The Four Cardinal Virtues In freemasonry we hear mention of the four cardinal virtues Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and Justice. These virtues we should study and apply in our lives, and it occurred to me that we hear the words and then forget to discover the meaning behind them. Prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by reason, which is most definitely a good lesson and one would think that the ability to distinguish between virtuous and vicious actions is one that we could all do well with, since we most definitely would not want to have someone be vicious to them, without thinking they can easily behave like that…

Freemasons History in Kent This blog is a bit of self indulgence for me but also as general interest for many of my friends. Some great documents pertaining to events and people around the Hexagon Lodge 5380. I shall be adding further documents for Pentangle Mark Lodge and Dickens Lodge too.  

Freemasonry and what it means to me Freemasonry means a couple of things to me. It means a place to go, for a semblance of normality and stability. A place of comfort and support that encourages learning and development. It means I have a group of friends that mean so much to me, they are happy to listen to my gripes (which number millions) and they are happy to give advice, help me out, cheer me up and take the mickey. So, my normal night for attendance at the masonic centre is a Thursday. That is my lodge’s night of either practice or meeting. Three nights in the month we…

WHAT MADE ME WANT TO BE A MASON Well the story of becoming a freemason is simple and complex all at the same time, and I am not really sure what happened. Firstly, I had been studying part time for eight years in civil and structural engineering and that had all come to a close, whilst I was married and had a family, there was a part of me that was not happy, you see I get bored quick, I can take on information and retain it, get to a level that I am happy with then get really very bored. So I had no studying, work was totally stultifying and within my…

BECOMING A JOINING MEMBER IN LODGE There I was successfully initiated into freemasonry, knowing that everything so far was all great and above board, then I needed to move far away from everything I had known for many years. I had chosen Coxheath, Maidstone as my base, because it was fairly near to my work. I knew of one mason in that area and I spoke to him, he immediately suggested I join his lodge and that is what I decided to do. But it was much more complicated than that, again I will not go into details, but until I became a full mason I could not easily move lodges. This meant that I just needed…

Masonry What Did I Get From It? Once my full acceptance had been given following a regular meeting, I was now a full member of the lodge and some of you will be asking, so what does that mean? As I said before this could mean a whole range of things but I shall just focus on me for now. Ritual Learning Friendship Evening out Charity Evening functions – variety Research History Structure So if you will permit me I will try and talk about these a little more, hopefully to pique your interest as a non mason. Ritual – each full, regular meeting consists of a ritual ceremony, do not…

Great Friends For Life Its funny who you think your friends are, dont you think? Masonry is very much like your regular life, you have good friends and bad guys who you love to gossip about, but what I have learnt through masonry is a better tolerance of people and their whims, faults and foibles. Compared to before masonry, my tolerance would have been a zero, I would have told them exactly how I felt and excluded them from my life, now I still say how I felt but underneath there is an attempt at understanding the differences and making an effort to understand for the benefit of everyone so that harmony…

IF YOU ARE THINKING THIS IS THE SECRETS YOU HAVE READ SO MUCH ABOUT THINK AGAIN! What is the format of a lodge night, I don’t know how it goes in your lodge but this is a typical sequence for me. We have meetings right through the whole year, with the business of the lodge being outside of the summer months. I always supposed this was to allow people chance to have holidays, or in olden days the complete reverse, so they could work more hours. Three meetings out of four are what we refer to as instruction nights. That is to say where we will learn the business of…

AS A NEW MASON THINK ABOUT VISITING If you are a mason, and you bother to talk to people who have been a mason for many years, try quizzing them about what is the best element of freemasonry to them. Right up there as a favourite is visiting other lodges. As a freemason, I believe you have a right to visit any Grand Lodge of England Lodge in the country or worldwide. I have found the distinction between visiting and being a guest to be very different. There are many ways to achieve either way but it is definitely something that you should do as soon as you are able.Visiting, obviously means turning up under…

Masonry Making You Better MAKING YOU A BETTER PERSON THROUGH MASONRY The question today on my lips is does the ritual ceremony in masonry make you a better person? Repeatedly doing ritual based on biblical events, designed to make you a morally better person. Learning the ritual is one of the harder things to do in masonry along with public speaking. I have to answer in the negative, I do not think this is the thing that will ease you along the path of masonic enlightenment. If it were the case then some of the very senior masons at lodge level would be great people but quite often it is not the case. I say…