On December 2nd, Friendship Masonic Lodge #160, A.F. & A.M. of Oregon, installed 5 officers for the ’21 Masonic year. Because of Covid restrictions, only those 5 brothers and an Installing Marshal (thank you RWB Adam Bayer!) were allowed to physically attend the ceremony at Kenton Temple.
Our Lodge is not one to let a “little thing” like a global pandemic keep the brethren apart, especially at auspicious moments. Friendship Brother Kevin Miller-Conley is to be applauded for suggesting that we perform the public version of Installation, and share it via a Zoom “meeting” where brothers, spouses, and friends could watch it live. Bro Miller-Conley, who was being installed that night as Junior Warden, set everything up for us, and it worked just perfectly.
There were as many as 12 different Zoom viewers of that Installation. What a fantastic outcome for our experiment, no? As so often occurs when I leave Lodge after a more formal evening, in best attire, having worked hard to follow ritual correctly and soberly, I found myself at home afterwards in a quiet, reflective mood.
The result of my reflections? Despite all the worldly setbacks and obstacles, I really think we should be as optimistic as ever for the state of our humble Craft. Consider this list of prior years’ intrusions – all of which Masonry survived. I take as a starting point the year 1599, when William Schaw introduced a famous set of statutes for the governance of Mother Kilwinning #0. Doubtless, in each case where a community, nation, region, or world was heavily affected, the free practice of Masonry was abridged or halted altogether, yet we survived:
DISEASE – an almost non-stop series of epidemics and pandemics of Plague (both Bubonic and Pneumonic), Cholera, Typhus, Smallpox, Influenza, Measles, Yellow Fever, HIV/AIDS, Ebola.
FAMINE – hundreds of famines large and small, local and more widespread, that ravaged Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas – with the last “modern society” famines (excluding war-caused) hitting Alaska in 1878, and Ireland in 1879.
WAR – Eighty Years’ War, Anglo-Spanish War, Thirty Years’ War, Franco-Spanish War, English Civil War, Franco-Dutch War, Great Northern War, War of the Spanish Succession (my personal favorite), Seven Years’ War, various and sundry Revolutions (Americas, France, 1848), Crimean War, American Civil War, WWs I and II.
Importantly, we add to this list of calamities another obstacle that Masonry has successfully navigated, which is the outright oppression of Masonry and Masons:
Religious or Religio-Political bans by organized (and disorganized) religions; plain Political bans (e.g., Fascist, Communist); and the non-stop Q-level conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati. Each type has forced Masons in various times and places to hide their affiliation or risk injury, harm, even death.
The challenge we face today, when you consider it in context, does not approach most of the tragedies on the list above – in terms of death, misery, or oppression. In terms of the cessation of the making of new Masons, however, today’s crisis fits right in. Just in this past year, our Lodge has seen too many members pass away, move out of Portland, or (in 1 case only, thankfully) shrink away from the craft. While the pandemic remains, we cannot replenish our ranks.
Nonetheless, after last night, having had the honor and pleasure of looking each of of my brothers in the eye as they assumed their formal offices for the coming year, I am today less worried than I ever have been about our Craft.
With just six men, we filled that Lodge room – and I don’t refer to the extra folks “there” via Zoom. I don’t rightly know how to explain it, but the light from the candles – on certain occasions – seems somehow to be caught up and reflected from West to East and back again, to and from the standing forms of each brother, arms folded in serene strength. At those moments, the light seems to fill the whole space like a liquid – wall to wall, up to the ceiling.
Consider it, if you will, a lesson and reminder of the recurring victory of Quality over Quantity, of Hope over Fear, Life over Death, and Enlightenment over Darkness.
Fraternally,
K R Smith
Friendship Masonic Lodge #160, A.F. & A.M.
WM – A.L. 6020/21
