Brethren, come join us at Dover Lodge for two education sessions this summer aimed at erecting and ornamenting your Masonic building with exquisite craftsmanship and adornment. We will be studying both the Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft degrees in depth, including tracing boards and guiding explanations to help you get underway with your Master Work. The dates and times are as follows:

I am pleased to share with you that these sessions will be led by Brother Tim Costello, our Lodge Education Officer, who is already underway with preparing for these valuable sessions. Even if you’re a long-time Master Mason, you will without a doubt gain much from these sessions!

You may be inclined to ask: Why is Dover Lodge doing education during the summer?

Far too often membership in our Gentle Craft has a tendency to devolve into a mere social club and a series of memorized plays. Our Brothers become overly focused on ritual proficiency, flattering regalia and the political climb to the top of the administrative and appendant bodies. This has not always been so! Upon a time it took years to achieve the highest degree of Master Mason, and required more than a repetition of a memorized examination. Newly-initiated Brethren began a course of lifelong learning once they were invested with their white lambskin apron, and quickly came to realize that the attainment of the Master Mason degree was only the beginning of that commitment.

As our Fraternity grew over the centuries, we began to further sharpen the chisel by employing what science had taught us regarding the way men most effectively learn. The time to progress through the degrees was shortened and the required proficiency was sharply focused and refined on a memorized inquiry/response examination.  The purpose of such an examination (as we use today) was to lay the groundwork of learning similar to the way one lays the foundation of a building – by providing the structural outline and support system. No building is built by erecting each wall individually in its entirety, but by first laying a solid, stable and complete foundation. This foundation was never the final building – for it is difficult even to imagine the beauty and glory of the edifice by examining the foundation. Who can guess the lofty heights to which the walls will soar only by looking at the foundation?

The proficiency exam that we use even to this day was always intended only as a foundation. What therefore does the foundation reveal to us, if not the final building? It shows us that we are soundly based and properly prepared. The foundation must be strong – but it is only an outline, and only the beginning.

Fast-forward to the 21st Century, and we find ourselves in many ways the victims of our own learning. For most of the world life has become an “always on, always available” series of distractions in the privacy of our own homes. Young students are offered the “luxury” of an online education with an equivalency diploma, and internet-based interactions such as Facebook and Xbox Online have been dubiously named “social” outlets. Nobody is required to invest years in learning when it is easier to build a foundation on search engines such as Google or media outlets such as the History Channel. The problem is that most see this foundation as the completed building. Whilst such poor souls exist within their false sense of security, the rains of ignorance, apathy and laziness begin to flood the very base of their foundation.

Such should never be the case with Brother Freemasons. If you’ve gone through even the first degree of Masonry, you are to be congratulated – Freemasonry is legendary, and is NOT for everyone. Your foundation is well underway, and you’ve no doubt worked very hard to ensure that it is well-built and truly square. But even if you’ve made your way through the Master Mason degree and have delivered a flawless examination, I have some exciting news for you:

Come make time and join with us. Every true Mason carries within himself a secret and sacred flame that has been the marvel of mankind since the dawn of time. Let us labor together in the quarry of masonry, and let our Brotherhood’s closeness serve to grow that sacred fire within ourselves, and to kindle it in true seekers whom come to our doors.