Monthly Trestleboard
January 2012
First and most importantly I would like to thank all the Brothers of Lafayette-DuPont #19 for having the confidence in such a new member of the Lodge to take the honored position of Worshipful Master. It is something I neither expected nor had planned until September, when I was approached with the idea.
Mind you, I am NOT new to Masonry and this is not the first time being a Worshipful Master. It is just a new ritual for me and since I am a relatively new affiliation with L-D 19 it was most unexpected, so please bear with me as I hope to bring you an interesting year filled with informative and valuable programs, many will be open to the public, as well as family events, the first of which is The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s (600 Wolfe St.) production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, a hilarious tale of overachievers and a Tony Award winner, on January 13th, at 8:00 p.m. I have tickets available at $20 each or you will be able to get them at the door as we will be joining other Masons for the evening. This will be the first of several family events for the year.
Mind you, I am NOT new to Masonry and this is not the first time being a Worshipful Master. It is just a new ritual for me and since I am a relatively new affiliation with L-D 19 it was most unexpected, so please bear with me as I hope to bring you an interesting year filled with informative and valuable programs, many will be open to the public, as well as family events, the first of which is The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s (600 Wolfe St.) production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, a hilarious tale of overachievers and a Tony Award winner, on January 13th, at 8:00 p.m. I have tickets available at $20 each or you will be able to get them at the door as we will be joining other Masons for the evening. This will be the first of several family events for the year.
Since I have a full slate of programs for each of the Stated meeting for the year, many with outside speakers, it is important to realize the 4th Thursdays will be used for degrees, instruction and purely Masonic study. EACH 4th Thursday except for July, August, November and December will have something of importance. If it is not a degree, it will be instruction or discussion on the finer points of Masonry. Also the 4th Thursdays will be casual dress since the lodge may will not be formally opened unless we are having degree.
I also believe in a mixture of the sacred and profane to borrow a term from Claude Debussy’s famous piece of music by that title. For the sacred there will be a “short” program of no more than 2 pages at each meeting discussing some part of Masonry which hopefully is not that familiar to all the Brothers, following my theme for the year “The Beauty of Differences.” This will be followed by a formal program of varying length, many by outside speakers, many of which are quite well known.
On January 12th we start off with a bang by having Andrew Hammer, P.M. of Alexandria-Washington Lodge #22, which meets at the George Washington Masonic Memorial, and noted Masonic author as our speaker. I have known Andrew for some years and consider him a good friend and an outstanding Mason. I am sure his program will be both interesting and likely present a challenge to L-D 19. Then on January 26th will be a F.C. Degree.
I like to close each message with a quote from a Masonic author. This month is from our upcoming speaker Andrew Hammer’s book Observing the Craft: “Masonry must return to meaning and philosophy as its primary task, its prime motivator for the work we are to do within ourselves, as well as for others. (p.73)”
Walter Benesch, W.M. Lafayette-Dupont #19
