Category Archive: News

To preface:  No, I don’t have COVID-19 🙂

However.

As much as I am not inclined to panic over a virus that’s infected only a few people in my county, I’m still taking precautions because I’m in the demographic which is considered most at risk for complications from infection (over 60, diabetic, pre-existing respiratory issues).

As a result, I am cutting way back on excursions away from my home.  Luckily I’m a permanent telecommuter at my day job, and I’ve worked from home for the past 24 years and counting, so that’s not new for me.  My wife is still going to work, but where she works is closed to the public due to an executive order of the mayor, and they’ve cut staff way back.  At this point, other than for her work, we’re really only venturing out to go to the grocery and to take things up to my mother, who lives in a senior community that’s close by.

How does this affect TMS?  The post office that hosts our mailbox is in a completely different direction from our local grocery, my mother’s apartment, and my wife’s place of work.  So that means a special trip to an area of town I rarely visit.  Generally I get over there once a week and empty the mailbox, and take over anything I have to mail out that can’t go into the mailbox at our nearby shopping center (patents in their tubes, and other packages that aren’t allowed to be dropped in the mailbox; also magazines, because I don’t want them to get bent up by other things falling on them in the mailbox).

Because I’d like to minimize my potential COVID-19 exposure, I am not going to go to the post office every week for the foreseeable future.  So dues cards, patents, back issue orders, and that sort of thing are not going to be mailed out as often.  And of course I won’t be picking up mail as often, either, so dues payments coming in via postal mail won’t be handled as quickly.  But I will get all of this taken care of as fast as possible (of course barring any further government prohibitions on individual movement, in which case nothing will happen until those prohibitions are lifted).

That being said, I am about to print and send out dues notices for the 2nd quarter of 2020.  I would like to strongly recommend that members receiving dues notices after April 1, 2020, should please consider renewing online.  You can do that right here.  It’s faster, it’s more convenient, and it means I don’t have to take as many checks to the bank (which cuts out more trips away from home).

Please note also that we are considering sending out all dues notices by email starting in the 3rd quarter of 2020.  This isn’t a COVID-19 response, but it is faster, much less expensive (free vs. 55 cents for a stamp plus whatever the envelope costs) and more convenient — primarily for me, since I’m one guy and there are many of you and that’s a lot of envelopes to stuff, seal, stamp, and mail every three months, but also for you, since the emailed notice will have an embedded direct link to the renewal form.  If you have an email on file, we’ll use it.  If you don’t, we’ll send a paper invoice this time, but we will request that you provide us an email address for future communications.  Postage is just getting too expensive and with rare exception, everyone has email these days.  (If there is absolutely no way for us to send you an email (and we do have a few people in that situation) we will continue to send a paper invoice.)

We’re also working on building a member portal where you won’t have to type in all your information when renewal time comes up; it will let you see what we have on file for you, and you can enter changes at the same time you pay your renewal.  That’s probably not going to be ready for a while, but we are working on it.

Brethren, I hope and pray that this troubled time is soon past us, but in the meantime, I urge all of you — particularly those of you who share my category of risk — to keep your social distance, wash your hands, and stay well.  If your Grand Lodge has shut down Masonic activity in your jurisdiction, and you’re looking for something Masonic to while away the time, I can do no better than to suggest taking a look at WBro. Chris Hodapp’s blog post, “Traveling Without Moving: Masonic Improvement During the COVID-19 Panic”.

As the MW Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York has exhorted his members, “Masonry Never Stops.”

So Mote It Be.

Fraternally,
Nathan C. Brindle, Secretary-Treasurer
The Masonic Society

We were informed this morning that a Facebook Group formerly calling itself the “Global Fraternal Network” has changed its name to “The Masonic Society”.

The Masonic Society is not associated with the Global Fraternal Network in any way.  The name change was made without our approval or any prior request.  The owners of the Global Fraternal Network are not members of The Masonic Society.

We have notified Facebook of this clear attempt to hijack the good name of TMS, and have changed the name of our Facebook group to “The Masonic Society – Official Facebook Page”.  Here is the link to our group.

The only other Facebook presence with official TMS sanction is the page The Journal of The Masonic Society.

Any other Facebook group purporting to call itself “The Masonic Society” has no permission to do so and should be considered illegitimate and spurious.

The Masonic Society, Inc., was formed and incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation under the laws of the State of Indiana in 2008, and has been recognized as a 501(c)(4) not for profit by the Internal Revenue Service since 2011. It has operated continuously since that time under the name and logos found on this site.

I was informed yesterday of a very nice article that appeared in the “Houston Scottish Rite News and Updates 01-07-2020” email regarding the Journal of The Masonic Society, specifically pointing out that one of their members (Bro. E. Raul Sarmiento, 32° KCCH) had an article in the current issue (#47), and encouraging members of the Valley to join The Masonic Society and get our Journal.  We’d like to thank the Valley of Houston for their praise, and for boosting of TMS.

That being said, there is one small error in the email.  It states

Membership in the Masonic Society is $45 per year. It is a good bargain, considering that you not only receive quarterly Issues of the Journal itself, but also a copy of the Heredom, The Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society. Now 29 Volumes in total and a high priority in masonic libraries, both institutional and personal, the Heredom moto “Let the unlearned learn, let the experts love to remember” is a taste of what you will find within its pages.

Now, while we yield to none in our vast admiration for Heredom, unfortunately it’s not our publication, and we don’t have any way to send you a copy of it.  Heredom is the annual publication of the Scottish Rite Research Society, an arm of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, USA.  To get copies of Heredom, you have to contact the SRRS.

We don’t know who originated the copy for this article but there was clearly a misunderstanding somewhere along the line.  For our part, we apologize if this error motivated members of the Valley of Houston to join TMS thinking they would receive that promised copy of Heredom.  But we hope you’ll stick with us for four quality issues of The Journal of The Masonic Society in the coming year.

From Mike Poll, Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Masonic Society:

I have an announcement to make concerning the Journal of The Masonic Society that I am not happy about and a second one that does bring me pleasure. First, it is with regret that I announce the retirement of Bro. Tyler Anderson as Book Review editor of the Journal. I have every much enjoyed working with Bro. Anderson and his work for the Society has been outstanding. We all wish him the greatest success in the future.

So, who will be the new Book Review Editor? That brings me to the second announcement. It is with pleasure that I announce the appointment of Bro. and Dr. Michael Moran as the new Book Review Editor of the Journal of The Masonic Society. Bro. Moran comes to us with considerable editorial experience and has been a frequent contributor to the Journal. I know Bro. Moran from his work with the Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge and do look forward to working with him. I know he will bring the Journal top quality work and reviews.

The Journal of The Masonic Society

by Michael R. Poll, FMS

In 2008, the premiere edition of the Journal of the Masonic Society was released. The Journal was a new, shiny publication that followed the new, shiny Masonic Society. Our first President was Roger VanGorden and our Editor in Chief was Chris Hodapp. We hit a clear home run in both the Journal and the society itself. We were new, fresh, and very different.

From the beginning, the Journal was designed to be (in the words of Roger VanGorden) the “Time Magazine” of Masonic publications. We publish a blend of scholarly papers and educational/engaging nonacademic papers. We want papers that benefit, enlighten, challenge, and inspire you. We are very open to new ideas for papers. We will (and have) published first time authors side by side with some of the bright lights of Masonic literature.

I am delighted with the number of quality papers that we are receiving. But, we are beginning to have a problem with the formatting of a number of the papers sent in to us. We publish papers in a style used by general interest magazines. The papers must be easy to read and follow. The formatting that we need (especially the citation of notes) is simple and given in the Submission Guidelines on our website. In fact, I’m reprinting the guidelines below. Please read the guidelines as well as the papers published in the Journal before submitting papers. If helpful, you can also look up the Chicago Manual of Style and generally use that formatting. We want the Journal to be easy to read, uniform in presentation and pleasing to the eye and mind.

We want and need good papers. Please read our guidelines, follow them, and send us your papers.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Needs:

We are looking for solid Masonic educational or historical works; interesting new takes on old Masonic philosophical, ritualistic or membership themes; unique papers on leadership or lodge improvement or photo essays of any interesting Masonic subject. We are also interested in well written papers on any of the related esoteric/metaphysical subjects. In short, if your paper grabs the reader in the first few lines, we are interested.

What To Send:

E-mail your paper to editor@themasonicsociety.com. Printed submissions sent via postal mail will not be considered unless you have contacted us first.

Submissions need to be in Microsoft Word. Keep the formatting basic. Use end notes, not footnotes. Do not use headers or footers other than page numbers. Do not include any special formatting. Keep the text as simple as possible. Do not use paragraph formatting in your document, simply double space for a paragraph break. Use single space, not double space for the text.

It is OK to use italics or bold text if necessary. In citing publications, use italics and not underline text.

Include a short author bio. and photograph.

Submitting Images

If you have images or illustrations (we encourage them), send them separately from the text file. Do NOT embed images in your Word file. In the text, use brackets around an image place holder. For example: [insert “image #1” here] The image file should contain an image by the same name (image #1.). We will then know which image to place in the area held by the place holder. Due to the nature of text and the size of both the image and the columns, we cannot guarantee exactly where the image will fall in the text.

Images should be no less than 300 dpi. If you find an image on the internet, it will likely be 72 dpi – that means poor quality for printing. If you increase the dpi of an image from a low resolution (dpi) to a larger one, you will not be increasing the quality. You will only be making a poor-quality image larger. If the image you send is of a quality that will not reproduce well, we may not use it. If you have questions, write us.

Rights

Each issue of the Journal is under a collective copyright by The Masonic Society. Authors own all rights to their work. Authors grant to the Journal first publication rights. Do not submit papers to us that have been published elsewhere, or which you are simultaneously submitting to others for publication, without first letting us know. Do not submit anything to us that is under copyright to anyone else without first letting us know and without YOUR obtaining all permissions to use the work in the Journal. If you have questions, write us.

The Officers and the Board of Directors
cordially invite you to attend

The 2020 Annual Dinner and Meeting
of
The Masonic Society

At Masonic Week 2020
The Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National Airport
Arlington, Virginia

Friday Evening, February 7, 2020
Gather at 6:45 PM
Dinner at 7:15 PM

Featured Speaker:
WBro. Mark Tabbert
“A Deserving Brother: George Washington and Freemasonry”
A discussion of WBro. Tabbert’s recent research that went into his new book on the subject.

All Freemasons and Ladies are Welcome!

Please make all reservations through the Masonic Week 2020 Website (note NEW LINK):

http://www.amdusa.org/MasonicWeek/

Registration form link:  http://www.amdusa.org/MasonicWeek/RegistrationForm.html

PLEASE NOTE:
The Masonic Society will not have tickets for sale.
All tickets MUST be purchased in advance from the Masonic Week organizers; see links above.
Tickets will NOT be available at the door.
Dinner price per person:  $55

RESERVATIONS MUST BE MADE AND CHECKS RECEIVED BY THE MASONIC WEEK STAFF BY THEIR DEADLINE — PLEASE CHECK THE MASONIC WEEK WEBSITE FOR DETAILS.

Sorry — No TMS Masonic Week Hospitality Suite in 2020

Unfortunately, we are not in a position to operate a hospitality suite this year.  We know this is a popular activity and we look forward to returning to hosting a suite in 2021.  Please catch us in the lobby bar or in other places around the Week.

I have a backlog of requests — including several shopping cart orders — that have been held up because our storage area at Indiana Freemasons Hall has been inaccessible to me due to both of the Hall’s elevators being out of commission.  This situation started back in November (possibly in late October, I can’t find the emails right now) and took several months to resolve, at least partly because the elevators are in one case original to the building (1909) and in the other case a 1950’s era replacement using a refurbished car, controls, and elevator machine that had come out of a department store in downtown Indianapolis.  Finding parts for both of these elevators is often an exercise in patience and near-futility — one of the elevators needed a part a couple of years ago that literally had to be cast from a special metal that almost nobody uses anymore, at least not for that purpose.

The repair process was dealt a setback due to a tragic death in the building superintendent’s family at right about the same time, which took him out of state for a couple of weeks, and left the whole situation sitting, unresolved, until he was able to return.  I can hardly blame him under the circumstances, and nobody else is, either.

But getting beyond the purely technical and personal problems with getting the elevators repaired…

Due to the elevator problem, I was unable to get to our storage area on the fourth floor because I simply can’t climb that many stairs anymore, and certainly wasn’t in a position to climb back down with hands full of merchandise, either.  So all of these requests and orders hung fire waiting on the elevator repairs.

I can report that the elevators WERE repaired, finally, in late February, and were waiting for state-required inspections before they could be used by the public.  Those inspections were done last week and the elevators passed, and I now have access to our storage area again.

So if you are waiting for an order (and there are a couple that date from about the time the elevators went down), or had made a request either before or after that period that I have not yet fulfilled or responded to, please accept my apologies for the delay and be aware that I will be trying to get all of that backlog dealt with over the next couple of weeks.

We are also planning to move TMS’s property out of the Hall and into a brand new, climate-controlled secure warehouse near my home.  This will speed up my ability to handle such requests in the future (as well as cost the Society less money in rent), as over time I have spent less and less time at Freemasons’ Hall due to no longer being connected with the Masonic groups that meet there.  In hindsight, we probably should have made this move several years ago, but until the beginning of 2017 I was still in the Hall on a fairly regular basis.

I would like again to thank the brethren for their patience and apologize for the long wait some of you have experienced in getting your items.

Sincerely and fraternally,
Nathan Brindle, Secretary-Treasurer
The Masonic Society

The Art of Failure

by Michael R. Poll, FMS

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

~ Winston Churchill

A few years ago I visited a lodge to attend a Masonic function. Before the meeting, I noticed the Worshipful Master sitting downstairs in a corner by himself. He looked like the weight of the world was on him.  I went over to him and sat down. We began talking about life and Masonry. I then told him that he seemed troubled and asked if there was anything wrong.  He said that he was frustrated because everything he tried to do in his lodge seemed to fail. He said that he had planned a lecture at one meeting with a good speaker. He publicized the meeting and began talking about it when he was Senior Warden. At the night of the lecture, there was hardly enough members present to open the lodge. He was hurt and embarrassed. At another meeting, he spoke on having a lodge barbeque. Arguments broke out among the members as to where to hold the event. One member was so angry at the venue selected that he stormed out of the lodge vowing never to return. The lodge was not very large, but it seemed split in two or three factions. Each group had their own opinions and showed no interest at all in working with the other groups. The young Brother seemed to be at his wit’s end. He said that he just felt like quitting everything.

I believe that we have to realize that success and failure are subjective terms. With some lodges, it is fair to say that the Worshipful Master had a successful year simply because he was able to open the lodge for most of the meetings. The bar is higher with other lodges. But, the reality is that our goals as Masons are personal goals. Freemasonry gives us the tools with which we can improve ourselves as human beings. Our responsibility is to improve ourselves. It is not our responsibility, nor is it our right, to try to force anyone else to “improve.”  This assumes that we know what is best for others. It assumes that our knowledge of their path is greater than their own knowledge of it. It also denies the other of any benefit from a change that might be forced on them. We improve by making personal decisions and finding what is right for us. We may well believe that someone is completely on the wrong path. We may believe that they are lost and in serious need of help — our help. With that belief, we interfere in their lives. But, by forcing them in a direction that we believe is right, we may be denying them the ability to learn from their own mistakes. We don’t improve ourselves, or others, by forcing unwanted interference. This goes for individuals or groups such as a lodge.

Many lodges seem to have personalities of their own, not unlike people.  You may find lodges that are warm and friendly with outstretched hands to visitors, others that are cold and unresponsive. Some lodges just feel and act successful with everything running like clockwork and others clearly struggling. Most importantly, some lodges openly seek assistance and others do not, at all, desire it.  Lodges can be like people. With some lodges, you can quickly become friends. Other lodges just do not have the qualities that you desire.  You can’t (no matter how hard you try) be good friends with everyone.

It is not a failure to recognize that you are not on the same page as a person or a lodge. We all travel different paths and that is the same with lodges. The blame game helps no one. We are in a time when some lodges desire the deeper aspects of Freemasonry. They want to grow with the tools our ancient Brethren used and in the same manner as they use them. But, other lodges wish a simpler life. It is the right of everyone to choose their own path.  If you are in a lodge and nothing you try works, don’t be disappointed. The lodge may simply be on a different path than you. We all have that right. Move on to another lodge that may be moving more in line with your views of Masonry. It is not disloyal. It’s not a failure. The only failure is when you remain with something that you know is wrong for you.