In My Day We Did It This Way...

I often mention the fact that the reading of the minutes may be one of the less exciting parts of a Masonic meeting. Personally, I live for it... I live for it to be over with, that is.

One of the bodies I belong to, in my opinion, does it right. At that meeting we always have a dinner beforehand and the Secretary sets out copies of the minutes and any other pertinent material such as financial statements on each table. During the time before the meeting each member has a chance to read through the handouts. Then, during the meeting, without a reading, we vote on approval.

It doesn't always go this way. In my own Blue Lodge — God bless 'em — we still have the ever-present dronin... uh, I mean reading of the minutes at each meeting. To add to the frenzy of excitement this creates we also read the name of every officer in every station, every visitor and every single word of every petition. I remember one night in particular when we had multiple petitions. By the end of the evening I almost had the entire document committed to memory, and would have... had I not fallen asleep.

When I became Senior Warden I sat in the West close enough to the Junior Deacon that we could converse during the meeting. Together we felt we could solve the problems of the world, so solving the problems of the Lodge was a piece of cake.

Every single meeting when the reading of the minutes came up Allen (not his real name, of course) would turn around to me and say, "When I get up there in the East, we're not going to do this." He encouraged me to do it before he got there but I told him I just wanted to get through my year unscathed and would leave it up to him to make the radical change.

Years passed. I went through the East — only scathed a little bit but I survived. Then I moved to that most coveted of all Masonic positions, Past Master, and waited for Allen to take the helm; and take it he did — full of the vigor of his still youthful age and the expectation of the exciting year he had planned.

I was nearly giddy as I went to his first meeting knowing he was about to shake the Masonic world. I sat in great anticipation as Allen opened the meeting. Then, in an instant, my hopes for a better world came crashing down as he turned and said, "Brother Secretary, you will read the minutes..."

I nearly had an out-of-body experience as we droned through the meeting and Allen embraced the usual pomp and circumstance — more pomp than circumstance — of all the meetings and Masters that had come before him.

After the meeting I rushed up to him and asked why he had fallen into the routine he seemed to abhor back in his Junior Deacon days.

His answer sounded a little familiar, "I just want to get through my year unscathed."

Change is difficult, Brothers, and the penalty for attempting it may be a good sound scathing, which many times starts with the words, "In my day, we did it this way..."

A Dot Within a Circle

By Right Worshipful Brother  Lloyd G. Lyon

In Masonry we often see and reference to the certain point within a circle bordered by two perpendicular lines, representing Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, and upon the vertex of the circle rests the Holy Bible.

The point represents the individual Brother and the circle represents the boundary line of his duty, beyond which he is never to suffer his passions, interests, or prejudices, to betray him. 

In going around the circle, we necessarily touch on the two parallel lines, as well as the Holy Scriptures.

When a Mason keeps himself within these due bounds, it is impossible that he should materially or spiritually fail as a child of God. We strive for perfection but, as humans, we fall short of perfection.

According to the Book of the Law, as man, we are bound to certain frailties and failures. This keeps us all from becoming ideal men and ideal Masons, no matter how hard we may try.

We therefore hold for ourselves as the perfect form or ideal of a Mason, the two Holy Saints John.

Here we have two Saints John, very properly described as parallel figures. Both of great character and both projecting a strong influence, with words, symbols and life experiences, on the civilized world. Yet, they were so different as Saint John the Baptist was very dogmatic and rigid while the other Saint John the Evangelist, intelligent and esoteric. In both we find the integrity and unwavering fidelity so common to Masonic teachings, but, their manner of teaching, living and preaching those virtues were as different as night and day, darkness and light.

Even though we know they were not perfect and probably were not Freemasons as we are defined today. What we know of them shows them to be perfect examples of what a Freemason should be: kind, righteous, loving, passionate, zealous, filled with Light, and above all, faithful unto death, to the trust reposed in them. They are the Platonic Form or Ideal of the Freemasons, never to be achieved, but always to be emulated.

With this pattern of reasoning we can see the mythical Lodge of the Holy Saints John at Jerusalem as the Platonic Form or Ideal of a Masonic Lodge. It can and should exist as our ideal of what a Lodge of Masons would be if all its members achieved the Ideal Masonic life of Saint John the Baptist, dogmatic and rigid, and represented here by the Square within an upside down triangle, and,

Saint John the Evangelist, intelligent and esoteric and represented by the Compasses within a upright triangle.

Placed together the symbol for the Saints might look like this.

Perhaps the modern Mason can even see in that Ideal Lodge, God as our Master, the Saints Johns as Wardens and King Solomon as Marshal composing the leadership of the perfect Lodge. But, the symbol is not complete. We have found the Holy Saints Johns in our Masonic symbol but other parts are missing. This was the letter of God.

During ancient times, people were not allowed to spell out the word God, so they changed one letter. The Word now looked like this: YOD. This is the YOD symbol.

Let’s now place the YOD symbol together with the square & compasses.

Is this God and our Masonic symbol?

Today we used the letter “G” to represent Deity. The letter “G” also represents the Holy Scriptures, the Word. The Word is God. The Word is our rule and guide to keep us within the circle, that boundary we are never to cross.

Yet, there is still something missing.

What about that point that we find in that circle?

Why is it we do not remember that point on our Masonic symbol? Have you forgotten?

I would hope that everyone reading this could answer that question. If not, look in a mirror. Look at that reflection of you. Do you not see the point? Every time you wear a Masonic pin or cap or shirt or jacket or tie or ring, you become a part of the Masonic symbol. You are the completion of our Masonic Symbol.

Without you, the symbol would never be complete. The symbol would have no meaning. The symbol would have no purpose. 

THAT POINT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY.

YOU STAND WITH GOD (THE WORD) AND THE HOLY SAINTS JOHN (THE PARALLEL

LINES) WITHIN THE CIRCLE.

BE PROUD OF YOUR MASONIC HISTORY. BE A PLAYER OF, AND A CONTRIBUTOR

TO, THE FUTURE OF FREEMASONRY.

Ray V. Denslow Pictorial

Ray V. Denslow was one of Freemasonry's most prolific authors. These pictures of him, his wife and homes are from his private collection, many of which have not been published before.

Old Masonic College Memorial

On May 18, 1934, I dedicated the replica quarter scale of the original building of the Masonic College of Missouri at Lexington, and the Memorial Columns erected at the four corners of the original site of that building, the replica occupying the middle of the site. This event took place on the eighty-seventh anniversary of the laying of the original cornerstone of the building in 1847.

Earlier in the year I had been notified that this replica was being erected as part of the Civil Works Administration program in Lafayette County by R. W. Brother Henry C. Chiles, who was Chairman of the C. W. A. for that county, and I had authorized the marking of the site by a suitable bronze memorial tablet in the name of the Grand Lodge, pursuant to the resolution adopted by the Grand Lodge in 1932 at the suggestion of M. W. Brother Denslow.

The Memorial at the northeast corner, consisting of three steps of stone surrounded by a brick column, capped with stone, was erected by Lexington Lodge No. 149 and on its east side the Grand Lodge Memorial Tablet was placed; on the north side is another memorial tablet placed by Lexington Lodge. The two tablets fully commemorate the Masonic College of Missouri.

The other Memorial Columns were erected by the City of Lexington, which had cooperated with the C. W. A. as the old College Campus is now a City Park. The one at the northwest corner commemorates the Battle of Lexington, September 12 to 20, 1861; the one at the southwest corner the Central College for Women, and the one at the southeast corner the Presidents and former students of the Masonic College of Missouri. Appropriate memorial tablets and pictures provided by the city, ornament these columns.

Following a luncheon in my honor, I opened a specific Grand Lodge in the Hall of Lexington Lodge No. 149 and the Masons in attendance marched in a body to the old College Campus. The dedication program was so arranged that the various addresses unfolded the history of the Masonic College of Missouri, the Battle of Lexington, of the Central College for Women and of the plan for the erection of the replica, etc. The occasion was a most interesting one and the Grand Lodge is to be congratulated upon the fact that all of the important and historic activities and events so intimately connected with the 6.47 acres of ground which were the campus of its College have been suitably memorialized. It is worth the while of any Freemason to make the trip to Lexington and see these things for himself.

Dr. Arthur Mather, and Dr. Z. M. Williams were in attendance and took their places on the dedication program.

Reprinted from 1934 Proceedings, Grand Lodge of Missouri; Frank C. Barnhill, Grand Master.

Thoughts Become Things

On a recent high-school tour, I saw a sign inside a classroom that read, "Thoughts become things." I like that idea.  I had heard it before, but I wasn't sure where.  I thought it might be a quote from an unknown person or something from a book or play.  I decided to research it and maybe use it in an article.

So I went where we always go these days to find out — straight to the Internet.  The first thing I ran into was this, from a Metaphysics site:

"Thoughts become things when they are given substance with feelings in the Mind."

Bunk.

It is true that thoughts can become things but it takes a whole lot more than "feelings in the mind" to make a thought — some might call it an idea — become a reality.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen; they really are.  World peace — there's a good idea.  Well, we've been rolling out "Visualize World Peace" bumper stickers for decades and we're still visualizing, aren't we?  

Every Master or even Grand Master comes into his term filled with good ideas and the intention to make Freemasonry in general or his Lodge in particular better by the time he leaves.  Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

What are the secret ingredients that make things work?

Think about that… because you and I both I'll bet have sat through many meetings, in the fraternity and in business, where great ideas are kicked around. Those meetings can produce a gold mine of things we can do. Those are the meetings we walk out of feeling energized, but if the ideas are not put into practice nothing gets done.

John Ruark of the Masonic Roundtable and Robert Johnson, host of this podcast, have written a book that, like those meetings, is bursting with ideas.  You may have read the book. You may have told John and Robert it's the greatest thing you've ever read; but then, if you put it on the shelf and do nothing, they have wasted their time writing the book and you have wasted your time reading it.

You see, Brothers, the secret ingredients that make things work… that make thoughts become things… are action, dedication and hard work.  If we take the ideas from that inspiring meeting and do nothing or take the book It's Business Time and put it on the shelf, what have we accomplished?

Let's challenge ourselves to take a single idea from that great meeting, or just one of the chapters from John and Robert's book and put it into practice. That might not solve all our problems, but it would be a great start. Full disclosure: I'm doing this for Robert's podcast, but neither he nor John knew I was going to talk about their book.

Steve Jobs, you may recall, had a lot of good ideas; and he knew how to turn those ideas into a lot of good things.  I like his take about thoughts becoming things: "Most people," he said, "have a disease: they think once they've had a good idea they've done 90% of the work.  Coming up with the idea is easy. Working to make it a reality is the hard part."

Four Large Brown Dusty Binders

Jim Williams

Illustrious Brother James Williams was a Masonic Scholar. Missouri's representative to the renowned Quatuor Coronati Research Lodge, he maintained one of the finest private Masonic Literary collections anywhere.  Upon his passing in 2011, he left that collection to his Brothers in Missouri.  Sorting through the volumes, Brothers found four large brown dusty binders bulging with typewritten pages. Upon inspecting the material in them, the Brothers realized they had discovered a Masonic treasure.

Ray V. Denslow was arguably the most prolific Masonic author of the 20th century. Among his books were Territorial Masonry – the Story of Freemasonry and the Louisiana Purchase 1804-21; Civil War and Masonry in Missouri; History of Cryptic Masonry; The Masonic Fraternity, Its Aims and Goals; The Masonic Conservators; the History of Cryptic Masonry and on, and on. Not only does that list not scratch the surface, but it also does not include any of the dozens of pamphlets he authored.

Most Worshipful Brother Denslow served as Missouri's Grand Master in 1931-32, was a founding member and Master of the Missouri Lodge of Research, had a close friendship with President Harry Truman and served as Truman's emissary on Masonic missions around the world.  From 1942-1945 he served as General Grand High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, International.

 To that impressive Masonic resume we can add what he considered his crowning achievement — the founding of the Royal Arch Mason magazine in 1943. You may have heard of it. You might, in fact, have a copy of it sitting in your living room.

He passed his passion for writing on to his son, William R. Denslow,  best known for his iconic work, 10,000 Famous Freemasons.  He also passed something else along to his son: those four large, brown binders bulging with typewritten pages.

Brother Denslow, it seems, was a compulsive man.  At home, he lived at his typewriter and pounded out every minute of his Masonic journey — the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly. He left those binders with his son and his son, in turn, handed them to Jim Williams with the strict caveat that they were not to be published until everyone mentioned in them had passed away; and for good reason — Ray Denslow pulled no punches. 

The pages in this memoir record in detail his experiences as an author, a leader and Truman's personal representative as he operated at the zenith of the craft.  It is a study in Masonic politics at the highest level. It is a rewarding story of how Denslow made friends across the globe and worked to unify Masonry at the close of World War II. It is also a record of how he crossed swords with a few of the most powerful and influential Masons of his time.

Work on compiling and editing this material has been in process for over a year.  Now, over a half-century after his death, the Fraternity is about to see a new book — not about, but by this great Masonic author.

The Missouri Lodge of Research did not strictly adhere to the stipulation that everyone mentioned in the book must have passed away prior to its publication.  His granddaughter, Judith Denslow Ericson, and his grandson, William R. Denslow, Jr., are not only still around, but each contributed to the book.  His grandson Bill, in fact, helped with the editing process and is the Executive Editor of the manuscript, bringing the Denslow name to a third generation of significant Masonic works.

The first volume of this two-volume set, Ray V. Denslow's Masonic Journey, is now hot off the presses. The Missouri Lodge of Research will distribute a hardbound copy, free of charge, to each of its members at the Grand Lodge of Missouri's annual communication in September. Frankly, the best way to ensure getting a copy will be to join the Missouri Lodge of Research. Volume 2, as well as softcover and Kindle editions, will follow in 2019. It's a must-read for serious students of Masonic history.

Impostors

A fraternity that performs so many charitable acts is bound to be the target of fraud. Those impersonating Masons for financial gain and those appealing to Masonic charities under false pretenses have been around almost as long as the order itself. Today, with the Internet and mass media, word can spread quickly when a charlatan surfaces. In times past, such communication was slower and more difficult. In 1859, Rob Morris, founder of the Eastern Star, published "The Prudence Book." Updated annually, it was an attempt to publish information about impostors, but was discontinued after a short run. It was found easier to print and distribute "broadsides" as Lodges discovered impostors. Here is an example of one notice warning Lodges of an impostor from the 19th century. It reads (sic):

CAUTION! MASONIC Lodge OF RELIEF, MASONIC TEMPLE, Baltimore, July 24, 1877. A man calling himself "HERBERT SYDNEY," professing to hail from Langthorne Lodge, Stratford, Essex, England is an IMPOSTER. Information has been received from Langthorne Lodge that no such person is known there. DESCRIPTION. Height about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches: complexion dark: black hair and eyes: bald patch on top of head; hair somewhat thin: black mustache. Professes to be a portrait painter, and ruined by the fire at St. John's, Canada, in June 1876. Reports from Masonic Lodge at St. John's, say that no portrait painter of that name ever lived there, but there had been one named Sydney Herbert Gadsen. The Fraternity is hereby warned against this person, and is furthermore advised to have him arrested, if possible, for obtaining, or attempting to obtain money under false pretenses. He was in Baltimore about a month ago, and succeeded in swindling the Fraternity to a small extent. He then went to Washington, DC. He is believed to be now tramping about, victimizing Masonic Lodges, and the St. Georges Societies. ALBERT LYMAN., M. D., Secretary.

Even with the instant communication we have today, we can still encounter such deception. And I might add, that can work both ways — the Internet isn't exactly a fraud-free zone. I haven't heard many cases of men running around posing as Freemasons. There are, however other forms of deception. How many times have I heard the Almoner in my Scottish Rite valley say, "I denied the request for assistance. I'm certain it was fraudulent." Keep on your toes, Brothers, and guard the gates.