California's Newest Lodge: Sonora 887

by Christopher Hodapp

California's newest lodge, Sonora Lodge No. 887, in the historic Sonora Masonic Hall held its grand opening on Saturday, February 22, 2025. According to a press release about the event,  membership interest has been growing statewide, and the new lodge has already welcomed 21 new members to the fraternity. 

From Globe Newswire:

The opening of Sonora Lodge No. 887 is yet another milestone in the Sonora Masonic Hall’s rich history. Built in 1850 during the peak of the California Gold Rush in Tuolumne County, the Sonora Masonic Hall is one of the very first Masonic establishments in the state. Over the past 175 years, it has housed Lodges for numerous notable Masons including California State Senator George S. Evans (1865-1877), California Secretary of State Anson H. Tuttle (1863) and U.S. Senator James Graham Fair (1881-1887).

 

“The Masons of California are proud to renew our values of community, philanthropy and brotherhood in a city that has been so foundational to our shared Masonic history,” said Mark McNee, Sonora Lodge No. 887 Lodge Master and Vice Chair of the California Masonic Foundation. “The grand opening of Sonora Lodge No. 887 marks another chapter in a long legacy of Tuolumne County Masonry, and we look forward to watching the positive impact of our programs and people spread through Sonora and beyond.”

 

The new Sonora Lodge No. 887 was chartered on October 27, 2024, and held its Ceremony of Constitution on November 16, 2024. Sonora Lodge No. 887 officially opened its doors to potential new members and the community at a grand opening celebration on Saturday, February 22, 2025, which included a formal Installation of Officers ceremony, ribbon cutting and remarks from Mark McNee, Masons of California Grand Secretary Allan Casalou and Past Grand Master of George Washington Union Freemasons Nathalie Valkov.

It's a side-issue, I know, but if that last name threw you, George Washington Union Grand Lodge is an American offshoot of the Grand Orient of France and is an independent co-Masonic (men and women) obedience. The GL of California does not recognize them – by the rules of regularity and recognition, GWU is irregular and their members cannot sit in each others lodges. But the GL California acknowledges that other obediences do indeed exist, and if a female enquires about Masonic membership, or if a male seeks a lodge with both men and women as members, they take a pragmatic approach similar to the United Grand Lodge of England: they steer them to the GWU as an alternative. 

Would that more American grand lodges took a similar view. Better to grow Freemasonry throughout the world than to pretend different types of Masonry simply don't exist because 'WIMMIN!' Our obligations say nothing that forbids us from talking to each other, discussing Masonic philosophy, symbolism, or much of anything else. We won't burst into flame. We merely promise not to be present if a lodge decides to confer the degrees of Masonry on a woman, and they can't sit in our open lodge doing business.

UGLE regularly invites England's two female grand lodges to public events, and they all cooperate on outreach programs like their Universities Scheme, which promotes Masonic lodges at colleges and universities. UGLE has even joined forces with the female GLs to create a cooperative 'Council For Freemasonry' to combat anti-Masonry in the U.K.

Likewise, if Masons from an irregular, unrecognized obedience desire an authentic Masonic lodge room to meet in, there should be no reason why a regular male-only lodge can't rent or otherwise make their lodge room available to a Prince Hall, female, or co-Masonic lodge. For that matter, local lodges should have the leeway to rent to Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, even the Knights of Columbus, if they so desire. Better to have our buildings in use as often as possible than to look abandoned for 29 days of every month. 

But I digress.

  PHOTOS: Sonora Lodge 887 Facebook page

Intruder Fatally Shot After Breaking Into a St. Louis Masonic Hall

by Christopher Hodapp

An intruder was shot and killed in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning after breaking into a St. Louis-area Masonic lodge building. Police pronounced the suspect dead at the scene. The lodge's resident called police as soon as the suspect was shot, and is cooperating with investigators. 

As of Friday evening, the dead man, believed to be in his mid-40s, still has not been publicly identified. 

According to local NBC affiliate KSDK-5, the suspect broke into the hall of Tuscan Lodge No. 360  at 5015 Westminster Place – in the city's Central West End – shortly before 4 a.m., setting off the building's alarm system. The lodge is unusual in that it has a private apartment inside on the third floor, originally built for the hall's caretaker. Awakened by the alarm, the apartment's resident armed himself and began conducting a search of the building. He confronted the intruder on the second floor and subsequently shot him.

According to the news account, the apartment's resident is a Mason and a member of the lodge. Police are not releasing his name publicly, and for a very good reason. Over the last two years, Masonic halls all over the world have seen increases in break-ins, vandalism, robberies, arson fires and other attacks, and anti-Masonic zealots have attacked individual brethren in increasing numbers. A Texas Mason was shot and killed last year by an anti-Mason who posted a video of himself shooting the Brother in the lodge parking lot. So, it's not a bit surprising that the lodge's resident would arm himself before searching the building.

According to its website, about 160 Masons belong to Tuscan Lodge. Past members include four Missouri governors, two St. Louis mayors, and three U.S. senators. Former President Harry S. Truman was a frequent visitor.

The Homicide Division of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police are conducting the ongoing investigation. Police Sergeant Charles Wall was quoted in the press as saying, "No matter what the facts in this investigation will be presented to the Circuit Attorney, whether or not they ultimately decide to issue any charges, that's in their purview." The Channel 5 news report interviewed a local law professor on camera, talking about Missouri's "Castle Doctrine" laws:

"The Castle Doctrine protects homeowners from intruders if someone breaks into (their) home and (they) have a reasonable fear that (they) are going to get hurt, (they) can use lethal force. Whether the burglar is armed or not it doesn't matter. If someone's in (their) house and it's dark, (they) are going to be scared."

He said Missouri has one of the most expansive Castle Doctrines in the country.

"In some states, you have to have a fear of being seriously injured or killed -- not in Missouri -- just fear of any injury and that seems to be the case here," Walker said. 

Police have not said whether the burglar was armed or not. But any time a person shoots and kills an intruder inside their home, there's always a chance that an overzealous prosecutor will attempt to turn the victim of the break-in into the bad guy for defending his 'castle' and his own life. 

Consequently, ALL Freemasons are strongly discouraged by the Grand Master of Missouri from discussing or commenting about the case on social media. The Brother in question doesn't need a bunch of keyboard warriors mouthing off about the incident online while police are still investigating. 

However, anyone with real firsthand information about the case is urged to call the Homicide Division directly at 314-444-5371. Anyone with a tip who wants to remain anonymous and is interested in a reward can contact CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (8477).

(UPDATE 2/24/2024: Police have subsequently identified the deceased intruder as Geanard Howard, 48, of St. Louis. See HERE. Photo from his Facebook page.)

Texas Mason Slain By Anti-Masonic Shooter

Brother Robert Wise, 55, killed Monday after officer's installation

(Photos: McAllen Lodge 1110 Facebook page)

by Christopher Hodapp

UPDATE July 14, 2023, 3:OOAM:

Brother Wise's funeral arrangements have been added to this story.

Police in McAllen, Texas have arrested a man in connection with the Monday night shooting death of Brother Robert Wise outside of the Masonic hall of McAllen Lodge No. 1110. Julio Diaz, 35, is now in police custody after being arrested Tuesday for murder. 

Julio Diaz, 35, arrested for murder 

(Photo: McAllen Police Department)

According to a press release from the local police department, officers responded to a call from a witness at 9:46PM Monday night from outside the lodge, who reported hearing "a loud pop, then someone moaning in pain." When police arrived, they found Brother Wise on the ground, wounded by gunfire. Emergency Medical Services immediately rushed him to a local hospital, where he later died.

McAllen Lodge No. 1110, McAllen, Texas

While it has not yet been reported in the press, Robert was leaving McAllen Lodge following their officers' installation Monday night when he was shot. Witnesses spotted and identified the shooter as Julio Diaz, who immediately fled the scene. 

According to several sources, Diaz had apparently recorded and uploaded a video of his crime online. It has since been removed.

When he was arrested and questioned this morning, sources familiar with the investigation told me that Diaz believes Masons are "devil worshiping Illuminatists." A Facebook commenter said Diaz had previously posted anti-Masonic comments on social media, claiming the lodge "had put a curse on him." 

This afternoon, Robert's daughter Erica has started a $5,000 GoFundMe appeal to cover his funeral expenses. CLICK HERE to donate.  I will add funeral arrangements to this story as soon as I know them.

Ever since the COVID lockdowns, there has been an alarming increase throughout the U.S. and Canada in incidents of vandalism and arson against Masonic halls by admitted paranoid anti-Masonic extremists and conspiracists. In my own casual monitoring of comments posted on anti-social media and news sites (along with many comments to this site that I will not permit to appear), anti-Masonic sentiments online seem to be on the rise, with a greater sense of distrust and hate directed at the fraternity. However, this is the first murder of one of our members I've seen in a very long time. This tragedy is one too many, and I pray it will be the only one. 

Obviously, there is a danger in drawing undue attention to these stories, as it could encourage lunatics to carry out their own attacks. But I believe the risk is outweighed by the vital urgency for us all to be extremely cautious regarding security in and around our buildings. That means monitored surveillance cameras, locked outer doors during events, and vigilant Tylers who probably shouldn't be on the lodge room side of the door during meetings, I'm sad to say. 

Further, law enforcement officials need to be informed by us whenever there are threats or acts of vandalism and violence directed at us – police departments and individual officers can't be automatically expected to realize that anti-Masonic hatred is a very real syndrome lurking out in the general population.

Even so, it's impossible to stop a determined madman when he's got committing terrorism on his mind. Like my Texas brethren, I pray for Brother Robert's wife and children with all my heart, and sincerely hope never to post any more stories like this one ever again.

UPDATE JULY 14, 2023, 3:00AM

Brother Wise's obituary and funeral arrangements have been posted on the Brown Family Funeral Home website HERE:

A public viewing will be held on Monday, July 17, 2023, at 5:00pm-9:00p.m.CDT at Brown Family Funeral Home in Mission. The funeral service will take place on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at 10:00amCDT at Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission in Mission, Texas.

There is no word, as of yet, concerning any sort of Masonic funeral service. This site will be updated if and when it is announced.

*If the lodge name sounds familiar to non-Texas Masons, McAllen Lodge 1110 was chartered in 1916 and is the Mother Lodge of Masonic scholar and author Arturo De Hoyos.

Speaking Tonight at New York's Adelphic-Union Lodge 14 (PHA)

by Christopher Hodapp

I'll have the honor of speaking tonight in New York at Adelphic-Union Lodge 14 of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge F&AM State of New York. The gavel sounds at 7:00PM.

Many thanks to Worshipful Master Wilbert Green and his brethren for their kind invitation. I'm very much looking forward to being there. 

Adelphic-Union 14 meets in The Prince Hall Masonic Temple located at 454 W. 155th Street in Harlem (between Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues.)

Historic Adelphic-Union Lodge was originally chartered as No. 7 on May 11th of 1863 by the United Grand Lodge of the State of New York. It became No. 14 under the present Prince Hall Grand Lodge of New York when the United and National Compact Grand Lodges consolidated in 1878-79. Joint recognition with the Grand Lodge of New York was achieved in 2001.

All Master Masons are welcome to attend. 

For more information and to give the lodge some idea of how many brethren to expect, check their Facebook page for the event HERE. 

---

Last night, I had a great time visiting John Philip Sousa Lodge 1192 at the Grand Lodge of New York's incredible Temple. Many thanks to everyone for the warm welcome. The lodge was chartered in 2019. 

They meet in the beautiful Renaissance Room of the Temple.

I also had a rare chance to get a glimpse of the private room of Kane Lodge, which has been the Masonic home to countless famed world explorers over the last 150 years or so. The only lodge social room I've ever seen that had its own polar bear.

I keep humming the club song from the Adventurer's Club now... Kungaloosh!

Indiana's Lodge Vitruvian 767 Celebrates 20th Anniversary

by Christopher Hodapp

Friday night was the 20th anniversary of the founding of Lodge Vitruvian 767 in Indianapolis. It was a wonderful evening and it was especially great to be with WB Jeff Naylor, our founding Worshipful Master. Many thanks to WB Christopher Bentlage for arranging this event at the Aristocrat.

Twenty years ago today - May 21st, 2002 - a year after first receiving a dispensation to work, a group of Indiana Masons assembled at the Temple of Broad Ripple Lodge on the north side of Indianapolis to receive our official charter for Lodge Vitruvian No. 767. 

Technically, that makes us 21 years old today, but it's 20 under our official charter.

Jeffrey D. Naylor was our founding Master, and he received the charter that day from Roger S. VanGorden, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Indiana. Jeff would serve in the East for the first two years, and was responsible for much of what we did, how we "looked," and the philosophy that guided us (and still does even today).

It started as a conversation between Jeff, Eric Schmitz, Roger VanGorden, Nathan Brindle, and myself one Saturday afternoon in 2000 about how to create a new kind of lodge, and it turned out that other Masons around the U.S. and elsewhere at the time were (or had already been) coming to many of our same conclusions. (Sort of a Masonic version of Hodgkins' Law of Parallel Planetary Development... Yes, I'm just that sort of nerd.) 

Kent Henderson in Australia first noodled some of these ideas in a paper called Back To the Future back in 1992, along the lines of a “European concept," and he and a handful of brethren established Lodge Epicurean 906 there. Meanwhile in College Station, Texas, Pete Normand labeled their local experiments as "traditional best practices" and established St. Alban's Lodge 1455 along similar notions. John Mauk Hilliard applied many of these ideas as well, with Independent Royal Arch Lodge 2, in New York. 

Around the time we were scheming in Indiana, a different group of brethren was assembling their own philosophy under the umbrella term "traditional observance," and Dennis V. Chornenky and others came up with the Masonic Restoration Foundation to promote their similar evangel. (Dennis would be one of the founders of Academia Lodge in Oakland, California.) 

Independent from all of these others, our own growing circle of guys explored concepts and collected our thoughts into what became an extended paper called Laudable Pursuit.

All of us sought to approach the problem of the dull monthly lodge business meeting that offered Masons no education or enlightenment, bad or no food, under-financed programming, lackluster participation and retention, and little actual brotherhood - in short, any sense of "specialness" that Freemasonry had promised us all, but sadly, rarely delivered. We all went at it a little differently, but we all knew that lodges could be better than what most of us were experiencing if they would only demand excellence from themselves and their members.

Those of us starting Vitruvian established several primary tenets:

• Dignity and high standards are to be maintained by the Lodge in all its undertakings.
• Nothing short of excellence in ritualistic work is acceptable.
• Masonic education - especially original papers or guest speakers - will be expected for every meeting.
• Candidates shall be advanced only after having undertaken an intensive program of Masonic education and proving themselves proficient in open Lodge.
• The Lodge enjoys the fellowship of the Festive Board at a local restaurant following all Regular and Emergent Meetings of the Lodge.
• Members are expected to dress properly to attend to the duties of the Lodge. 
• The Lodge shall create its own distinctive regalia, within the limitations of Grand Lodge regulations.
• Attendance is mandatory. Members receive a summons for meetings and are required to attend or provide apologies. Those unable to do so will be politely asked to demit after a year and find another lodge.
• The Lodge officers are to be elected based on merit and active participation alone, and not merely advanced through the chairs as an annual expectation.
• A Lodge of excellence and high caliber must be paid for.
• Explore and exemplify alternative degree rituals from other recognized foreign jurisdictions as a demonstration of the worldwide variations in regular Masonic practices (i.e. Emulation ritual, Rectified Rite ritual, etc.). We wanted very much to use Emulation ritual. In fact, we entertained the idea of passing legislation that would give us the kind of flexibility Masons have in the United Grand Lodge of England to use another set of rituals instead of the standard Preston-Webb formula that almost all U.S. lodges require. (That turned out to the one major disappointment we were unable to rise above.)

We agreed to meet quarterly, not monthly. We also informally agreed that we would deliberately not accept more than 36 members, because a man can't truly get to know and care about more than three dozen members or so. We felt that if we got that popular, the answer would be to spin off a "daughter lodge," not expand our own size. At the time, we set the most expensive dues in the state, and numerous predictions of our eminent demise were commonly expressed by naysayers. Nevertheless, when we circulated the word about what we were proposing, twenty-three brethren eagerly jumped on board:

· W. Bro. Dale Adams, Mt. Moriah Lodge No. 77 (*)

· Bro. Wallace K. Aiken III, Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643

· W. Bro. William K. Bissey, North Park Lodge No. 646

· W. Bro. David Bosworth, PM, Calvin W. Prather Lodge No. 717 

· W. Bro. Nathan C. Brindle, PM, Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643

· W. Bro. Jerry T. Cowley, PM, Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643

· W. Bro. Howard A. Farrand, Centennial Lodge No. 541

· W. Bro. James Guffey, PM, Millersville Lodge No. 126 

· W. Bro. Christopher L. Hodapp, PM, Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643

· W. Bro. Michael W. Klepper, PM, Morristown Lodge No. 193

· W. Bro. Rodney A. Mann, PM, Farmers Lodge No. 147, Current Grand Master of Indiana (2017-2018)

· W. Bro. Jeffrey D. Naylor, PM, Losantville Lodge No. 674 (*)

· W. Bro. Irwin H. Sacks, PM, Monument Lodge No. 657

· Bro. Travis G. Sandifur, Monroe Lodge No. 23

· W. Bro. Eric T. Schmitz, PM, Monroe Lodge No. 23

· W. Bro. Edward R. Smith, PM, Spencer Lodge No. 95(*)

· W. Bro. John B. Stevens, PM, Grant Lodge No. 637

· W. Bro. W. Keith Stiner, PM, Quincy Lodge No. 230 (*)

· Bro. Louis P. Tompkins, Monroe Lodge No. 22

· M.W. Bro. Roger S. VanGorden, Grand Master of Indiana (2001-2002)

· Bro. Jack D. Weagley, McCulloch Lodge No. 737

· W. Bro. Roderick V. Welker, PM, Jonesboro Lodge No. 109

· W. Bro. Cleon H. Wright, PM, Eureka Lodge No. 397

(*) Past Master of Vitruvian

All of our members at the time communicated electronically - unheard of then. We also regularly had a 90+% participation rate among all of our members - also unheard of. And when we strolled into a local restaurant for our festive boards in our tuxedos - a supremely unusual scene in America anymore, outside of a wedding reception - we actually turned heads, and attracted questions from other diners merely because of the group of Masons they saw. 

Vitruvian's first festive board 5/21/2002 at the
Corner Wine Bar's private dining room in Broad Ripple

Founding Worshipful Master Jeffrey Naylor
addresses the  brethren

Is that "shallow?" Maybe. 

"Elitist" looking? Possibly. 

Putting forth a public image of the fraternity as the world's premiere society of gentlemen? You betcha. We still do today.

Sadly, some grand lodge jurisdictions have actually banned anything remotely looking or sounding like what are now being generally branded as "observant" styled lodges, under a mistaken and unfounded fear that we are practicing something odd, foreign, elitist, spooky, or even antithetical to the equality of Freemasonry's basic tenets. That is a shame. Those of us who are members of these lodges or just visit them know that nothing could be further from the truth. 

Twenty years after we started, there are about 70 lodges similar to Vitruvian around the U.S. and Canada - a lot maybe, but not an overwhelming flood of acceptance - though Indiana has another one now, with Crowned Martyrs Lodge 771. And long-established Pentalpha Lodge 564 in Indianapolis (chartered in 1881) has been transforming itself to an observant style lodge over the last couple of years. 

No other lodge or grand lodge has anything to fear from these observant-styled lodges. None of us actually proclaim (or we shouldn't be, anyway) that anyone else is practicing Freemasonry incorrectly, nor that we have some higher moral ground and that only we are "doing it right" Observant lodges have not taken the Masonic world by storm, nor are they some silver bullet that will magically save the fraternity from plummeting membership numbers each year. But they have become a home to numerous Freemasons who might otherwise have left the fraternity because their longing for a more affecting personal and intellectually stimulating lodge experience was not being fulfilled.

For two decades we've been proud to host many of the top Masonic authors and speakers in the country, kicking off our first year with Dr. S. Brent Morris, longtime editor of the The Scottish Rite Journal and Heredom. Others have included: Robert G. Davis, PGM of the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma and author of The Masons Words; Chuck Dunning from Ohio, author of Contemplative Masonry; John Bizzack from Lexington Lodge 1 in Kentucky and author of Island Freemasonry; Arturo DeHoyas, grand archivist of the Scottish Rite SJ; Oscar Alleyne from the grand Lodge of New York; Andrew Hammer, author of Observing the Craft; Joseph Wäges, author and editor of The Secret School of Wisdom; Shawn Eyer, editor of The Philalethes magazine; Mark Tabbert, author of A Deserving Brother; and many, many more. They are on top of our own members whose works are admired throughout the fraternity. 

Vitruvians haven't been slouches over the years. The creation of the Masonic Society was spearheaded by several of Vitruvian's founding members: Roger Van Gorden, James Dillman, Kenneth Davis (who all served as early presidents of the Society), Nathan Brindle, founding and current Secretary; and myself, who was the founding editor of the Society's Journal.

The result is that we actually look forward to Vitruvian's lodge night, enjoy our meetings and Festive Boards, learn something new each time, linger late into each evening, and are truly "happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again." I'll take that to be a good development, and one I encourage every lodge to emulate, no matter how they choose to accomplish it.

Today, Vitruvian has more members than we started with, and demits have been rare for the last eight or ten years now. We've had our ups and downs, our family fights, and other challenges. But we solved them as men and Masons should. We still have not bumped up against our limit of 36 members, although we've come close a few times over the years. That's okay, because what is more gratifying is that we regularly have handfuls of visitors from across Indiana, other states, and even international visitors who are eager to see what we are doing differently. They return to their own lodges and argue for their officers to adopt some of our practices because they've seen how successful we have been and how much they actually enjoyed a stated meeting, maybe for the first time in their Masonic lives.

Perhaps that is the most satisfying aspect of Vitruvian's model in these 20 years in Indiana. Maybe we haven't turned the whole U.S. Masonic culture on its ear, or solved every issue. But we are influencing the leaders of tomorrow to go home and make their own lodges the very best they can be, following whatever path that leads them. By doing so, a rising tide raises all boats - or lodges, as the case may be. And that is a success to which our little lodge has happily contributed.

Vancouver: Man Charged With Arson In Connection With Fires Set At Masonic Halls

The smoke from a burning Masonic hall casts a sickening pall
over the Vancouver skyline early Tuesday morning.
Photo from the LG Bridge by  Northvan_Dan on Twitter.

by Christopher Hodapp

The Global News website is reporting this afternoon that 42-year-old Benjamin Orion Carlson Kohlman has officially been charged with three offenses connected with a fire set at the Park Masonic Hall in northeastern Vancouver yesterday. He is charged with arson, assault of a peace officer, and failing to stop for a peace officer. The Park Masonic Hall was the last of three Masonic lodges that were deliberately set ablaze on Tuesday morning over a 45-minute period in the northern suburbs of Vancouver.

Further charges have not been yet been made concerning the first two blazes set at Lynn Valley and Lonsdale. In a statement, Vancouver Police said they expect to recommend further charges in those two prior cases. But based on clear video evidence of Kohlman at the scene of the third fire, police were able to quickly assign charges against him. He was arrested at about 10 a.m. a few miles away in the community of Burnaby after fighting an officer who had attempted to arrest him at the scene.

From the police report on the Vancouver Police Department website,

“The two arsons that occurred in North Vancouver yesterday are still under investigation,” says Constable Tania Visintin, VPD. “We anticipate recommending more charges to Crown counsel in the coming weeks related to the North Vancouver files.”

Kohlman remains in custody until his next court appearance.

Kohlman was recorded on video yesterday morning walking away from the Masonic hall as a fire began to burn in the background. He was seen carrying a jerry can used for transporting gasoline and walking toward his minivan. As two witnesses watched and recorded him, he was confronted by an off-duty police officer who attempted to arrest him. A fight ensued, he knocked the officer to the ground, and took off in his van. He was caught about 90 minutes later, based on the officer's description of Kohlman, his minivan, and license plate number.

Police still have not released any sort of information regarding Kohlman's motives. But reporter Lindsay William-Ross on the Vancouver Is Awesome website discovered and posted a Facebook boast from a 'Ben Kohlman' of Vancouver at 8:07 a.m. Tuesday, bragging that he had "just cleaned three Satanic club houses, and nobody could stop me." 

Provided this is authentically the suspect's Facebook account (always a question these days), his home page is loaded with conspiracy theories, mind control paranoia, and anti-Masonic sentiments.

To wit: From the Vancouver Is Awesome story by Lindsay William-Ross, quoting Ben Kohlman's Facebook page:

"I'll bet the real Bible is hidden in the Vatican Library and the Bibles we see are corrupted," reads a post from early in the morning of March 30.

Kohlman also espouses anti-vaccination beliefs and theories.

"The radio said that they can vaccinate 33 000 per day. The 33 means it's a Freemason conspiracy. I bet those things are full of nano tech to spy on the whole world," reads a post from Jan. 8 of this year.

Several of his posts are about freemasonry. "2019 Documentary on Freemasonry has been scrubbed from the internet along with most of other truth videos," he shared in December 2020.

Also in December, he posted about distrusting the media: "We should just stop denying ourselves and admit that Satanic secret societies control the news and lie every day. I mean it's obvious throughout Hollywood and politics. The word government literally means mind controllers. If you would just stop lying to yourself to make yourself feel better that this isn't actually happening then maybe we could do something about it. It is literally your fault that your children will be enslaved by technology because of your denial. Soon all money will be controlled by embedded microchips and the ability to purchase will be controlled by the Mind controllers who gradually strip you of all rights including international travel and recreational activities after work. We are good for building infrastructure and maintenance to them, that is all. Shut the news off, take your head out and look around. This is not because the government, the Rothchilds, Rockefellers, royals, and the like care about our well being. I know this falls on deaf ears but I have to say it anyways just in case some have the ability to reason. (Facepalm) It's hopeless!"

No one has mentioned this out loud as far as I know, but the [alleged] arsonist struck first in the northwest part of Vancouver, then hit a second temple in the northwest, moved eastward for the third fire, and when he was finally found and arrested, he was driving in Burnaby, which happens to be the community in which the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon offices are located. That may or may not be coincidental. The story is still young at this point. 

(For the sake of transparency, I have been the 'Grand Representative of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon near Indiana' for many years.)

Not just Masonic lodges were the victims of these fires. In a Facebook post last night, brother Mike Bayrak gave a thumbnail list of the many Masonic-related appendant groups now currently made homeless by the attacks. 

(Photo: Nick Procaylo)

The Lynn Valley Hall (photo) was home to three different lodges. The Lonsdale hall hosted three lodges, plus the York Rite Chapter, Council and Commandery, a York Rite Sovereign College, and an Order of the Eastern Star chapter. They had businesses renting their ground floor that are also destroyed. Their 110-year-old building is a total loss and was demolished after the fire was put out. 

Mike couldn't readily quickly recall specifics of who all met at the Park Lodge Hall, but did say that the only Prince Hall Masonic lodge in British Columbia also called it their home. There are two other lodges and a Royal Arch chapter there.

Buildings can be replaced, but priceless history, records, and objects cannot. This year, the Grand Lodge of British Columbia & Yukon is currently celebrating its 150-year anniversary of its founding. This dreadful event casts a pall over that celebration now.

But more important to all of us is that Masons everywhere need to be vigilant when encountering rabid anti-Masons online, or in person. Certainly, 99.8% of conspiracists are cranks or at least harmless nutters who would never actually follow through on threats. But that .02% who truly believe we are a global crime syndicate that brainwashes and microchips the population as we prep for world takeover can turn into seriously dangerous people.

Hurricane Laura Wrecks Vinton, Louisiana Lodge

by Christopher Hodapp

The brethren of Vinton Lodge 364 in Vinton, Louisiana report that their building was severely damaged by Hurricane Laura last night when the storm made landfall just after midnight.

Vinton is located about thirty miles northeast of Port Arthur, Texas, just north of the Gulf coast, and the town suffered major damage. 

The lodge room was recently remodeled. This 'before' photo shows its former appearence.

Vinton's members had just put the finishing touches on their meeting room this summer.

The Vinton Lodge sits on the main street of town.

The brethren of Vinton Lodge had recently completely updated and remodeled their lodge room, and all of that work has now been destroyed. Fortunately, they are not reporting any injuries or loss of life to their members or families.

Hurricane Laura was a Category 4 storm, with winds of 150 miles per hour, and over half a million residents in Texas and Louisiana were under mandatory evacuation orders before the storm hit. The hurricane brought catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds and flash flooding to portions of Louisiana, killing at least one person. The storm weakened rapidly as it moved through the state Thursday morning after landfall, downing trees and power lines, and knocking out power to more than 415,000 people.

Rising Farmer Suicides: Are These Your Brethren?

by Christopher Hodapp

Are you a member of a rural American Masonic lodge? A recent in-depth USA TODAY report has highlighted an alarming topic that may unexpectedly touch some us directly in our lodges, even if you're not aware of it. 

Nationally, suicide rates among men are already higher than they've been in thirty years, especially among the middle class. But the farmer suicide rate is even higher. Between 2014 and 2018, more than 450 farmers killed themselves across nine Midwestern states alone, according to data collected by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. The real total is probably higher because not every state provided suicide data for every year, and some redacted some of theirs. Most of the affected farmers are between 40 and 70, and many of them may be our own lodge members.

According to a January study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide, compared with other occupations. The study also found that farmers' suicide rates overall had increased by 40% in less than two decades, and it's doubtless even higher, since deaths might be mis-classified as farm-related accidents. 

This isn't just "somebody else's" problem to deal with. Rural Masonic lodges are usually much more closely connected to their communities than urban ones. But rural lodges have been closing left and right for four decades now, and the remaining ones are farther and farther away from even their active members.

Nobody is telling you on the 24 hour news networks, but U.S. farmers are saddled with near-record debt, declaring bankruptcy at rising rates and selling off their farms in the midst of a turbulent market, caused by everything from shifting weather patterns and wildly fluctuating crop prices, to tariffs and bailouts connected to the current trade wars. Phone calls to Farm Aid's crisis hotline that formed back in the 1980s to deal with then-record farm failures have soared — more than a thousand people dialed the hotline in 2018 alone. But, feeling isolated and with limited access to mental-health care, hundreds are dying by suicide. In 2008, Congress approved the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network Act to provide behavioral health programs to agricultural workers via grants to states. Yet they appropriated no money for the legislation until last year — after more than a full decade and hundreds of farmer suicides. 

Back in the Olden Days (by which I mean 1998), the New Radicals sang, "You get what you give." Up until the 1910s, Masons understood this. Lodges actually cared for their brethren, their widows and orphans. Not through industrial-sized charities or retirement homes, but by actually doing the legwork (before telephones existed) and checking up on each other. 

My friend Roger VanGorden has always said, "All Freemasonry is local," and that really used to be the case. Lodges were local in every sense of the word, since you were FORCED to belong to the lodge physically closest to you. You went to lodge with your neighbors, the guys you walked to the local factory with, the guys in your surrounding farms, the guys who ran the shops you went to every day. Being forced to belong to that lodge only, you were also FORCED to all get along with each other, in spite of your differences outside. That was always the whole point behind Freemasonry to begin with - to cement friendships among men whom otherwise never would have spoken to each other. Lodges were small, usually under 50 members, and you knew every one of them. (Look up "Dunbar numbers" about optimal group sizes sometime)

After the 1920s, grand lodges began grading and ranking lodges based, not on their care of their members, but on scoresheets for ritual proficiency and bookkeeping. You get what you give. We got perfect ritualists and some fine looking cashbooks and ledger sheets. But personal care and contact among all brethren dropped off as the major charities grew. Lodges swelled in size (some well over 1,000 by the 1950s), and men stopped showing up for meetings. Charity stopped being about checking on each other and actually caring for our brothers and families, and became just another line on a grand lodge scoresheet, a box to be ticked on the official grand lodge donation form, and a bigger check to be written. And then those enforced territorial rules were largely dropped, too, so a man could join anywhere he wanted. And members became strangers, not neighbors.

Smaller, more isolated country lodges in very small towns or wide spots in the county road are frequently still operating under the old model, but even they are susceptible to the pressures of the Modern Age: loneliness, isolation, lack of participation, Internet anti-social media, tinier (or nonexistent) young families to carry on traditions and businesses, extended family members who move farther and farther away, along with the devastating pressures of the farm industry. The creation of the FarmersOnly.com matchmaking service for farmers and country people didn't just grow out of thin air. This isn't just an economic issue. 

Devastating economic events on their own do not cause suicides, experts say, but they can be the last straw for someone already suffering from depression or under long-term stress. And almost as commonly, their wives buckle, too. No one really bothered to register the suicide rate among farmers' wives. Thousands of farmers have lost not just their livelihoods, but their longstanding family homesteads that often date back a century and more. Too many times, they feel ashamed by what they see as their own failure.

The article zeroed in on just farmers, but much of the psychology of it applies also to men who have lost their jobs or careers after decades of working. They feel that same kind of shame, as though they had the power to prevent it. Men have historically identified themselves and their very characters with their careers, especially when that career has dominated their lives for decades. For so many men, "you are what you do." This fact alone has been the greatest tragedy of the gutting of the American working middle-class over the last 40 years as high-paying manufacturing jobs were exported overseas. A generation later, the men who "learned to code" are pressured by cheaper immigrant labor or offshoring of computer work. You no longer have to be over 50 or 60 anymore to lose your lifelong career, "what you do," and "who you are." And the gig economy is no substitute for what used to be job security. Especially if you have to work two and three jobs to come close to what you earned before.

If Masons are to be relevant to our communities and society at large again, we need to look to the past to rediscover our future. If your lodge is in a rural area and you have farmers as members, go out and meet them, offer them a ride to lodge night, or buy them a cup of coffee and just listen to their life for a while. If he's a farmer, he's getting squeezed on all sides now, and no one is really shining a spotlight on their plight. While you're at it, ask about his neighbors. Those guys are in the same boat, and as a Mason, you  need to care about your whole community. Joining a lodge might be just what they need right now.

Likewise, if you are in a more urban setting or suburban location, you are still surrounded by Brother Masons who have suffered in silence from having their livelihoods cut out from under them.  Maybe retirement - forced or voluntary - is depressing the hell out of them. Maybe you joined your lodge long after anyone recalled their name, but they're still on the rolls. Maybe they stopped coming to lodge, or dropped their membership because they couldn't afford it anymore, and figured no one would miss them - and they didn't. 

Make it your job to miss them and find them again. You, not the Secretary. You're a Brother, too.

With the latest fiasco and hysteria over the coronavirus presently going on, isolation is being enforced by circumstances for the moment. Masonic lodges everywhere have been forced by grand lodges to shut down operations and gatherings in person until at least the end of April, but no one can predict the real end of it. Be damn sure that none of your members wind up as a tragic statistic in the coroner's office because their lodge Brothers couldn't be bothered to check on them. 

If that hasn't happened already. 

It's a crying shame that all U.S. Masonic jurisdictions don't uniformly require a 'closing charge' at the end of every meeting, because the most commonly found one around the country contains the most important message our fraternity is supposed to be teaching. Our Chain of Union is supposed to reach beyond just the eight guys at your stated meeting: 

"Let the world observe how Masons love one another. These generous principles are to extend further. Every human being has a claim upon your kind offices.Do good unto all. Recommend it more especially to the household of the faithful.

"By diligence in the duties of your respective callings; by liberal benevolence and diffusive charity; by constancy and fidelity in your friendships, discover the beneficial and happy effects of this ancient and honorable Institution..."

If all of us heard that every month and followed its admonition, we'd all be better men for it.