Trestle Board. Brethren or others sick or in Distress. Pray for their recovery. Bro. Scott Jordan cancer treatments/infusions

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1 Newsletter Date April 2016 Trestle Board Staunton Lodge No. 13 AF & AM Staunton Lodge No.13 Officers 2016 Worshipful Thomas H Otto Sr. Warden Harold Pat Smiley Jr. Warden Kevin B. Pitchford Treasurer Steve R Wilt Secretary Scott L Fielding IMPORTANT DATES Sr. Deacon Norman Butch Smiley April 3, 2016 Tour of Masonic Downtown Build- Jr. Deacon Jason M Rexrode ing (Old Masonic Lodge) at 2:00 PM Chaplain David W Hayes April 5, 2016 Staunton Stated Meeting, program Marshall Robert Brian Moubray Tiler Stuart L Brown III Sr. Steward Antony Downs/Jr. Steward Todd Cribbs presented by Rt. Joe Harris, DIW April 15-16, 2016 Robert Kennedy Area Ritual School at Lee Lodge No. 209 April 27, 2016 Staunton Blood Drive Brethren or others sick or in Distress. Pray for their recovery. Bro. Scott Jordan cancer treatments/infusions Wor. Carlton Hull pacemaker/ sugar levels Rt. Wor. Jack Purvis recovering from surgery Remember all our Masonic widows and orphans 1

2 Brethren, hope you had a blessed Easter. Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer; Death is strong, but Life is stronger; Stronger than the dark, the light; Stronger than the wrong, the right... ~Phillips Brooks, "An Easter Carol" From the Master Worshipful Thomas Otto Congratulations to our youngest Entered Apprentice and the great job the degree team did. On Wednesday, March 30 th many of us will be traveling to McDowell for the Highland Lodge Blood drive. Looks like April is going to be another great month for the lodge. Don t forget to check out the April calendar for what s going on for the month. With Spring upon us the lodge will also be looking at building projects to schedule such as: capping the brick wall, repaving the parking lot along with general clean up. Just a reminder that the Tax deadline is also approaching on Friday, April 15th. Sincerely & Fraternally, Tom Every Tuesday morning there is practice at the Lodge in all parts of the ritual, starting at 9:00 AM. Also every second and fourth Wednesday of the month there is practice at 7:00 PM. All brothers are welcome. Masonic Information Brethren, if you would like to add or see something in your Trestle Board, feel free to contact me, Wor. Thomas H Otto 32, at geteurdone@comcast.net MASONIC BIRTHDAYS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR Bryant B. Clements 04/25/2005 Robert M. Corbin 04/14/1976 James C. Crosby 04/17/1954 William T. Ellison 04/17/1979 James A. Fields Jr. 04/15/1986 Michael A. Harter 04/23/2012 Robert K. Johnson 04/08/1955 Buford S. Masincup 04/11/2006 Robert B. Moubray III 04/16/2013 Richard A. Will 04/04/1995 Applications Read (0) Entered Apprentices (1) Fellow Crafts (0) Master Masons (3) Please make plans to attend practices and degree work, and support these men (and their coaches) as they continue their Masonic journey through their degrees. 2

3 The Lodge by Brother Joseph Fort Newton A Lodge is a body of men so organized that they move and work together as if many men had but one body. The Operative Freemasons were under necessity to work together as a body because they were engaged on the same task, at the same time, under one supervision. They knew that nowhere, nor under any circumstances, could a public building be erected if each man worked alone; nor was it a mystery that they had a room for themselves, because they had to think together, decide together, know their places and designs together, and to receive at one time instructions for their labor. Insofar as they were a body of men of flesh-and-blood, working together because it was impossible to work alone, we also in Speculative Freemasonry are a body of flesh-and-blood men in an actual and literal body, and not in any abstract or unreal sense, because ours is the same Lodge as theirs. If we say that it is a symbolic Lodge it is not because we have turned the Lodge itself into a symbol, but because we as Speculative Masons do not make the same use of it that Operative Masons did. In one sense it is impossible to put this meaning into words, because to possess it fully and for himself a man must enter into it, and become a member, and learn it by experience; in another sense it is not difficult to put it into words, though they would fall short; if expressed in words the meaning of the Lodge when symbolically used would be expressed in some such fashion as: "A Masonic Lodge was a body of men. The men formed a body in order to do their work in architecture. Craftsmen could not act adversely or independently of each other when constructing a building. This necessity for working as a body was true of Operative Masons; it is also true of any men engaged in any work. To be in association, to act collectively, for many men to be as if they were one man, is everywhere necessary in work. If you cannot sustain yourself, or give your family the food, housing, furniture, clothing, and medicine which they must have in order to live, if to have those things it is for you a question of life or death, then you must be able to work together with other men, to be in association with them, to cooperate with them, to go through the days with them peaceably and harmoniously, to be in a brotherhood with them, to lodge with them, because not otherwise can you continue to work, and without work you will cease to be. "If any man thinks that he can be a lone wolf, if he believes that brotherhood, and fraternalism, and friendliness are Utopian ideals and luxuries of sentiment or unreal dreams, he is a moron or a fool. The brotherhood of men in work is not a dream but a stark reality, not a vision but a necessity, for without it any man would starve to death and peoples would perish. Freemasonry does not hold brotherhood, which is membership in a body of men at work, before us as a desirable but remote ideal, hanging in the skies of some unattainable future, but knows it to be a necessity, and not only a necessity but one which may even be for some men a cruel necessity, because it is an iron law of things. We are not Brothers because we hope to be but because we already are; we are not Brothers because we desire to be, but because we must be." The Lodge itself is the form taken by brotherhood in Freemasonry, so is it also Masonic sociability. Masonic fraternalism, Masonic association, is not a frame-work or background, is not an opportunity or occasion, but is itself what these things are. In substance as well as in form it is unlike any other body of men, certainly it is not to be confused with collectivism, socialism, or communism, which are either economic or political forms of association. It is not consistent with individualism if by individualism is meant that competition in which men prey upon each other; but it is consistent with competition if by competition is meant that emulation of who best can work and best agree. Taken from The Masonic Trowel website (more light) 3

4 THE LODGE taken from The Masonic Trowel website "God hath made mankind one vast Brotherhood, Himself their Master, and the World His Lodge." Out of an old, dark abyss a whirling fire-mist emerged, and the world was made. Ages afterwards a race of men began to walk about on its surface and ask what it means. Dimly aware that things are more than they seem to be, man sought in the order of nature and in the depths of his own being for a clue to the questions which haunted his mind: What is the world? How did it come to be? Why does it exist? Has it a Mind, a Purpose, a Plan? Why is man here? What is he sent to do and be? What is life for? What is its meaning, its duty, its hope? Is death the end? Where does man go when he falls into a still, strange sleep, and does not wake up? Such faith as man won from the mystery of life, such truth as he learned by living, he set forth in sign and symbol, in sacred rite and ceremony, in the Temple and the Lodge. For, next to the Home and the House of Prayer, the Lodge is the oldest Shrine of humanity - so ancient is the idea and art of initiation, as far back as the earliest ages. Rituals, if not the oldest records of the race, show us man the mystic, telling himself the truth until it is real and vivid, seeking to lift his life into higher rhythm of reality. The men's house was the center of tribal society, the place where youth was tried, trained, and taught the secret lore of the race. Its rites were crude - often, no doubt, cruel - as all things were in the beginning; but their intent was to test men before intrusting to them treasures which had cost so much and must not be lost. Always the crowning rite of initiation was a drama of the immortal life, revealing man undefeated by death, keeping his hidden treasure - by virtue of that in him which has never accepted utter identity with outward force and fact. Ages later, by the same mystic insight, the art of initiation was linked with the art of building. Back of this blending of two arts lay the truth that the life of man must reproduce the law and order of the world in which he lives. So every Temple became a symbol of the world - its floor the earth, its roof the heavens; and every ritual repeated the life and death of man - showing the passage of the soul through nature to Eternity. How impressive it is uniting a truth so old that it is easily overlooked and an insight so simple that men forget its sublimity. If not by direct historical descent, at least by spiritual affinity the same truth and insight are united in the moral art of Masonry, in which the Lodge is a symbol of the world and the ritual the drama of the life of man. Such an insight is as valid today as it was ages ago, though our idea of the shape of the world - no longer a cube, but a globe - has altered; since its normal order abides, and man must learn to live in harmony with it, building upon the Will of God by His help and in His name. The world is a Lodge in which man is to learn the Brotherly Life. So Masonry reads the mystery of the world and finds its purpose, its design, its prophecy. It is a simple faith, a profound philosophy, and a practical way of life. How to live is the one matter, and he will wander far without learning a better way than is shown us in the Lodge. Still less may one hope to find an atmosphere more gentle for the growth of the best things, or a wiser method of teaching the truth by which man is inspired and edified. In the days of Operative Masonry, a Lodge was a hut or a shed, of a temporary kind, near the place where the work was carried on. It was variously used as an office, a storeroom, or a place where the workmen ate and slept together, as we read in the Fabric Rolls of New York Minister, in orders issued to the Craft in Not unnaturally, in time the name of the room came to describe the associations and meetings of the men using the Lodge Room; and they were called the Lodge. Hence, our habit of speaking of the Fraternity itself as a Lodge, and so it is, since in its symbolic world men are built together in love. At one time the Tracing Board, as it is called in England, was known as the "Lodge;" as when Preston tells how "The Grand Master," attended by his officers, form themselves in order round the Lodge, which is placed in the center, covered with white satin." Again, in the Book of Constitutions, 1784, we read of "Four Tylers carrying the Lodge covered with white satin;" as if it were a mystic Ark of the Covenant, as used in certain Masonic ceremonies. Such a use of the word has passed away, or well nigh so, along with the practice. For us the Lodge is the world, and some trace the word Lodge back to the Sanskrit word "Loga," meaning the world. However that may be, manifestly it goes back to the days when men thought the world was square, and to live "On the Square" meant to be at one with the order of the world. Also, since the Lodge is "The Place where Masons Work," its form, position, dimension, covering and support are likewise symbolical of the conditions in which man lives, going forth to his labor until in the evening, and the night cometh when no man can work. As Goethe put it in his poem: The Mason's ways are A Type of Existence, And his persistence Is as the days are Of men in this world. By the same token, if the Lodge is the world, so initiation is a symbol of our birth into it. But it is only an analogy, and may be pressed too far, as is often done, leaving it cloudy with ideas which have no place in it. For the Masonic initiation is a symbol of our birth out of the dim sense life into a world of moral values and spiritual vision; out of the animal into the angel. Not to see that it is a moral and spiritual birth, in which the hoodwinks of the flesh are removed, is to miss both its meaning and its beauty. Back of the art and practice of initiation, in the olden time, lay a profound idea, never better told than in the Hymn of the Soul in an old book called the "Acts of Thomas." The story is told by the Soul itself, of its descent from the house of its Father, to Egypt to fetch a Pearl away. Before it left its heavenly home, its White Robe and Scarlet Tunic were removed, and it went naked into a far country in quest of a Pearl of great price, to find which all else might well be given up. In Egypt the Soul eats of the food of the land, forgets its Father and serves the King of Egypt - forgets the Pearl, as if overcome by a deep sleep. But a Letter is sent to it by its Father, bidding it remember that it is the son of a King, and to call to mind the Pearl and the White Robe left above. The Letter flies in the likeness of an eagle. The Soul awakes, seizes the Pearl, strips off its filthy, unclean dress, and sets off eastward and homeward, guided by the light of the Letter, from Egypt, past Babylon to Maisham on the sea. There the Soul meets the White Robe, and because it only dimly remembered its fashion - for in its childhood it had left the Robe in its Father's House - the Robe became a mirror of the Soul. "All over it the instincts of knowledge were working." The White Robe speaks and tells how it grew as the Soul grew, and then of itself it invests the Soul with that of which it had been divested - a perfect fit - and the Soul returns to its Home, like the Prodigal Son in the parable of Jesus. Thus our initiation is a return of the Soul, along a dim, hard path, led by a Shining Letter hung up in the Lodge; the discovery by man of who he is, whence he came, and whose son he is. So understood, the ritual of initiation is a drama of the Eternal Life of man, of the awakening of the Soul and the building of character. For character is built of thoughts, and by thought, and the Lodge offers both a place of quiet and purity and a method by which the work may be carried on, isolated from the confusions of the ordinary life. Sect and party, creed and strife are excluded. Not out of the world, but separate from it, "close tyled," in a chamber of moral imagery, and in the fellowship of men seeking the good life, we may learn what life is and how to live it. Outside, angry passion and mad ambition fill the earth with their cries. At the door of the Lodge, vice, hate, envy and the evil that work such havoc are left behind. Inside, the Faith that makes us men is taught by old and simple symbols, and the Moral Life becomes as real and vivid as it is lovely. Where, in all the world, is there another such shrine of peace and beauty where men of all ranks, creeds and conditions are drawn together, as brothers of one mystic tie, dedicated and devoted to the best life! Here, in the Lodge, in a world of the ideal made real, we meet upon the Level and part upon the Square, sons of one Father, brothers in one family, united by oath and insight and a Love which is Pearl of great value, seeking a truth that makes is fraternal. Outside the home of the House of God there is nothing finer than this old, far embracing Lodge of ennobled humanity. No hammer fell, nor ponderous axes rung, Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung. "SO MOTE IT BE" 4

5 Staunton Lodge No. 13 will be sponsoring a Virginia Child Identification Program at the Kids Matter Day at Gypsy Hill Gym on Saturday, May 7, 2016 from 10am-1pm. Volunteers needed to help with event. Staunton Lodge No. 13 will be taking a tour of the Staunton Masonic Building (old Staunton Lodge room) located at 13 West Beverley Street on Sunday April 3rd at 2:00 PM. Please let us know if you would like to join us. Staunton Lodge No. 13 Blood Drive April 27th (fourth Wednesday of the month) at the Gypsy Hill Park Gym From Noon to 6:00 PM Volunteers needed or just show up and donate blood and join us in fellowship 171th Grand Master of Masons in Virginia Most Worshipful James Edward Litten Setting a Good Example 5

6 Staunton Lodge #13 AF & AM Masonic Pictures 6

7 Staunton Lodge #13 AF & AM Masonic Pictures 7

8 Staunton Lodge No. 13 Masonic District 19 Ancient Free & Accepted Masons 708 D Street Staunton, Virginia (540) Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1 Staunton, Virginia StauntonLodge13@gmail.com Facebook: Staunton Lodge #13 AF&AM Website: April 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Staunton Old Masonic Lodge tour 4 5 Staunton #13 Stated Meeting Staunton #13 14 Lee # Robert 16 Robert Evening practice Stated Meeting Kennedy School Kennedy School Highland # Augusta #111 Stated Meeting Stated Meeting 27Staunton #13 Blood drive/practice