If you’ve ever visited many other lodges you’ll soon come to the realization that no two lodges are alike. One lodge may be primarily concerned with fundraising while another may be focused on education; there may be a lodge that requires its members to wear tuxedos to stated meetings while the standard dress elsewhere is a pair of slacks and a polo shirt. Continue reading
An Introduction To Lodge Culture
Posted in Freemasonry, Lodge Culture, Running A Masonic Lodge
Tagged fraternity, freemason, Freemasonry, leadership, Lodge Culture, lone star, mason, masonic, masonry, texas, texas freemason, texas mason
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Masonic Improvement: Using Committees
Being an educator is a very rewarding experience and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else for a living. Some people say teaching is a calling and I think this is true. It being a calling is what has kept me in the field after so many others have left after one or two years. It’s what’s encouraged me to further my education to get my Master’s degree and it’s also the reason that I made this blog. Continue reading
Posted in Freemasonry, Running A Masonic Lodge, Uncategorized
Tagged committees, freemason, Freemasonry, leadership, masonic, masonry, texas
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Beginning With The End In Mind
Take a moment, if you would, and imagine that you find yourself sitting in a church at a funeral. You aren’t sure who’s funeral it is but when you look around you see many familiar faces. Curious, you walk to the front of the church and peer into the casket only to realize that you have come face to face with yourself and you suddenly comprehend that you are attending your own funeral! Continue reading
Posted in Freemasonry, Reflections, Symbolism
Tagged Broken Column, fraternity, freemason, Freemasonry, lone star, mason, masonry, Memento Mori, reflection, texas, texas freemason, texas mason, Weeping Virgin
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The Chamber of Refraction
A successful lodge needs to be willing to look critically at every aspect of itself and determine ways it can improve itself. This continuous improvement cycle is nothing new and it embodies concepts which are put into practice on a daily basis by successful individuals and organizations. Continue reading
Posted in Freemasonry, Running A Masonic Lodge
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My Response To ’10 Propositions For Texas Freemasonry’
This post is going to be a response to the blog post that Brother Lance Kennedy wrote earlier this month, which you can find here. If you haven’t read it then it’s worth your time to give it a peruse, particularly if you intend to read the rest of this post because I’ll be referring to it quite often.
Let’s dive right in then, shall we? Continue reading
Posted in Reflections
Tagged fraternity, freemason, Freemasonry, lone star, mason, masonry, reflection, texas, texas freemason, texas mason
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Dues That Still Don’t
This week I came across an interesting post in the Texas Freemasons group:
Now, I usually like to keep to myself and I rarely contribute much to Freemasonry online unless I’m browsing My Freemasonry or posting something on this blog, but I couldn’t help myself (I guess I still can’t help myself since I’m writing this post!).
Posted in Freemasonry, Running A Masonic Lodge
Tagged fraternity, freemason, Freemasonry, lone star, mason, masonry, texas, texas freemason, texas mason
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Why you shouldn’t become a Freemason.
This is a great post that every brother (and potential brother) should read at some point in their masonic careers.
Freemasonry is shrouded in a pop-culture mystique of danger and intrigue. Now I won’t comment on if any of those intrigues are true (hint), but one thing is for sure, Freemasonry has gotten a reputation as an organization in decline. This is very much not true.
Freemasonry is growing almost everywhere in exciting ways. Lodges are bringing in young, vibrant members, eager to learn traditions and add their own modern perspective. What is true, however, is that Freemasonry, along with every other fraternal club, saw huge booms in the twentieth century, and those boom times are gone. Frankly, those boom times were probably not that great for Freemasonry. They drew the focus away from self-improvement and brotherhood, and into more publicly-focused areas. Rather than helping each other grow better, many used their brotherhood to help each other grow richer. Charity became an industry, rather than a personal offer of relief…
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The Lesson of The Garden Club
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that there exists a very old and well-respected gardening club that you’ve taken an interest in joining. This club tells potential members that it helps to make good gardeners better and they can become ‘master gardeners’ if they are willing to put in the work and advance in levels. You don’t mind the idea of doing work if you become a better gardener in the process, so you petition for membership and gain admission. Continue reading
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Masonic Improvement: Creating A Vision and Goals
In my previous post, I laid the groundwork for my series on lodge improvement. I wrote about what continuous improvement is and why it’s important but I never got into the details of implementation. Let’s dive in, shall we? Continue reading
Posted in Running A Masonic Lodge
Tagged fraternity, freemason, lone star, masonry, texas, texas mason
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Masonic Improvement 