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There are stone Masons that build buildings, do yard brickwork and such. They build and maintain the physical part of civilization. It's a way to make a living. There are speculative Masons that build hearts, do charity and social events and education and such. We build and maintain the...

You want a remote membership? I figure just like lodge, it's allowed but there is extra paperwork. The nearest valley might be expected to agree to a "waiver of jurisdiction" to allow you to go remote. Why not petition locally, go through your local degrees, then visit remotely? Taste...

Finding grandeur in the mundane can be like finding the points where science and faith meet and learning that no matter what some say they are compatible. It's one of the great notions of Romantic philosophy. It may be hard to see how mundane pancakes eventually lead to a live of service, but...

I tend to see the wording as a euphemism for hot heads prevailing or gaming the system. In California we ballot in parallel if there are multiple petitioners. If there's a cube we cycle through them individually. I remember a cube being dropped on a parallel ballot. Then we cycled through...

I rather like a detail variation used in Illinois - When there is a cube in the first ballot the Master must declare a second ballot to be sure. The difference is he gets to chose between doing it immediately in the same meeting or waiting until the next Stated meeting and doing it then. It...

Does not apply when not trying to get into a tiled lodge. All that stuff is what we are told to keep secret so it doesn't make sense to conduct challenges in public where eavesdroppers can piece it all together one bit at a time. I get that folks can look it up at the library, but I promised...

The "ism" word that challenges bring to my mind is professionalism. The purpose of challenges is to attend a tiled meeting. Your jurisdiction, your rules/traditions as usual.

Secrecy of the ballot is the landmark I referred to. In the case described it does not remain secret because it is revealed. There are levels of secrecy. In at least one of my jurisdictions if you have an objection that you are willing to reveal you go to the master before the meeting where...

Yep. That's what the song always sounded like to me. Nonsense song indeed.

Asking a brother how or why he balloted goes against the landmarks. Given if there's a law to do that in some jurisdiction, it's still invalid. The landmarks beat any constitution, bylaw or edict.

Scottish Rite or any body that presents degrees to groups - Ask to be the examplar in one of the degrees. Being in the audience does work. Being at the altar carries more emotional impact, as you would expect having been through the craft degrees.

Welcome to the family and the transition from step brother to brother.

There are a fair number of brothers who become active in one of the appendent bodies and all we see of them at blue lodge is their dues check or the interest on the endowment they funded. Some are okay with this others are bothered by it. To me if a brother is going through his degrees in...

http://www.ugle.org.uk/about/foreign-grand-lodges Central America & West Indies tab. There's a recognized GL there but they aren't on the web. No idea about the cultural issues, sorry. Masonry is popular in other Latin America countries so my first guess would be to expect a positive experience.

“Lou” is Scottish for “Love” I wondered about that. Previously it sounded to me like a song about eating high fiber food so it never made sense. ;^)

Welcome again, and again, to the family thrice adopted brother.

Boundaries keep our passions within due bounds. I like to imagine a picture of water. First I pour it onto a plate without boundaries and the water flows away. Next I pour it into a tumbler and the water builds up to the top of the glass. The difference between musical scales and songs in...

Color means uniform, right? The Legion takes us blue uniform folks AND those green uniform folks. In Masonry we have to be a bit broader than that. We adopt the rainbow non-uniform folks as well. We all work to be of service to society in many ways, often not including a uniform.

I know a few traveling gavels that circulate on a larger scale than district. District visitations seem common enough in some districts such a gavel would move several times per year. Even more fun to get together a bunch of brothers and travel to a distant country to take a gavel for the...

Welcome to the family, once adopted brother. Plus based on the forum this is in I suppose one could spell it PHAmily. Works fine either way.