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FROM
THE EAST
My Brothers,
Summer is surely upon
us now! We enjoyed the relatively cool weather and moisture for
the first few weeks, but now we pay. Let’s all stay “cool”
and enjoy these next few months as we travel on our vacations and
visit old friends and relatives.
White Mountain #3 is
alive and well. We welcome our newest Entered Apprentice Tim
Humphrey and embrace him into our ancient and honorable
fraternity. One of our greatest obligations, spelled out in our
Charter, is to “initiate, pass and raise all good men and
true who might apply for the purpose and whom we find worthy.”
It is also our obligation to teach and to pass on the sublime
principles of Masonry that our members might become “better
men.”
We are most fortunate
to experience this influx of new members. We now have 4 new
brothers now who should receive their 2nd
or Fellow Craft degree in the very near future.
Brothers Josh Beason, Levi Shaffer, Ray Snyder and now Tim
Humphrey will soon be ready to take their next step up our
legendary ladder towards the light. I am considering asking the
Grand Lodge Military Degree team if they can oblige us in putting
on a Fellow Craft Degree. If you have never witnessed this team
of Worshipful Brothers who put on this degree dressed in the
uniforms of the various military orders they belonged to, you
have missed a truly moving experience. In order to do this, we
will have to coordinate closely with our candidates and the
Military Degree team. I will keep all of you advised of my
progress in this matter.
As you all know, we
just finished our 127th
annual communication of the Grand Lodge. We enjoyed
the opportunity to have fellowship with our many brothers, some
of whom we have not seen in a while. We must always remember that
WE are the Grand Lodge, not the line officers, but each of us who
are Master Masons. WE determine the direction and make-up of our
Grand Lodge by our participation and votes. We witnessed a good
bit of discussion and the “give and take” that is so
necessary to a successful fraternity as ours in passing
legislation that will better ensure our future. We will discuss
this further in our future meetings and discussions.
I want to apologize
for not being able to attend our last stated meeting and First
degree. I also want to thank our Senior and Junior Wardens and
all of you who stepped up to run the meeting. As most of you know
by now, I had the great privilege of receiving an appointment to
the progressive officer line of the Grand Lodge as your Grand
Senior Steward. I am humbled and deeply committed to give my all
to the fraternity I love so much. There may be times in the
coming months that I may not be able to attend all of our lodge
functions, but I assure you that I am no less committed to
serving as your Worshipful Master for the remainder of this year.
I try to live by that old Scout Master’s rule that “you
should always leave the campground in better condition than that
in which you found it.” In this regard, I intend to work
closely with all of our officers and the brothers of White
Mountain Lodge #3 to finish this year out, leaving the lodge in
better condition.
God bless
you all and be well. I will see you in lodge again soon.
FROM THE SOUTH
Brothers,
Happy July 4th to all
Brothers and to all Brothers and service personnel serving our
country.
Bill Greenen, JW
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2009 Officers
Worshipful
Master William Garrard, KYCH (602-866-8204)
Senior
Warden Earl Warner (928-425-7715)
Junior
Warden Bill Greenen, KYCH
(480-510-4241)
Secretary Paul
Dore' Sr, KYCH (602-920-0456)
Treasurer
Scott Teichrow, PM (928-425-8293)
Senior
Deacon Howard Billingsley, PM
(928-472-9354)
Junior
Deacon Art Salcido Jr.(928-402-8242)
Chaplain
Dave Johnson, PM (928-425-7900)
Marshall
Joe Henry, PM(928-425-6686)
Senior Steward Dell
Long 520-297-7656
Junior
Steward Fred Marquardt 602-575-4946)
Tyler
Hank Johnson(928-425-2295)
(602-265-4152)
Trustees:
Howard
Billingsley, PM, 2013
Earl
Warner
2012
Robert
Gillette, PM 2011
Harold
Benjamin,
PM, 2010
Paul Dore' Sr.
PM, 2009
Sickness and
Distress
Frank
Sheppard
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 O.E.S.
#8 Luncheon
July
13th
Committees
Public Schools - Ed
Warner
Widows
- Ed Warner
Education - W. Howard
Billingsley
By-Laws - MW Oscar Lyon
Jr.
Membership - WB. Doug
Skowron
Community Events - Art Salcido
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T.F.S.
Three, five, and seven
3 5 7
Number 150 -
July 01, 2009
Honor
Some time ago a Brother wrote
to me asking whether I had written an article on 'honor,' and
asked, if I had, to please send him a copy. Well, it was a good
question because it told me I needed to do something on that
topic, as I hadn't written specifically about 'honor' previously.
I had given talks at Masonic functions where I did mention honor,
because it is important to Freemasonry and to
Masons. Honor is
one of the things a Mason is admonished to keep uppermost in mind
when he is wearing his Masonic apron; (we
symbolically wear
our apron 7 days a week 24 hours a day as Freemasons - the charge
to wear it with honor and pleasure does not
end when the Lodge
is closed.) The New Mason gets this first important lesson about
his apron when he is presented with it in his first degree: When
you think about our degrees there is so much wisdom in the life
lessons that are woven into them that we could spend the rest of
our lives pondering the lessons and living up to them.
The
new Mason is told to wear his apron with equal pleasure to
himself and honor to the fraternity; actually Honor to the
Fraternity
also means honor to others and to himself as well.
Equal Pleasure to himself and honor to the fraternity is an
interesting phrase, because when a man is honorable he is a happy
man; it's acting in less than an honorable fashion that
contributes to unhappiness.
One of my favorite authors is
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin; his books are not entirely religious, they
are more like self-help and books for living
than religious
books, although religion is a part of self-help and joyful
living.
In his book "Harmony with Others" he has
a short chapter (all of his chapters are on the short side)
called "Who is an Honorable Person?" The question comes
from the Talmud, and the Talmud also provides the answer; from
Pirkei Avos 4:1 "The one who shows honor and respect to
others." This is not strictly something that is taught only
in Judaism - it's something I was taught all through my youth
from my parents, teachers, and ministers, - treat others with
dignity and respect. Most religions of the world have something
akin to the Golden Rule about treating others as you would like
to be treated; The 14th Dalai Lama says he likes to amend it to
"Do unto others - more - than you would have them do unto
you"
Rabbi Pliskin, in his book, says we all want to
be treated with basic respect, and, 'as we internalize the
essential message of the Sages [Pirkei Avos 4:1], we will
decrease our concern about how others treat us and we will
increase our concern about how we treat
others.'
In
Rabi Pliskin's book "Building Your Self-Image - and the
Self-Image of Others" is another short chapter called "I
am My Choices." In this chapter he reminds us that in every
situation we have the opportunity to make a choice. J. Martin
Kohe back in the 1950's wrote a 'wonderful' small book called
"Your Greatest Power;" this is a self- help classic and
well worth reading if you can get a copy; in it he tells us our
greatest power is the power to choose. Rabbi Pliskin reminds us
about this great power, one which we use all day long every day,
and he tells us that in every instance, especially stressful and
disturbing moments, we have the opportunity to use
our great
power to choose; we can say to ourselves 'I am My Choices:"
This can serve to remind us to make wise choices.
We
choose our feelings, because our feelings are created by our
choice of thoughts, words, and actions: The essence of who we
are, as Rabbi Pliskin says, comes from our choices; choices come
from thought, and are manifested through our words and actions.
When we say to ourselves 'I am my choices,' we are stating a
truthful fact, and we are in a position to make wise choices.
There is a lot to study about honor, but unfortunately
the subject is not found in many 'Masonic' books, so in order to
study it we need to look elsewhere. But then, it may come down to
our power to choose, to decide, what a Masonic book is. To me a
Masonic Book is not only one that talks about symbolism, history,
and Masonic Lodges or Masons. It is a book that will help the
Mason in his search for truth, one that helps in understanding
Masonic values even though they are not
labeled as such, one
that will help him in his quest to become a better man than he
was previously to the learning gleaned from the
book, one that
will help him mentor and teach his Brother Mason, and help him in
his personal quest for truth and improvement.
Information
and learning about what Masonry stands for and teaches can be
found in a great number of places. All we need to do is
broaden
our horizons and be open to finding this information in places we
might not have thought of before.
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John
M. Fix
