to check it out, or try it for a while, or better yet, see what was going on behind those mysterious doors, I wanted to BECOME a Mason.

Maybe its just me, but when I decide to join something I put all of my being behind it. I have never been a follower, I have always weighed the pros and cons and followed my heart when it came to something that would soon be attached to my existence.

Lets take baseball for instance. I spent 21 years of my life quasi understanding the game and completely dismissing anyone who devoted themselves to what I called "just a game among sports". As all good people are, I was raised to hate the Yankees, but I never followed the sport and often made fun of those who did. Then, back in 1995, while suffering through another Red Sox, Yankee debate at my work at the time, I decided that I would follow a baseball team for a whole year and see what it was all about, learn the stats, "get" the terminology, and live and die with a team for an entire season. I chose those lovable losers, the New York Mets, because they were the only team my old Brooklyn Dodger fan of a father actually brought us to see as a kid and they did win a World Series in my lifetime and I did subconsciously and permanently hate the Yankees.

I started following them in preseason. I learned all I could about the game. I deciphered all of the acronyms like RBI and ERA that I had never actually learned as a hockey playing youth. I watched or listened to every, and I mean every, game that year and I soon realized much to my chagrin, that I actually LOVED the game I had spent so long making fun of. As bad as they were,  and they were pretty bad back then, I soon found myself in the classification of a "Met fan" and assumed all of the baggage and what else, that came with it. It was a conscious  decision on my part based upon my research into the game, a little quality upbringing, and a new found love and devotion. Now it is much a part of me as my DNA. Everyone who knows me, absolutely knows I love the Mets and knows that in good times (not too many) and in bad (oh too much), that I bleed Blue and Orange and that is what I am. The same goes for Freemasonry. 

I put allot of research and thought into becoming a part of this organization. I read and Read and read, talked and watched anything I could on the subject before deciding to join and I knew EXACTLY (well almost, except the secrets) what I was getting into, and that is why I have a hard time hearing from a new "brother" that he has a hard time coming to our "boring" meetings, well sooory! If ya were looking for dancing girls or getting hammered you came to the wrong place. We say outright that if you are joining to expand your social network or out of just curiosity you came to the wrong place. If you are here to learn all you can about the oldest and largest fraternity in the world, all the while making yourself a better man, you came to the right place.

A good Mason I know put it best when he said you get out of Freemasonry what you put in. Unfortunately a lot of guys get through who just want to see whats on the other side, sorry for the disappointment, I like it!

Brothers of the Mystic Tie

Along a side wall in the anteroom of the lodge, sitting behind a time worn couch, lies a very unassuming glass case. It is nothing fancy, just a simple painted box with two sliding glass doors and a few glass shelves filled with dusty relics of almost two hundred and fifty years of Brotherhood.

It is lined with pictures of Grand Masters who came from the lodge, centennial commemorative plates, bicentennial plates, invitations to grand balls, histories, commemorative trowels, pins, a sprig of Acacia brought back from Israel, and all sorts of Masonic knick-knacks. If you look hard enough you will find laying across the very bottom of the case, tucked up against the front edge, a tarnished sword.

It's an officers saber in a decorated scabbard, with a hard to read inscription that barely scratches the surface of the incredible story that goes along with this treasure. The sword was a gift from the lodge to an esteemed Brother and Past Master of the lodge upon his entry into the Army to fight for the Union in the Civil War, his name was Albert H. Wilcoxson.

Albert was initiated into Freemasonry as an Entered Apprentice on April 24th 1856 the very same day his petition was voted on by the Brothers of St. Johns Lodge. In what can certainly be considered a very short period of time, he was passed to the degree of Fellowcraft the following week and raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason a week after that. He attended every meeting of the lodge after that and by the fall of 1856 he even acted as Junior Warden for a meeting. In December of the same year he was appointed officially as Senior Deacon of the lodge and continued to step up into various officers chairs during degrees and meetings.

The next three years were spent on every committee the lodge assembled, and the two Wardens chairs in the lodge, on his way toward the oriental chair in the East. He was a true Brother Mason in every sense of the word and was very devoted to his nearly one hundred year old Freemasons lodge. After his year as Worshipful Master he did not idly pass onto the sidelines as some Past Masters do, but continued diligently working for the Order he loved. He attended most meetings and sat in various officers chairs when needed. He was serving the lodge again as Senior Deacon when he was forced to resign his position on August 21st 1862. He had to leave his friends and family to answer President Lincoln's call for "300000 more" troops for the War and muster with the Seventeenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry in Bridgeport and head South.

He fought and survived in the great battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg , and Folly Island SC, but it was while the regiment was in North Eastern Florida, an area with little Confederate presence, that the Lt. Col. would get into trouble. Wilcoxson was commanding raids on farms that supplied the Confederacy, when his company was ambushed by a small company of Rebels led by Captain J.J. Dickison at Braddocks Farm. Wilcoxson and his men were caught off guard with ten wagons of cotton and other captured items when the Confederates called for them to surrender. Lt. Col. Wilcoxson mounted his horse and charged the enemies with his pistol drawn and blazing, after his ammunition was spent he drew his sword for one final push towards Capt. Dickison the rebel leader, who took aim and shot the Col. from his horse. Wounded and bleeding from the bullet that passed through his shoulder and other wounds Wilcoxson was approached by the rebel Captain and asked why he threw his life away, to which he replied "Don't blame yourself. You are only doing your duty as a soldier. I alone am to blame." The surgeon of the rebel camp, a Brother of the mystic tie, tried to save him but it was too late, he died of his wounds in a Confederate prison camp a few days later.

But that was not the end of the story.

What followed after the battle exemplifies how men of the Masonic order can rise above the normal and shine as honorable gentleman. The following are two letters between the widow of Albert Wilcoxson and the man who captured and killed him.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA. March 23, 1865

Captain J.J. Dickison:
SIR: I have heard that you are a most kind and honorable gentleman and a Freemason. Believing this to be a fact, I, as the widow of an honored Mason and brave soldier, appeal to you for a great favor.
The sword which by my husband, the late Lt. Col. Wilcoxson, wore at the time of his capture by you, was presented to him by his brothers of the "Mystic Tie", members of the St. John's Lodge, of Norwalk, Conn., in token of the high esteem in which they held him. If you are a Mason, you will understand the value which he placed upon the gift, and why I so strongly desire to possess it, in order that I may re-present it to the lodge.
Is it possible for you to return it to me? Or if it has passed out of your immediate possession, can you in any way effect restoration of it to me? The centennial celebration of the St. John's Lodge takes place May next. Earnest have been the entreaties of brotherhood that the colonel would make an effort to be with them at that time in spirit, without doubt. What would I not give to be able to place in their hands the sword which, though it passed from my husband's hands in such a manner, has never been dishonored!
Yours respectfully,
MRS. ALBERT H. WILCOXSON

_______________

CAMP BAKER, WALDO, FLA. March 31, 1865

Mrs. Albert H. Wilcoxson, St. Augustine, Fla.
MADAM: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 23rd instant, which reached me a few days ago by a flag of truce.
Previous to the receipt of your letter, at the request of your husband, I had concluded to send you the sword which was worn by him at the time of his capture. It is unusual, in time of war, to return captures of this description, but, in this instance, I will deviate from that course, on account of the feelings I entertained for your husband as a brave officer. With this, I send you his sword, trusting that it may reach you safely.
I am, madam, yours respectfully,
J.J. DICKISON
Captain Commanding Forces

The sword was indeed returned to her and she presented it to the men who lost a friend and brother along with this letter on the Centennial Anniversary of the lodge.

Norwalk May 18th 1865

To the W.M. Wardens and Brothers of St. Johns Lodge,
I take this opportunity of forwarding to you the sword which was presented by the Brethren of St. Johns Lodge to my husband the late Lieut. Col. Wilcoxson at the time he entered military service.
The accompanying copies of letters will explain to you the manner in which the sword came into my possession after my husband’s capture and death and will also prove my intentions regarding the gift which has all too soon passed into a relic. I was induced to make this request of Capt. Dickison on account of the great value my husband placed upon the sword and also that I might by returning it to the lodge give to the fraternity some acknowledgement of the deep respect which I entertain for the order of Free Masonry and of my appreciation of the manner in which you expressed your confidence in and esteem for my husband.
My heart’s desire and prayer is that every mason who looks upon this sword either in tender memory of the departed brother or in mere curiosity may be as true to his God his Country and his fellow man as was my dear brave husband Lieut. Col. Albert H. Wilcoxson.
Very Respectfully
Mrs. A.H. Wilcoxson

The Brothers of St. Johns Lodge No. 6 F.&A.M. upon receipt of the sword and letter from his widow entered into their records the following.

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God in his inscrutable providence to swell the number of our fallen Brothers who have gone forth in defense of our Union and our Countries flag by removing from this lodge by death our Brother P.M. Albert H. Wilcoxson and
Whereas it is due to his memory that we shall place on our records our appreciation of his character as a Brother and a well skilled craftsman of the order. Therefore be it be resolved that in the loss of P.M. Wilcoxson we deeply and sincerely mourn a Brother who by his intimate knowledge of Masonry has become a credit to our Lodge and an ornament to the Fraternity.
Resolved that we shall ever gratefully remember him as a kind and charitable Brother and honest and trustworthy and an associate possessed of qualities of character that alike honored his head and heart.
Resolved that we tender our heartfelt and Brotherly condolence to the widow of our departed Brother and invoke for her the protection and tender care of him who does not willingly afflict the children of men.

Years passed and the "tender memory" of Albert Wilcoxson faded, and the story of how a Civil War sword ended up in the bottom of a dusty glass case was forgotten until a "mere curiosity" found the story again. Perhaps this time we can live up to Mrs. Wilcoxson's heart's desire and prayer and have it remind us to be as true to our god, our country, and our fellow man as was my dear departed Brother.

Tenacity, Technology, and Toil

Just a short while back I was having a hard time with what was occurring, or actually not occurring at my lodge. Frustration, like a mold was growing upon the edifice I had constructed in my mind. It starts in the small shadows that receive no light and quickly, unoticeably, multiplies and becomes larger. It is often overlooked as a natural occurrence and left untouched, but left untreated it can quickly cover the perfect cornerstone and more, and turn an architectural masterpiece into an appearing abandoned structure, no matter what dwells within.
I am in utter amazement and awe that I am writing this post sitting in the crisp New England winter evening air, enjoying a lovely snifter of the amber water of life sending smoke signals to our creator, my face lit by the unnatural glow of a small 10 inch screen connected to the entire world wirelessly via the ingenuity of man. WOW!
How can anyone believe that this existence is just a random happenstance of a single cells evolution from a primordial slime to this! I will not judge, but come on...
Anyway, I can say that the mold on my lodge is fast being cleaned away and the treasure underneath is being revealed one stone at a time.
As Senior Warden, free of the toil of providing the meal to the Brethren, I arrived at our last meeting fashionably late. My candidates, and I say this because I was the first line signer on their petitions, were enjoying a meal with their soon to be Brothers when I arrived at the parking lot next to our lodge filled with cars and a basement full of Masons enjoying the fellowship of our order.
I gladly shook every hand and felt the warmth of being among gentlemen who care about what we are and what we were doing. The nervous newcomers were in the midst of it all, not sectioned off alone to their thoughts, but in the midst of welcoming warm comrades. The vibe, as it has been lately, was extremely positive because the labor we were about to undertake was for the good of us all. There were a couple of Masons among us who wore the purple of our fraternity (we were being inspected after all) but you would not have known it until we all donned the ceremonial garb of our craft. We were and are all on the level.
I was gladly the first of the officers to be taken into the preparation room to be tested for my competency by a man I really respect when it comes to our order, and except for a temporary brain freeze when it came to the Grand Masonic Word, there we were in the five points of fellowship and my mind went completely blank for a couple of seconds, it was a breeze.
We initiated our newest Brothers almost flawlessly and if it weren't for an accidental activation of a particularly loud child's toy when the candidates were first brought to the center of the lodge for prayer ( I nearly burst out loud in uncontrollable laughter) it was almost a perfect Entered Apprentice degree.
And get this, no one was in a rush to leave after the meeting!!! There was a fellowship after the degree which I had not seen in my lodge yet and it made me so happy.
We are getting there.
There is still much work to be done, but.......work can be fun when it is good work!