FROM THE WEST

On the sixteenth of February, eight brothers traveled through the snow to Flagstaff for a Lodge of Instruction on the Fellow Craft Degree. I though the session was instructive and pointed out several areas that need polishing up to make the degree more meaningful to the candidate. I know that I came away with knowledge that I was not performing my portion of the degree correctly. What I had thought was it would be instructive on some of the explanations of the symbology associated with the stair case lecture.

I for one have often asked just why is Geometry the revered science for Masons of the seven liberal arts. Having taken Geometry in high school, I can remember the hours spent on laboriously proving theorems. What I always asked when doing them , was why we had to reprove something that we knew to be correct. Was told it was necessary to know each minute step in the proof and to not skip any of them otherwise the answer was incorrect and was marked down on the grade for this problem.

This is probably necessary in making accurate decisions in teaching us to not overlook any detail in making an informed decision. This is also necessary when writing computer programs as the computer only follows the steps you instruct it to take and can only come to one of two possible outcomes, 0 or 1. If you miss just one step, you may not get the outcome you were expecting. There is no in between in the digital world. Did learn a lot of useful things in Geometry that I use in wood working and carpentry projects. So if someone can enlighten me as to some of the other aspects that Geometry pertains to speculative Masonry, I would like to be enlightened. This would be a good topic for discussion in one of our education sessions. The other portions of the stair case lecture are extremely clear in the lessons that are being taught.

I asked in the January meeting for hints from the membership as to ideas for money making projects in addition to the car show planned for June. Had very little input for ideas since then. I will look into the Grand Canyon excursion on the train out of Williams and into the air-line flights raffles that were successful in previous years. I do need to have your ideas as we cannot make these raffles successful if they are only my ideas. We are only successful in doing a project if everyone buys into the idea and believes they are a part of it. It is what is called team work.