bro.william
Premium Member
Gentlemen & Texas Brethren: wonder if I could enlist some thoughts or advice from y'all?
I've introduced myself here on other threads as a Texan abroad and a newly-raised Master Mason in the UGLE. Joining up was one of the best moves I've made in years – I'd been mulling it for 4 or 5 years before I finally swore my oaths – and I'm proud to be part of a lodge with really worthy men, an excellent ethos around ritual, and a lot of laughs around it all. As I expect most of y'all will understand, though, you don't ever stop being from Texas, no matter how long you're gone (and it's been a couple of decades for me). So I'm always attentive to ways I can keep my connections live. (You kind of have to work at it from this far away!)
Which leads to my point: namely, that, now I'm "fully fledged" as a Mason, I'd love to find a connection that gets me into the GLoTX loop and, to whatever small extent I can be from this distance, involved. It seems a good way of being a Texan abroad, if it's possible. My Texas Masonic roots run deep: my grandfather and great-grandfather were life-long members of Grandview Lodge No. 266, and it was actually when my mother gave me my grandpa's masonic ring – originally a wedding present to him from my grandma – that I started thinking about joining up myself.
It seems to me that the most obvious route to dual affiliation would be to petition Tranquility Lodge No. 2000, as that's designed to be a dispersed lodge to begin with (much like UGLE's Internet Lodge No. 9659 or Ireland's Lodge Ireland No. 2000), and the application process simply requires you to prove you're a Master Mason in good standing with a Lodge & GL in amity with the GLoTX. That said, the charter states explicitly that membership there does not vouch for good standing for the purpose of visiting any other Texas lodges.
So ... with all that info in mind ... I'm just wondering what some of you guys on the ground might think? Is it a good way to go, or are there any better that you'd know about but I wouldn't? Unfortunately, though I try to spend time in Texas every summer or two, I don't tend to be there at enough length to get easily known by the lodges in my ancestral towns or my university town (Waco), and I don't really know the residency rules for petitioning there, anyway. I suppose I could just use some more familiarity with Texas masonry.
I suppose this is all probably more about the emotional pull than it is about practicalities ... but, like I said, a Texan is always a Texan, so for whatever reason it's important to me. Therefore, I'm asking.
S&F,
Will
I've introduced myself here on other threads as a Texan abroad and a newly-raised Master Mason in the UGLE. Joining up was one of the best moves I've made in years – I'd been mulling it for 4 or 5 years before I finally swore my oaths – and I'm proud to be part of a lodge with really worthy men, an excellent ethos around ritual, and a lot of laughs around it all. As I expect most of y'all will understand, though, you don't ever stop being from Texas, no matter how long you're gone (and it's been a couple of decades for me). So I'm always attentive to ways I can keep my connections live. (You kind of have to work at it from this far away!)
Which leads to my point: namely, that, now I'm "fully fledged" as a Mason, I'd love to find a connection that gets me into the GLoTX loop and, to whatever small extent I can be from this distance, involved. It seems a good way of being a Texan abroad, if it's possible. My Texas Masonic roots run deep: my grandfather and great-grandfather were life-long members of Grandview Lodge No. 266, and it was actually when my mother gave me my grandpa's masonic ring – originally a wedding present to him from my grandma – that I started thinking about joining up myself.
It seems to me that the most obvious route to dual affiliation would be to petition Tranquility Lodge No. 2000, as that's designed to be a dispersed lodge to begin with (much like UGLE's Internet Lodge No. 9659 or Ireland's Lodge Ireland No. 2000), and the application process simply requires you to prove you're a Master Mason in good standing with a Lodge & GL in amity with the GLoTX. That said, the charter states explicitly that membership there does not vouch for good standing for the purpose of visiting any other Texas lodges.
So ... with all that info in mind ... I'm just wondering what some of you guys on the ground might think? Is it a good way to go, or are there any better that you'd know about but I wouldn't? Unfortunately, though I try to spend time in Texas every summer or two, I don't tend to be there at enough length to get easily known by the lodges in my ancestral towns or my university town (Waco), and I don't really know the residency rules for petitioning there, anyway. I suppose I could just use some more familiarity with Texas masonry.
I suppose this is all probably more about the emotional pull than it is about practicalities ... but, like I said, a Texan is always a Texan, so for whatever reason it's important to me. Therefore, I'm asking.
S&F,
Will