President’s Message, Issue #34, The Journal of The Masonic Society

How good and how pleasant it is …
by Kenneth W. Davis, FMS

I’m recently back from one the most interesting and informative Masonic events of my life, the 2016 Annual Conference of The Masonic Society, which took place October 7-9, in beautiful Morgan Hill, California.

Honoring the conference theme, “Freemasonry on the Frontier,” speakers took participants on a fascinating historical tour of the expanding North American frontier, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Kicking off the conference Friday evening was Jefferson H. Jordan, Jr., immediate past grand master of Masons in New Mexico, speaking as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, “Mark Twain.” Clemens’s talk emphasized his Masonic experience and his travels on the Western frontier of the United States.

The first presentation Saturday was by William Miklos, who invited us to participate in “an Imaginary Conversation among the Thirteen Masons of the Continental Convention.” Bill is founding master of the Golden Compasses Research Lodge, past master of the Northern California Research Lodge, and a founding member of TMS.

Following Bill were Moises Gomez, past grand historian of the grand lodge of New Jersey, who spoke about the early traveling lodges of his home state, and Kyle Grafstrom, junior warden of Verity Lodge 59 in Kent, Washington, speaking on “Freemasonry in the Wild West.”

Saturday afternoon began with Adam Kendall, a founding fellow of TMS and editor of The Plumbline, the journal of The Scottish Rite Research Society, who presented “Pilgrimage and Procession: The 1883 Knights Templar Triennial Conclave and the Dream of the American West.”

He was followed by Wayne Sirmon, treasurer of Mobile Lodge 40 and past master of the Texas Lodge of Research, who spoke on “West by Southwest: The Expansion of Frontier Freemasonry from the Old Southwest”—by which he meant, to my surprise, not New Mexico and Arizona, but Alabama. (Who’d have thought?)

The “frontier-themed” presentations ended with a fascinating look at “Freemasonry and Nation-building on the Pacific Coast,” by John L. Cooper III, past grand master of the Masonic Grand Lodge of California. We were especially honored to have John present, as he is currently president of our sister organization, The Philalethes Society.

After Saturday dinner was a special bonus presentation by Moises Gomez, who in addition to his Masonic honors is a twenty-eight-year veteran of the Emergency Service Unit of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As such, Moe was among the first responders at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He spoke on his experiences at “Ground Zero” and the Masonic values he saw embodied there, and he presented conference participants with a commemorative pin.

The single most important person in making the conference a success was TMS board member Gregg Hall, who coordinated all local arrangements and pitched in with preparing our gourmet meals.

The year 2017 will include two already-scheduled TMS events. The first will be our seventh annual dinner at Masonic Week, February 9-12, at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. The dinner will take place Friday, February 10, at 6:30 pm, and will feature an after-dinner talk by Mike Poll, past president of TMS and editor of this journal. All Masons, ladies, and guests are welcome!

Our 2017 conference will be held September 7-10, at Embassy Suites in Lexington, Kentucky. The conference, tentatively titled “Celebrating 300 Years of Freemasonry,” is being coordinated by Masonic author and TMS board member John Bizzack and is being cosponsored with Lexington Lodge 1 (chartered in 1788), The Rubicon Masonic Society, The Grand Lodge of Kentucky Education Committee, William O. Ware Lodge of Research, and Ted Adams Lodge of Research.

Besides presentations by nationally known speakers, the conference will include tours of the Kentucky Horse Park and Ashland Estate, the home of famed nineteenth-century Mason Henry Clay, as well as a formal festive board at historic Spindletop Hall.

As a former faculty member at the University of Kentucky, a thirteen-year resident of Lexington, and an official, governor-proclaimed Kentucky Colonel, I know first-hand the beauty of the Bluegrass State and the hospitality of its people. Just as my wife, Bette, and I took advantage of the location of our 2016 conference to make a spectacular trip down the California coast, I hope many of you will take advantage of the equally beautiful and historical setting of the 2017 event.

(An aside: when I lived in Lexington, I was not yet a Mason and did not know John Bizzack. Only recently did we discover that I served on the very grand jury that indicted the criminals whom John and his fellow police offers rounded up in a sting operation. The Masonic world is a small one.)

I look forward to seeing many of you at Masonic Week in Virginia in February and at the TMS Conference in Kentucky in September. Each of them will be a must-go event in this Masonic anniversary year. Be there, and on the square!

Fraternally,

Kenneth W. Davis

President’s Message, Issue #33, The Journal of The Masonic Society

Point to Heaven . . .
by Kenneth W. Davis, FMS

You won’t be surprised to learn that my Masonic e-mail signature block includes the line “President, The Masonic Society.” However, the line before that carries another Masonic title, “Chaplain, Albuquerque Lodge 60 and the New Mexico Lodge of Research.” I value deeply my office in TMS, but I value equally the honor of serving as a chaplain. As chaplain, I try (succeeding only in part, of course) to follow the injunction given me when I was installed (from the monitor of the Grand Lodge of New Mexico):

“Reverand Brother . . . it is your special duty to conduct the devotions of the Lodge, and to present before the throne of Heavenly Grace the spiritual needs of your Brethren. In all your intercourse with your Lodge, it is expected that you will ‘point to Heaven and lead the way.’”

As chaplain, I recite the opening and closing prayers, as well as the prayers within degrees. But I also love—though I am a layman—the occasional opportunities to be “pastoral” for my brothers.

When we elect a new candidate for degrees, and after the secretary has called him, I give the candidate a phone call. I introduce myself, extend my congratulations, and ask him three things.

First, I ask him what Volume of Sacred Law he wishes to take his obligations on. I tell him that no one, at least in the context of blue-lodge Masonry, will ask about his specific religious tradition again. As our twenty-first landmark requires (again in the version within the New Mexican monitor), “that a Book of the Law, a religious code of some kind puporting to be an exemplar of the revealed will of God, shall form an essential part of the furniture of every Lodge.”

I often ask the candidate to check the website of the Grand Lodge of Israel. In that highly contentious country the seal of the Grand Lodge of Israel displays the Jewish Star of David, the Christian Cross, and the Muslim Crescent.

Second, I ask the newly-elected candidate to not read any details of the degree rituals, so he can experience the degrees without foreknowledge and preconceptions.

And third, I tell him about chambers of reflection. Like, I suppose, most North American lodges, the two blue lodges of which I’ve been a member do not have such chambers. So I ask the candidate to find three blocks of time between then and the degree—at least fifteen minutes each—when he can sit alone, in the dark and in silence, and meditate on his past, present, and future, including his eventual death.

(Incidentally, though I don’t have a skull on my personal home “altar,” I do have the polished box, provided by our cremation service, that will one day hold my ashes. That’s a pretty good memento mori for me.)

The most moving event in my service as chaplain happened in June of this year. John Baker, a fifty-year Mason and Albuquerque 60’s marshall and oldest active member, passed away. I had sat next to him in lodge for several years, and had come to rely on his friendship, advice, and occasional prompting.

While John was hospitalized, I had visited him and said a prayer, but a Masonic commitment prevented my attending his funeral. So I was grateful to be invited to his cremation. Three members of the lodge were there, along with John’s son-in-law, an artist.

We gathered around the uncovered cardboard box in which John’s unembalmed body lay. We each said our goodbyes, and I offered prayers. John’s son-in-law, though not a Mason, had painted on wood an abstract image of an all-seeing eye. He laid it on John’s chest, and asked him to personally present it as an offering to God.

With the funeral director, we put the cover on the box, wheeled it into the cremation room, and slid it through the open door of the furnace. The funeral director closed the door, and the other four of us together pushed the green button that started the flames. I had never before felt so powerfully the reality of the words from Ecclesiastes 12:7 recited in the Master Mason degree: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” I’ll tangibly felt John’s spirit making its final exit from his body.

Thanks for letting me honor John by telling that story. Please send me your own “chaplain” stories, or better yet, post them on the TMS member’s forum.

By the way, an excellent source for Masonic prayers, for many occasions, is the pocket-sized Compendium of Masonic Prayers and Graces, by Rev. Neville Barker Cryer, published by Lewis Masonic.

A final note:

This journal’s editor-in-chief, Michael Halleran, who gave us more than four years of excellent work, has resigned. I’m proud to announce that he has been replaced by Michael Poll, whose service begins with this issue. Mike Poll is eminently qualified for the job, and he has gathered an outstanding team: Assistant Editors Mark Robbins, Christopher Rodkey, and Christian Christensen; Art Director John Bridegroom; Advertising Director Jay Hochberg; and Review Editor Tyler Anderson. Please give them your thanks and support!

Fraternally,

Kenneth W. Davis

Important: For new information on the TMS Conference, Scholar, and School, see the tabs above.

By the Exercise of Brotherly Love . . .
by Kenneth W. Davis, FMS

Here in New Mexico, the first-degree lecture lists the “Tenets of a Freemason’s profession” as “Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth”—doubtlessly not a surprise to Masons everywhere.

The lecture continues by defining brotherly love:

By the exericise of Brotherly Love, we are taught to regard the whole human species as one family—the high, the low, the rich, the poor—who, as created by one Almighty Parent, and inhabitants of the same planet, are to aid, support, and protect each other. On this principle, Freemasonry unites men of every country, sect, and opinion; and conciliates true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance.

In the US, the “perpetual distance” between people of different religious and political tribes seems large. Even in some Masonic lodges, religious and political differences among brothers are causing discord, even hatred. Young brothers are being told, for example, that Freemasonry is for members of only one religious tradition.

How did our Craft get into this situation, and how do we get out? One answer, although certainly not the only answer, may seem puzzling at first. I suggest there may be a correlation between true brotherly love and a deep devotion to our ritual—including lectures like the one I quoted above—and to what it stands for.

Freemasonry is often defined as “a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.” We live in an age filled with signs but almost devoid of symbols. In the sense I am using the word sign—a sense drawn from the science of semiology—signs have single, simple, explicit, surface meanings. An octagonal yellow road sign usually means stop, and nothing else. (Even those who choose to ignore that meaning acknowledge it.) In contrast, symbols have multiple, complex, implicit, deep meanings. The American flag is not just a sign, but a symbol, with a wide range of meanings around the world, positive or negative or both.

To complicate the matter, something can be a sign to one person and a symbol to another. To someone who lost a loved one because of a driver running a stop sign, the octagonal yellow road sign may call up a host of associations and feelings; it may become a symbol. And to someone in the world with no particular feelings either way about the United States (can we imagine such a person?) the American flag will be just a sign, simply identifying the USA. The fading Coca-Cola painted on the side of my childhood home (an apartment over our newspaper shop) can be seen as a mere sign, pointing to a particular brand of soft drink, or as a symbol, representing a whole cluster of economic and sociological and psychological and historical meanings.

In some earlier cultures, people lived lives surrounded by what they saw as symbols. A rock wasn’t just a rock; it was a part of the body of Mother Earth, or the residence of a god, or an emblem of solidity, or an instrument of punishment, or all of the above. Our culture, in contrast, has few symbols. We tend to focus on surface meanings. A rock is just a rock—or at best an example of granite or marble or sandstone. Most of us are “fundamentalists” in one way or another, taking what could be symbols and reading them as if they were merely signs, with simple, single, knowable meanings, religious or scientific. The literalist religious fanatic and the radical atheist have much in common.

The language and imagery of Freemasonry is remarkably rich in symbols, if we respect them as such. As Masons, we have the opportunity, in every lodge meeting, to move beyond our everyday world of signs into a highly charged, deep symbolic world.

In my mother lodge, one of my brethren was an ordained Gnostic bishop steeped in Western esotericism, while others declared—quite vocally—that they hold little truck with esoteric interpretations. From my Gnostic brother, I was reminded that the letter G in the east end of a lodge can stand not only for geometry and God (the latter mostly only in Germanic languages), it can also stand for gnosis, the inner sacred knowledge—light, if you will—that we Freemasons seek. For me, now, when I see the G, I recognize that it is not just a sign: it has at least three symbolic meanings for me.

So Masonic ritual, if taken seriously, is deeply symbolic. What’s that have to do with brotherly love?

My answer is that the way we see things as signs or symbols is reflected in the way we see people. In the industrialized, materialist West, too many of us—especially men, I think—see most other people has having simple, single meanings. One way we do that is through labeling: he’s a Republican, she’s a Mexican, he’s gay. By giving a person a neat label, we can avoid—we can’t not avoid—looking into the depths of meaning that person carries. Another way we attribute simple, single meanings to people is through seeing them as functionaries, as things that exist solely to serve a narrow function for us. As an unknown (to me) writer put it, “People were made to be loved. Things were made to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved, and people are being used.” We go through our days not really seeing the people who wash our cars, or clean our restrooms, or fight our fires, or teach our children.

A former colleague of mine who taught psychology was once leaving a ice cream shop near the University of Kentucky campus holding hands with his wife and carrying their young daughter on his shoulders. They passed two students heading toward the shop, then overheard one of the students whisper to the other, “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that guy was my psych professor.” To that student, my friend existed only in the classroom; he couldn’t possibly eat ice cream, much less have a wife and daughter.

Because we men, especially, tend to look at other people in these ways, we find it very hard to develop close, initimate, deep male friendships. I suggest that a fundamental cause is our male tendency to dismiss other people as having simple, single, superficial meanings rather than complex, multiple, deep meanings.

When, as a brand new Mason, I learned that some of my brothers had partisan political views almost diametrically opposed to mine, I honestly questioned whether I had joined the right lodge. After all, I had spent much of my adult life avoiding relationships with “that” kind of people.

I’ve since learned how foolish that reaction was. (I was about to say “juvenile,” but realized that would be an insult to children.) I share with those brothers a respect for the deep symbolic language of our ritual, for its rich multiple meanings. Having this mutual respect, we are able to look past surface differences into the depths of each other’s being and respect what we find there. That’s not sappy sentimentalism, but a truth I’ve learned, to my great surprise, in my seventh and eighth decades of life. I believe I was a good man when I became a Mason at the age of sixty. Now, thanks to Masonry, I’m a lot better.

Millions of men in our culture are seeking that truth, without even knowing it. They are looking for deep symbolic meanings below the surface of things, and they are looking for deep male friendships. I suggest that those two yearnings are closely related, and that Freemasonry is uniquely positioned to fulfill them. Many lodges are finding that deep respect for ritual can lead to deep respect for one another.

In our time—with deep divisions among people and cultures that seem to remain “at a perpetual distance” from each other—the world desparately needs Masonic respect. It’s a gift Freemasons, in our daily encounters, can give the world. We call it Brotherly Love.

Fraternally,
Kenneth W. Davis

Past, Present, Future

I grew up in the rural Midwest, in an apartment above the eight-page weekly newspaper our family ran. Across the alley from my bedroom window was the only three-story building around the town square, the brick Masonic building, with the town’s most popular café on the first floor. I wondered sometimes what happened on the second and third floors, behind the dark shades that got pulled down some evenings. But I guess I didn’t wonder enough to ask.

My maternal grandpa, in a nearby town, was a Mason. I remember that some evenings he would “go to lodge,” but he never talked about it. Apparently based on his membership, my mom was in Eastern Star, and my sister was a Rainbow girl, but I wasn’t interested enough to ask what all that was about either.

I stayed uninterested until my middle age.

For several years I had been part of an informal men’s support group, a group of men young and old, married and unmarried, gay and straight, who got together every week to share our inner and outer experiences of being male (in the words of a song from the musical Rent) “living in America, at the turn of the millennium.”

When the group broke up, I found that I missed their fellowship. And like many American men, I realized that I didn’t have many male friends outside of my workplace.

Along came the book The DaVinci Code, with its slight references to Freemasonry. Then along came the movie National Treasure, with its portrayal of Masons as keepers of an apparently long-lost, but actually long-held, treasure. Near the film’s end, when a close-up shot revealed that Harvey Keitel’s character, FBI Agent Peter Sadusky, was wearing a Masonic ring, I realized that I wanted, for the first time, to find out more about Freemasonry.

So I went on the Web and found my way to a lodge, and within a year, at the age of 60, I became a Master Mason. And indeed what I discovered was the male support and fellowship I had been missing.

But there was more. My doctoral dissertation had been on the teaching of mythology, a focus I had left behind professionally when I moved into the field of business communication, but one which had never stopped fascinating me. So it was a bonus for me that the fraternity I was joining had such a rich tradition of myth and ritual.

And it was an extra bonus to learn that Freemasons were indeed keepers of an apparently long-lost, but actually long-held, treasure, one much richer than the movie National Treasure could show.

As I explored the fraternity further, I found great pleasure in applying my knowledge and skills as an academic to a whole new world I felt passion for. And that led me to The Masonic Society.

Now, ten years after giving my first three distinct knocks on the door of a lodge, I find myself as TMS president. It’s a honor I prize almost as much as my PhD diploma and my DD Form 214. I truly love The Masonic Society—what it has done, and what it can do.

The bylaws of the society say it is “organized exclusively as a center of union for Freemasons who desire to study and promote Freemasonry, its history, philosophy, rites, customs and practices while promoting the common good and general welfare of its mystic art.”

It may be because I’ve been a career teacher, but the key phrase, for me, in that mission statement is “study and promote.” The words are a reminder that “promoting”—not so much in the sense of “marketing” as in the sense of “furthering”—the benefits of Freemasonry, for individual men and for the world as a whole, requires study.

As my immediate predecessor, WB Jim Dillman, has told you, the leaders of TMS who could attend met in November in St. Louis. Out of that intense one-day meeting emerged a focus on study, on learning. What also emerged were three programs I am happy to announce.

First is an Annual Conference of The Masonic Society, taking place this year October 7-9, at Morgan Hill Masonic Lodge, Morgan Hill, California (just twenty minutes from San Jose International Airport). The theme of the conference will be “Freemasonry on the Frontier,” the role of Masonry in the westward expansion of the US and Canada.

The conference will begin Friday evening with an informal dinner and end with lunch on Sunday. The event is being coordinated by TMS Director Gregg Hall.

Details on the conference, along with a call for presentations, will appear in the Spring 2016 issue of The Journal of the Masonic Society. To receive advance information when it’s available, please email conference2016@themasonicsociety.com and ask to be put on the conference email list.

The second new program is The Masonic Society School, a program of noncredit online Masonic “courses,” study groups, and reading groups, as well as possible tours and other experiences, exclusively for TMS members. We expect to launch the first offerings at the October conference. The school is being coordinated by TMS Director Greg Knott.

Details on the school will appear in the Spring 2016 issue of The Journal of the Masonic Society. To receive advance information when it’s ready, email school@themasonicsociety.com and ask to be put on the school email list.

The third new program is The Masonic Society Scholar, an annual award to a Masonic researcher/educator. During the year of the award, the recipient will make himself available to speak at a number of lodges of research and other Masonic bodies throughout the world (with travel expenses paid by the local organization).

The first TMS Scholar will be announced at the Annual Conference this October. The program is being coordinated by the immediate past president of TMS, James Dillman.

Details on the program, along with a call for nominations, will appear in the Spring 2016 issue of The Journal of the Masonic Society. For advance information, email scholar@themasonicsociety.com and ask to be put on the scholar email list.

(Secretary-Treasurer Nathan Brindle has rightly asked me to make you aware that by sending email to these addresses, you are opting-in to receive occasional emails about the three programs.)

So you see why I am so happy to help lead TMS through this exciting time.

Please let me introduce the other members of the leadership team, and the special projects they will be “owning”:

• First Vice President Patrick Craddock, who, with me, is looking at the society’s overall, long-term strategy

• Second Vice President Jay Hochberg, who is overseeing our presence on social media

• Secretary-Treasurer Nathan Brindle, who continues his excellent and expert job of keeping TMS operating

• Executive Editor Michael Halleran, who, with the help of Art Director John Bridegroom, produces Freemasonry’s best journal

• Fellow Director José Díaz, the “information architect” for our website

• Fellow Director Aaron Shoemaker, coordinator of our relationships with lodges of research

• Fellow Director John Bizzack, who is doing the initial work on a 2017 Annual Conference in Lexington, Kentucky

• Fellow Director Mark Robbins, who is leading our discussion of how to best use the wealth of knowledge that has appeared in the more than thirty issues of this journal

• Member Director Gregg Hall, who, as I’ve said, is coordinating the Annual Conference this October

• Member Director Greg Knott, “dean” of The Masonic Society School

• Member Director Oscar Alleyne, who is exploring the future of the Quarry Project

I also want to acknowledge our four past presidents, whose wisdom, skill, and commitment brought TMS to where it is today. As a further indication of that commitment, all have agreed to take on continued leadership roles. In chronological order of their presidencies, they are

• Roger Van Gorden, who will be consulting with Patrick and me on long-term strategy

• Michael Poll, who will work with Jay on social media

• Bo Cline, who will work with the other past presidents on membership development

• James Dillman, who, as I’ve said, is coordinating the TMS Scholar program

And you, as a TMS member or subscriber, have a leadership role too. Please let us know what you want from TMS, and more important, what you can give TMS. Just email me at president@themasonicsociety.com, and I’ll get your message to the right person.

Thanks for continuing support of, and faith in, TMS! I’m excited to be working with you!

Fraternally,
Kenneth W. Davis