From the East
Matthew Mason - Worshipful Master
I am truly impressed by your attendance at the Annual Installation of Officers last month. It was a great event celebrating the entire Officer line of Washington Lodge No. 20.
Many Grand Lodge members were present as well, with Most Worshipful Sean Metroka (GM) being the Installing Officer, Worshipful Joseph Dongo (PM) in his now classic role as Master of Ceremonies, and Worshipful Scott Morrison (PM) as the Installing Chaplain. I am truly grateful for their contributions at the event.
Following the formal ceremonies, a cocktail reception was held in the Banquet Room. This was a great chance for Brothers to come together and have some pre-Christmas fellowship.
Now that we have passed through the holidays, we have entered the new year. Our first Stated Meeting is on January 4th with, dinner at 06:00 PM and business meeting (men)/wine sipping (ladies) at 07:30 PM.
Next month, please keep February 1st at 06:00 PM open for our Annual Roll Call Dinner, presented by Kitty and Worshipful Richard Wilson (PM). We will remember our lost Brethren, as well as welcome our newly raised Brother. This will happen during our normal Stated Meeting Dinner time.
Speaking of our Stated Meetings and dinners, please bring your families and spouses/partners. The theme of Building Better Men means the support of our families, and they are important to us and the Lodge.
After dinner, the Club Room will be open for the ladies and families to relax. I will bring a bottle of wine to relax with while chatting with each other, while we do our quick business meeting.
My goal is to have all the business done by 08:30 PM at each stated meeting, to make the night tolerable for all. I can’t promise that time frame for every month due to the amount of work needed to be done, but that is my true goal for each one.
I hope to see you in the lodge room and at dinner soon!
From the West
Joseph Wallach - Senior Warden
Greetings, Brethren.
Entering upon January, we are starting our Masonic Journey of light in 2024. The days are slowly
growing longer, allowing us to make better use of our time for our usual occupations, a Brother or for
Refreshment.
It’s easy to just see and feel light without much reflection on what is truly encompassed. Light can be on the surface level merely the illumination of the sun upon all things terrestrial. It’s also various waves, seen and unseen, that affect us in ways that we are unaware. It can also be knowledge that allows us to know oneself in a true and honest way and thus better understand our place in the world and among those around us.
There are many frequencies and wavelengths of light and all things physical and auditory can be
expressed as a frequency and wavelength as well, even masonry. As we come together to grow as men
personally and collectively as Freemasons, a parallel can be drawn between the two.
A single frequency and wavelength travels along a level of time with an amplitude above and below that line, but two frequencies and wavelengths traveling along that same level of time can become additive with an
amplitude greater than either one alone.
Masons are similar, one traveling alone can be good but many traveling together can be greater as a collective. The men in Masonry resonate with each other and come together to harmonize like a beautiful musical composition. I look forward to being among the harmony of my Brothers at this January’s Stated Meeting.
From the South
William Workman - Junior Warden
Greetings, Brethren.
I hope that his year finds you all in good health and good spirits, and that you too are looking forward to what aims to be a promising Masonic year for all of us in Washington Lodge No. 20.
"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." - Ben Franklin
“I see you are a Traveler.”
Have you seen someone with a shirt that has the compass and square with the word Traveler? What is that all about? If someone asks you if you are a traveler, how do you respond? Do you say “yes, form West to East?” Is this a test, a try? How about this one, “How old is your mother?” WTH? Are they looking for a fat lip or are they looking to strike up a brotherly conversation about Freemasonry. Of course, I respond with 20. (our lodge number) and yes, I am without a doubt a Traveler in every sense of the word. From East to West, West to East to infinity and beyond. To boldly go to “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.”
If you are like me, you have some type of bucket list for traveling. I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005 and was given a rather dire prognosis. A 50% chance to live for 5 years. Well, that was nearly 20 years ago, and my travel bucket lists are being checked off every year.
This traveling is rewarding and fulfilling, but it is the traveling in which I seek further Light in Freemasonry that affects me most profoundly. Like Robert Frost would say, the woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. So may it be said, that of my Travels I will speak, but the secrets I won’t leak, for I have further light to seek. Travel on my brothers.
The following and more come from this link:
Have you been asked if you are a ‘Traveling Man’ and wondered what was meant by the question? In the ancient European world of Operative Masons, the only people allowed to freely travel from town to town were Masons going to and from work sites. A Mason’s expertise in their craft would determine how often, how far, and how freely one was able to travel. In Speculative Masonry, Master Masons may freely move from Lodge to Lodge whether visiting or moving membership, upon proper avouchment, and/or by testing be found worthy to attend another Master Mason Lodge.
Today, being a ‘Traveling Man’ represents the journey from Darkness to Masonic Light. Remember the words, “It will be necessary for you to travel?” In Masonry we are told to seek the Light. Light in Masonry is knowledge and from that knowledge comes information and understanding. A Master Mason is taught to always seek more Light. The East is the where the sun comes up, hence the source of Light and the reasoning for the Worshipful Master sitting in the East. In turn, a Mason is denoted as a ‘Traveler’ while rising from West to East symbolically when rising in the Degrees. The ‘Traveling Man’ denotes the privileges awarded to a Master Mason and is a phrase that would be recognized by other Master Masons as a true solicitation of the Brotherhood to which they belong.
One of the oldest and most widely practiced customs and habits of Freemasons is to travel by visiting or affiliating with other Lodges. In the times of Operative Masonry, itinerant workers were often required to travel to renew their employment as each building project was completed.
This fluid nature of the Operative Masons led to the formation of trade societies, known as Lodges, to protect the professional integrity of their occupation, and to enhance the moral and social practices of their members.
The modes in which Masons are recognized originated in the Operative Period as a means of identifying the genuinely skilled craftsman who came to visit a Lodge in search of work. It is therefore reasonable to deduce visiting other Lodges is very old custom as many of the oldest Masonic manuscripts contain information associated with visiting, and the reception of visitors.
I SEE YOU'VE TRAVELED SOME
Wherever you may chance to be
Wherever you may roam,
Far away in foreign lands;
Or just at Home Sweet Home;
It always gives you pleasure,
it makes your heart strings hum
Just to hear the words of cheer,
"I see you've traveled some."
When you get a brother's greeting,
And he takes you by the hand,
It thrills you with a feeling
that you cannot understand,
You feel that bond of brotherhood
that tie that's sure to come
When you hear him say in a friendly way
"I see you've traveled some."
And if you are a stranger,
In strange lands all alone
If fate has left you stranded
Dead broke and far from home,
It thrills you--makes you numb,
When he says with a grip of fellowship,
"I see you've traveled some."
And when your final summons comes,
To take a last long trip,
Adorned with Lambskins Apron White
and gems of fellowship
The tiler at the Golden Gate,
With square and rule and plumb
Will size up your pin and say "Walk In",
"I see you've traveled some."
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
JANUARY
• 02 Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (Zoom) Tuesday 06:30 PM
• 04 Monthly Stated Meeting Dinner (Banquet Room) Thursday 06:00 PM
• 04 Monthly Stated Meeting (LR1) Thursday 07:30 PM
• 11 Officers' Meeting (Club Room) Thursday 06:30 PM
• 17 Officers' School of Instruction (LR3) Wednesday 07:00 PM
• 18 DARK Thursday
• 25 Inspector Reception Practice (LR1) Thursday 06:30 PM
• 30 Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (Zoom) Tuesday 06:30 PM
FEBRUARY
• 01 Roll Call Dinner (Banquet Room) Thursday 06:00 PM
• 01 Monthly Stated Meeting (LR1) Thursday 07:30 PM
• 08 Degree Practice (LR1) Thursday 06:30 PM
• 15 Degree Practice (LR1) Thursday 06:30 PM
• 21 Officers' School of Instruction (LR3) Wednesday 07:00 PM
• 22 DARK Thursday
• 29 Degree (LR1) Thursday 06:00 PM
JANUARY
BIRTHDAYS
-
01 David Freeman (Master Mason)
-
01 Scott Germer (Master Mason)
-
01 Anthony Ibarra Sr. (Entered Apprentice)
-
06 John Knox (Past Master)
-
07 Kyle Campbell (Master Mason)
-
08 Frederick Hardiman (Past Master)
-
12 Steven Anders (Master Mason)
-
14 Derek Waterman (Master Mason)
-
15 Jonathon Miller (Entered Apprentice)
-
17 Sonny Stormes (Past Master)
-
18 Michael Contreras (Master Mason)
-
23 Jerry Livingston-Joy (Master Mason)
-
26 D. Edward Entrican (Past Master)
-
31 Cornell Tindall (Entered Apprentice)
MASTER MASON ANNIVERSARIES
-
16 Alejandro Reynoso (10 Years)
-
19 William Cameron (12 Years)
-
22 Morrison England Jr. (13 Years)
-
22 Ian Solis-Jacques (09 Years)
-
25 Eric Hardiman (27 Years)
-
25 Wesley Jackson (06 Years)
-
30 Jonathan Brizuela (10 Years)
Washington Lodge No. 20 F. & A. M.
Mission Statement
To practice and promote a way of life that binds like-minded men in a worldwide
brotherhood that transcends all religious, ethnic, cultural, social and educational differences.
Through Masonic principles and tradition, and by the outward expression of these
through its fellowship and compassion, Washington Lodge No.20 Free & Accepted Masons provides ways in which to serve God, family, country, neighbors, and self in an environment that contributes to the enrichment and betterment of its members, mankind, and its communities.
Gold Dust and Trowels:
Nuggets of Freemasonry in the Gold Rush Days of California
by Granville Kimball Frisbie
"It has seemed to me most fitting that an attempt be made to develop a short excursion into the gold rush days when Masonry and Masons came to California in sufficient strength to form Masonic Lodges.
Their advent became important to the forward march of civilization as they exercise their ingrained habits of charity toward their own, or indeed, toward anyone whose fortunes had fallen upon evil times in a wild and unsettled country.
In preparing to write a popular paperback larded with pictures, I was struck by the great paucity of pictures currently available in the more than 60 Masonic Organization's homes that I knew were tucked away among the gold diggings, the mother lode towns, and the coastal cities, in which I have for more than forty years lived.
Hence this attempt to pique your interest, both Mason and non-Mason alike, with a brief recount of their beginnings and exploits." --- excerpt from the book's preface
ISBN-10 : 000 • ISBN-13 : 000 • ASIN : B000ITXOJ2
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Washington Lodge No. 20 F. & A. M.
2024 Officers
Matthew Mason
Worshipful Master
Joseph Wallach
Senior Warden
William Workman
Junior Warden
Eric Hixson (PM)
Treasurer
Francisco Marques (PM)
Secretary
Ramey Packer
Chaplain
Brandon Jenkins
Senior Deacon
Kevin Hall
Junior Deacon
Christopher Hamilton
Marshal
Patrick Fischer
Senior Steward
Nicholas Johnston
Junior Steward
James Dimmitt
Organist
Martin Buff
Tiler
Mauro Lara (PM)
Junior Past Master
D. Edward Entrican (PM)
Treasurer Emeritus
Jared Yoshiki (PM)
Officers' Coach
Joseph Dongo (PM)
Head Candidates' Coach
David Lagala (PM)
Inspector 414th Masonic District
Brandon Jenkins
Hall Association Board Director
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