April 2021 Trestle Board
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APRIL 2021 TRESTLE BOARD Canaveral Lodge No. 339 F&AM Chartered April 19, 1962 A.D. Lodge Mailing Address: PO Box 3320339 Cocoa Beach, FL 32932 Lodge Meeting Location: 149 S. Orlando Ave. Cocoa Beach, FL 32932 Phone: (321) 328-7326 Web: www.canaverallodge.org LODGE OFFICERS 2021 From the East Worshipful Master - Darrell Schmitt Brothers, 321-543-6485 I hope all is well and that everyone is doing well. Another month Senior Warden - Billy Zielinski has gone by, and we have been hard at work here at the lodge 321-604-6516 making new Fellow Craft Masons. I want to congratulate Matt Junior Warden - Todd Forschino Cognac and Greg Silvers on being passed to Fellow Craft. We 321-591-6953 also have a new candidate waiting to be initiated into the EA Senior Deacon - Robert Wicker Degree. 321-614-5414 Junior Deacon - TBA In the coming months, we will be doing some fun things throughout the district and would encourage everyone to please try and attend Senior Steward - Francis Vengren these events to help support the craft. If anyone wants to help in 863-224-6019 any way, please call, come by, lend a hand, or stop in to say hello to Junior Steward - John Johanson us as we work on these projects. Chaplain - Mike Swanberg 206- 372- 1866 I hope to have a few more guest speakers come into the lodge. If you have any suggestions of topics or speakers, please let me know. Treasurer - John Tweedy 321-693-4197 I will leave you with this little saying: Secretary - Ricky Jones 321-795-5036 Did you ever notice that when you put the 2 words “THE” and “IRS” together it spells Theirs?” Marshal - Peter Hutchins Tyler - Cliff Schmitt Fraternally, 321-543-6794 Worshipful Master: Darrell Schmitt From the West From the South Brethren, Brethren, I hope you’re all doing well, Soon we will be having an EA Our Quarterly Charity is up for and I have been missing your degree and possibly a Master discussion at our next Stated fellowship in the lodge. It is Mason degree. If you are Communication meeting. Be nice to see some brothers willing to support us in any thinking about some out of local starting to show back up at role from degree team to charities in the Cocoa Beach/Cape our meetings. We all catechism instructor, please Canaveral area that we can bless. understand taking reach out to me. You can If you won't be able to make the precautions and staying safe. contact me at 321-604-6516 meeting, reach out to me with Thank you to everyone who or via email at your thoughts. My email is has helped make this degree [email protected] [email protected] or possible and the degree team call 331-591-6953 to take time away from your Happy Easter brothers! Just a reminder that dinners are busy schedules to practice. It Fraternally, back! I would love to see you join was a great degree, and it us as you feel comfortable; I am takes all of us to make this Senior Warden: Billy Zielinski taking every precaution to follow happen. the CDC guidelines while serving The brothers have begun food. their Fellow Craft catechism, and it is going well. We need Dinners will always take place at catechism instructors as we 6:30 PM before our Stated have many opportunities to Communication. I am asking for a give back to these brothers. donation of $8.00 for dinner unless we are having a special event night with a themed dinner, and we plan on doing so in 2021. If you can help with this, I would appreciate it. Fraternally, Junior Warden: Todd Forschino Masonic Education Submitted by Chaplain Mike Swanberg Masonic Trestle Board History It is a design board for Master Workman (Architect) to draw his plans and designs upon to give the workmen an outline of the work to be performed. In today's terms, we might call it a blueprint. It is one of the 3 Movable jewels. A trestle board is a framework consisting of (usually 3) vertical, slanted supports (or legs) with one or more horizontal crosspieces on which to hang or display an item. Today, it is better known as an "easel." Some jurisdictions around the world call it a tracing board. It would be somewhat of a "circular logic" task to argue the difference, as, while neither can be fully proven (in historical writings), the "Tracing board" may very well have preceded (come before) the use of the word "Trestleboard" because lodges in Europe (which pre-date American lodges) use the word "Tracing Board." Hiram's Tracing Board: Hiram Abif's tracing board is believed to have been made of wood, covered with a coating of wax. Each day he would draw his Master architect's measurements and symbols into the wax in order to instruct his Master Masons of the work that was to be accomplished. At the end of the day, he would simply scrape off the wax and pour a new layer of hot wax onto the board to ready it for the next day's work. Masonic Tracing Board: Much later, in the days where the lodge was held in secret areas and on hills and vales (valleys) once lodge was in session, the Tiler (or Tyler) would draw an oblong (rectangular) or oblong square depiction (image) into the dirt that represented the form of the lodge. Again, onto that tracing board was drawn the architect's plan...the working tools in the degree that was to be worked. Masonic Trestle Board: Through the years, the Masonic Tracing Board progressed to charcoal or chalk on the floor of taverns where lodges were held back in the 1700s. After the lecture, the Stewards or the Entered Apprentice, as a lesson in secrecy, would get a mop and bucket and remove all traces of these drawings. This, obviously, was a somewhat tedious and messy procedure, so cloths or rugs were created which could be laid onto the floor and simply folded up when the lecture was complete. Later, these cloths (or rugs) were placed on a table. As time passed, they were finally hung onto an easel...(a trestle board), much like a drawing board at a construction site where each workman could receive clear instruction as to what his specific participation entailed. When the team's work was completed, it was obvious that each Master Mason not only understood their specific part in the undertaking but how their part (no matter how small) contributed to the construction of the entire edifice (building). Masonic Education Continued Masonic Trestle Board History The meaning of the words "Nothing further remains to be done, according to ancient custom, except to disarrange our emblems" is a reference to the now antiquated use of these trestleboards (or tracing boards) during which the dirt on the ground was erased, or the chalk marks on the floor of these lodges were mopped or scrubbed, to leave no trace of the form of the Lodge or the contents drawn thereon. The reason why our lines of travel are at right angles within the lodge and thus the reason that we "square" the lodge is a "throwback" to the antiquity of the ritual. If the brethren were to walk atop the markings made in the dirt on hill and vale; atop the chalk on the floor of the taverns; or tread upon and thus soil the cloths or rugs used to provide the workings of that degree, the message of that lecture which was being worked could be partially or fully destroyed. Therefore, "Squaring the Lodge," in a semi-military-like precision, goes back many centuries as the means of preserving the ritual and the degrees being worked so as not to destroy the symbolism of their markings before their usefulness on that day has been completed. Is Freemasonry a difficult organization to join? It can be! This story gives one version: A man was checking in a hotel, and while at the registration desk, he noticed a group of men heading toward the function room. He said to the clerk, “who are those men?” She replied, “Oh they’re the Masons. They’re meeting in one of our function rooms until their new Lodge is finished.” He replied, “Oh yeah, the Masons! Isn’t that the group that’s so hard to get into?” She replied, “You don’t know the half of it! See that man with the sword? He’s been banging on that door for eight months and they haven’t let him in yet!” Written by MW. Allen Roberts Submitted by PM. Terry Lewis For the Good of the Order Congratulations to Br. Billy and Todd Again, congratulations to brothers Matt Cognac and Greg Silvers, from the 339. They, along with many who was passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on March 11, 2021, at other brothers from around Florida, Canaveral Lodge. Thank you to the degree team for all your hard were Knighted in the Knights Templar. work. Looking forward to upcoming degrees. We are proud of your continued studies and journey. — at Acacia Lodge No 163 F&AM Try and Find this egg within the trestle board and e-mail your answer to WM Darrell Schmitt. The first one with the correct answer will be announced at the next meeting, and in next month's Trestle Board. Each month we will have a new item to find within the Trestle board. Good luck to all.