Archives for August 2009

The Fall of Solomon

August 13, 2009 by The Euphrates

King Solomon of Israel is referred to in Masonic tradition as being the fraternity’s first Most Excellent Grand Master. He is championed as the man who constructed the magnificent temple for Jehovah and is heralded as the personification of wisdom. However, a closer look at the life of King Solomon shows that he wasn’t always worthy of emulation.

It is true that Solomon had multitudes of wives and concubines, but that will not be the source of any criticism in this article. Many Biblical kings had large harems, including Solomon’s father David. No, Solomon would be condemned for the very sin which had plagued his people for centuries: putting other gods before Jehovah.

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites.
1 Kings 11:4-7

The Hebrews could be a strange people. God parted the Red Sea and freed the Israelites from slavery. Then he gave them a pillar of clouds by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them. Then he provided them with manna to nourish them. Yet, the Hebrews worshiped other Gods. In Solomon’s case, he was allowed to complete the Lord’s temple and was blessed by the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. Still, he decided to disobey the First Commandment.

Like many main characters in the Old Testament, Solomon’s place of prominence came only through special circumstances. When David was old and frail, Bathsheba convinced him to place Solomon on the throne of Israel (indeed, the influence of women can be great). Solomon was certainly not David’s first choice for his heir. Joseph Heller’s God Knows gives a fictional account of the events surrounding the elderly King David. Heller portrays Solomon in a less than flattering manner in this humorous work. In the story, King David says of his son:

And I was smart enough to appreciate that for Solomon you had to spell everything out. I’ll let you in on a secret about my son Solomon: he was dead serious when he proposed cutting the baby in half, that putz. I swear to God.

While this portrayal may have no real historical basis, this much is true: Solomon was made king only through the unfortunate deaths of David’s older sons, he built his temple only through a blessing secured by his father, and he managed to nearly destroy the promising future which God had given David’s offspring. Nevertheless, 1 Kings 4:29 says that “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.”

Through this knowledge he was able to secure his place in history as the builder of the Lord’s temple and has been given the honor of being a prominent figure in Masonic tradition. Like all men, Solomon may have had faults, but some of his actions have earned him respect. This is a lesson that can benefit all Masons. Masons must recognize that all men have their redeeming qualities as well as their imperfections. The Mason should never hesitate to clearly identify these qualities in the men that they have identified as being worthy of emulation.

Shot From The Cannon – David Naughton-Shires And The Masonic Art Exchange

August 7, 2009 by Fred Milliken

If I were to tell you that there is a man raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in 2007 who has in just a short period of time started a Masonic organization with a newsletter which has exploded with membership overnight beyond his wildest dreams, who is writing a novel, producing a graphic novel, working on a book for a college, writing several Masonic research articles for Masonic Journals, is an officer in his Craft Lodge, a member of a Research Society, producer of an upcoming Templar comic presentation, a Committee Chairman for The Masonic Society and an editor for The Global Fraternal Network (GFN) would you not want to know more about him? Who he is?

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, —no it’s Brother David Naughton-Shires.

Until the last few years, 38 year old Naughton-Shires lived a rather quiet, modest life with his wife and three children in Sixmilebridge, Ireland just 9 km out of Shannon where he helped his wife run a small dance studio and scraped together a rather meager living in graphic design and illustration.

THEN HE JOINED FREEMASONRY…………….AND BANG AS IF SHOT FROM A CANNON, the life of David Naughton-Shires has not been the same since.

He was raised to the third degree in October of 2007 in Ormonde Lodge 201 in the Province of North Munster in the Irish Constitution where today he holds the office of Inner Guard. He hopes to go onto the Royal Arch in just a few months. But as you can see it will be October of 2009 before he has completed two years in the Craft which makes his Masonic accomplishments quite remarkable – as if shot from a cannon.

He tells us that right away, “I found the Craft had produced over the years a wealth of fantastic art, and I started to collect what I could find that fell within my meager budget. This consisted of items such as Ladies Festival Menu cards, lodge summonses, and certificates. From time to time I came across a beautifully illustrated book or two, and as I continued to collect I noticed there was a lack of current art for Freemasons available and what there was, well hidden within the Craft with the exception of the wonderful art of Brother Stephen McKim. Also the standard of publications being produced internally and externally was not always inspiring.”

“I asked myself the question why was this and how could this be resolved? I know that many Lodge newsletters and other similar publications were produced by very well meaning Brethren with only limited experience and knowledge of design who under increasing pressure produced the best they could, and I came to the conclusion they needed help not criticizing.”

So help them he would. He decided to start a group in Facebook with this idea in mind. He wanted to centralize in one place where Brethren with talent who were prepared to help could come together and share their work for the use of anybody who needed it. He called his new group THE MASONIC ART EXCHANGE. The concept hit the Internet like a sudden Texas thunder storm, exploding into over 500 members in just a few weeks. In his own words Naughton-Shires describes the mission of Masonic Art Exchange.

“In a nutshell the aims of the group is to provide a central ‘hub’ for the coming together of people who wish to improve the graphical look of the many newsletters, leaflets, circulars and the such presented within the craft by providing a forum and communication point for each other to offer advice and support on a design basis”

Naughton-Shires decided that a newsletter that the members could contribute to and pass onto the members of their Lodge would be a good illustration of what could be done with a little help. In a few more weeks, which is where we are as of this writing, the Masonic Art Exchange has grown into a membership of over 1100 and Naughton-Shires has decided to produce the newsletter bi-monthly and add a website and a forum for non Facebookers (http://masonic-ae.com). The first newsletter consisted of just six pages including the front and back covers. But the second and most recent has twenty two pages with some really super articles as well as illustrations. One of them is “Skull & Gold: Creating Knight Templar’s Aprons,” a brief outline of the story behind The Knight Templar’s Aprons along with the beautiful creations of Ginger Wood Smyrl. Also in this issue is “Et in Arcadia Ego,” by Brother Nathan M. Glover who shares with us the symbolism found in the Et in Arcadia Ego paintings. Those of you searching for some portraits of George Washington in Masonic regalia also will not be disappointed. Issue #3 is being worked on as of this writing but it already has some very interesting stories and illustrations, two of which will be “Art of the Templar Knights” & “Painted Aprons.”

To help in this enterprise which was growing by leaps and bounds Naughton-Shires added Vice-President Brother Martyn Greene who handles the Facebook group and put writer Brother Kevin Noel Olson in charge of articles for the newsletter.

The Masonic Art Exchange is open to everyone, Mason and non Mason alike. The rules are pretty simple and straight forward. If you are posting to the site the work must be yours and not somebody else’s and you must be prepared to share it with everybody. If you are using something from the site you must give credit to its author, inform the author of what publication it is being used in and use it only for nonprofit enterprises. In addition:

“THE ARTWORK CAN NEITHER BE USED FOR NOR DEPICT ANYTHING CONSIDERED TO BE DEFAMING TO FREEMASONRY OR SOCIETY IN GENERAL.”

For ease and maximum exposure there are two sites where you can download the newsletter, scribd – http://www.scribd.com/doc/18165122/MAE12 and issuu –http://issuu.com/masconicartexchange/docs/mae_1_2/1?viewMode=magazine

Or if you prefer you can now do the same thing from the website – http://masonic-ae.com or on Facebook.

But as we have already seen this man shot from the cannon has many irons in the fire. He is a correspondent circle member of the Lodge of Research Number 200 in Ireland (http://www.irish-freemasonry.org.uk/). Soon he will have his first paper published in the Hibiscus Masonic Review (http://hibiscusmasonicreview.wordpress.com/ ). He is a founding member and Irish Second Circle Committee Chairman of The Masonic Society (http://themasonicsociety.com). He is the new Graphics Editor for the Global Fraternal Network (GFN) and has just completed designing his first issue for them (http://issuu.com/masconicartexchange/docs/gfn_v4-n8). Here is another project he is working on: http://templarcomic.com

For those who might denigrate Masonic activity on the Internet I ask them to come see what David Naughton-Shires is doing online. He is a man who has accomplished more in his two years in the Craft than many of us do in a lifetime. The secret to his success is the quality of his work. You only have to spend a few minutes on The Masonic Art Exchange to be impressed. It would seem that what he has started may expand and become a broader concept than it is now. Also success can breed more success in spin offs and related enterprises and that may well be a path for Brother David Naughton-Shires. All of us at Freemason Information wish him all the best and continued success. Above and beyond all this is the great service available to us all to improve the quality of all our publications whether big or small. Also up to now there has been no site dedicated to Masonic artists. We may find around the world many Freemasons who are artists and who have been operating in the shadows of ignominy. No more. They will shine in the light of The Masonic Art Exchange and we shall all be able to enjoy their works.

Angels and Airwaves co-opts the square and compass in the name of Love.

August 4, 2009 by Masonic Traveler

On a video posted on the Modlife website for the band Angels and Airwaves (AVA) if you pay close attention to the beginning of the video you can see their new square and compass logo, melded with other iconography of the fraternity, mixed with elements of the bands name.

Apparently, Angels and Airwaves is going Masonic.

I just stumbled across this and don’t have much info, but it leaves me wondering what the intent was of using the tools of Freemasonry in the bands brand logo.

Their Wikipedia post has been updated to talk about the new logo and asserts that it is linked to the bands new album “Love”, saying of the new logo mark: This new logo…contains the Latin words “et plumbum mundus per lumen” which translates to “and lead the world by light”.

The new album is due out in February of 2010.

On July 27, 2009, Tom Delong blogged via Modlife: “We’re in the beginning stages of getting the word out that we have a new record and a movie called LOVE that will be released 2/14/2010”

I wonder if while borrowing the square and compass, their borrowing the concept of brotherly love too.

I’ll see what else I can dig up. In the Mean time, watch the Angels and Airwaves video with the log and tell me what you think.

Where Were You First Made A Mason? – An Answer To Fundamentalists

August 2, 2009 by Fred Milliken

Me: Bill, I had a great time this weekend with my Lodge. We went out to Union Park with our families and had a big BBQ. The swimming was good and the food was great. But the best time was just sitting under the shade tree and reminiscing with old and new friends.

Bill: You are always talking about your Lodge but I don’t get this Masonry thing. I never could see why a man would join. I know you get a lot of pleasure from it but I don’t see what is so special about it. I go out to Union Park with friends now and then myself but none of them are Masons.

Me: Well Bill, Masonry is more than social good times. It’s also about reverence, respect, knowledge, a helping hand and close bonding relationships. As a matter of fact it is a philosophy, a virtual way of life………ah, a method of looking at the world and yourself through a different prism.

Bill: So how does this new way of life, this different prism do for you at Union Park with all your Mason friends?

Me: Well I know where the heart is of all my Brothers, even the ones I don’t know. And that’s important to me. Someone once said that – “you are who your friends are.” My contention is that nobody is perfect and that it is possible to be led into or to follow the wrong path in life. One can get lost in superficial and unrewarding patterns of life by constantly associating with corrupting influences. I choose to surround myself with those who try to be noble and righteous and I believe that encourages me to “make something of myself” and to improve myself as a person and that is what God wants for me.

Bill: I didn’t realize how deep Masonry is. I have to say now that it sounds almost like a religion. Would you say that your Brothers look upon their Lodge as church?

Me: I am sure some mistakenly substitute Lodge for church but their reasoning is faulty and their actions bespeak of one who is lazy. Masonry has many religious people in the fraternity but the approach in Lodge is more spiritual than religious. By that I mean that it has nothing to do with sectarian dogma but everything to do with an appreciation of the Creator and the wonders of His creation.

Bill: My Pastor does not speak complimentary about Masonry. He says that I don’t need another Guidance System, the one I have right here in church has everything I need.

Me: Well Bill, church is about worshiping the Almighty Creator. Its focus is salvation, its work the improvement of the soul.

Lodge is not focused on the Hereafter. Its theme is the interrelationships right here on earth. It delineates an earthly philosophy the practice of which points you to seeking that relationship with your Creator. It sends you to church to complete the edification of the other half of yourself.

Bill: But it sounds to me from all that I have heard and of what you have had to say that you are offering a system of morality, a way of life as you call it, that teaches a certain path that should be taken to live your life. That sure sounds to me like a competing Guidance System as my Pastor believes.

Me: Look Bill, we talk about the virtues of Masonry………er, of being a virtuous person using the already established patterns of life that are universally accepted by all cultures. Masonry is the application of your creed not a competing way of worshiping. Being a believer in Democracy rather than totalitarianism is a philosophy, a way of life. But no one is calling that path a competing religion or guidance system.

Bill: I’m a little bit confused and I am not sure how to separate the two, Masonry and church.

Me: Many facets of life, Bill, don’t compete with each other they are intertwined. There is a lot of crossover here in the applications used to take this journey we call life. You can chop them up into neat little boxes but that is a separation that is artificial and does not deal with the complexity of actually living life. Try looking at what you call –competing guidance systems – as interrelated, intertwined aspects of the same discipline all leading to the same end.

Bill: So what you are saying is that while we all think that we are doing something different we are really all doing the same thing?

Me: Now you are getting the idea, Bill. Which is why a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian can all sit in Lodge together. We are all worshiping God but we are not holding a worship service. And all that we talk about in Lodge is universal to them all.

Bill: I can see why some people misunderstand all this. It takes a little bit of thinking about it to grasp Masonry’s niche in the scheme of things. But I can see now that Masonry is a universal application of all that is good and righteous in life. I would now have to say that makes it complimentary not competing. I wonder why my Pastor and others think of it as a competing religion?

Me: Because in most instances we do it so well. We end up being more influential in a man’s life than his Pastor and some Pastors just can’t take that.

Bill: So how come you have never asked me to become a Mason?

Me: Oh but I have. Not in so many words, but as you have said I talk about my Lodge quite often. That information is then there for you to act upon. We do not invite you in, you ask to join.

Bill: So when I go through the ceremonies of initiation I will come out this new person?

Me: No.

Bill: Just when I thought I had a good handle on what is going on here I find myself lost again. Again I am confused.

Me: The ceremonies are required so that your mind has a logical understanding of where your heart already is.

Bill: So are you saying that I am already there?

Me: Where is a man first made a Mason?

Bill: I don’t know.

Me: In his heart.

Bill: I finally, finally got it! All I have to do now is ask.

I Need Your Help!

August 2, 2009 by The Euphrates

I need your help in starting an effort that is intended to help enhance the York Rite in my state and hopefully nationwide. A key part of my endeavor is getting as many Brothers as possible to fill out the following survey. This will give some good indicators about the state of the York Rite of Freemasonry for a presentation that I will be giving at Grand York Rite next month. There will be more information about this program that is currently in its infant stages at a later date. Please forward this to every Brother you know and get them to complete it! The more information I have, the better!

Thanks for your help!

York Rite Survey

Instructions

READ BEFORE TAKING SURVEY!

Thank you for taking the time to complete this short survey on the York Rite of Freemasonry. Please take this survey without doing any research. Do not ask a friend for the answers or perform a Google search to determine your response, this will negatively impact the results of this survey. Your responses to this survey will be kept confidential and it is necessary for the results of this survey to be as honest as possible. Please answer all of the questions, there are 2 pages to this survey.

Please indicate your answers by making your answers bold or by deleting any choices that you believe are incorrect and only leaving your answer. When you complete this survey, please email it to euphratesblog@gmail.com.

Please forward this survey to all of your fellow Masons and encourage them to complete it and return it to the above email address. If you desire further information about the York Rite, please indicate so in your email containing your responses. Please return this survey by September 1, 2009!

Survey

1. Describe your involvement with the York Rite:

a) I am a member of the York Rite

b) I am not a member of the York Rite, but would like to join

c) I am not a member of the York Rite and do not want to join

d) I do not know what the York Rite is

2. Describe the current condition of your local York Rite organization:

a) The York Rite is thriving in my area

b) The York Rite is a fairly active and healthy organization in my area

c) The York Rite is lacking activity in my area

d) The York Rite is or is nearly extinct in my area

e) I have no idea

3. What portion of your lodge’s members belong to the York Rite?

a) The majority of my lodge’s members also belong to the York Rite

b) A few of my lodge’s members (3-10) also belong to the York Rite

c) Only 1 or 2 of my lodge’s members belong to the York Rite

d) None of my lodge’s members belong to the York Rite

e) I have no idea

4. Do you know a Mason that you can communicate with if you want to petition the York Rite?

a) Yes, and I have already spoken with him about it

b) Yes, but I have not spoken to him about it

c) No, but I would like to know who I need to speak with to join the York Rite

d) No, and I am not interested in speaking with anyone about the York Rite

5. Which of the following bodies compose the York Rite of Freemasonry?

a) Council of Royal and Select Masters

b) Chapter of Royal Arch

c) Chapter of Rose Croix

d) Commandery of Knights Templar

e) I don’t know

6. Do you have to be a Christian to join the York Rite of Freemasonry?

a) No, not all of the bodies require their members to be Christian

b) No, none of the bodies require their members to be Christian

c) Yes, you must join all of the bodies of the York Rite and some of them require their members to be Christian

d) Yes, all of the bodies of the York Rite require their members to be Christian

7. Do you have to join all of the bodies of the York Rite in order to become a full fledged member entitled to all of the membership benefits of that organization?

a) No

c) Yes