Renewing Your Masonic Spirit

Washington D.C. and northern Virginia are nothing short of a Mecca for American Freemasonry. It is to Freemasons what Colorado Springs is to Born Again Christians. Here once a year the 1% of the 1% meets for what is called “Masonic Week”, but still to the rest of us regular active Masons it beacons to us like some type of pilgrimage to the place where Washington was raised and to experience the myth of Freemasonry in the cradle of democracy and power in the free world. Even if you aren’t a history a buff, as a member of our glorious fraternity you can’t help feel a level of giddiness when you walk past the Houses of the Temple or the numerous other Masonic landmarks in the area.

Still Freemasonry is far beyond impressive structures and past leaders; it’s about enlightenment and of course the tagline “Making good men better”. In that sense it has been since December of 2007 that I have visited a lodge in the area, and being charged by TO Lodge talks I have been given, I felt emboldened to try a visit to another lodge. Due to timing, it wasn’t any lodge; it was the famed Alexandria-Washington No 22 A.F. & A.M. which meets in the George Washington Masonic Memorial.

Now for the regular readers of my blog, know that I had mixed feelings about the memorial (particularly the rite recruitment), but I do have to say that it is an impressive structure to meet and work in. The lodge room itself is immaculately maintained, the lodge is one of the few left that plays music during the various processions and pauses in the opening, closing, and ritual work. I was also fortunate to witness a Fellow Craft Degree and witness three men being passed. Witnessing this ritual, which is so different than that we perform in Texas, helped wash my soul in the excellence of ritual and the teachings that each of us should strive for when we do the work.

With the festive afterwards, I didn’t leave the Memorial until around 2345, got in my rental, lit up a San Cristobal and drove home listening to WETA 90.9 FM completely content with the world, all the while my mind swimming with esoteric thoughts. I look forward to returning to that lodge in the future. #