By J. E. C. Rafisura — Master
Greetings, brethren! I hope all of you are in good health and enjoying warmer weather. I am writing this article in the pre-departure area of Manila International Airport waiting for my flight back home to sunny San Francisco. I would like to thank the officers and members of our lodge for taking care of lodge businesses while I was away. Thanks to technology, I was still able to manage to conduct an officers meeting via zoom and remotely coordinate some of the activities through emails and messenger.
While in the Philippines, I had the pleasure to extend fraternal greetings from our lodge to some of our brothers dispersed in that part of the globe. Also, I was honored to be invited by no less than the District Deputy Grand Master (DDGM), VW Rael Yap, to a third degree conferral of Seven Cardinal Virtues Lodge No. 390. As expected, their performance was nothing short of spectacular! (Costumes, sound effects, sideliner participation, slide shows during the lecture and so on.) Kudos to our brothers in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines! Masonry is indeed very much alive and vibrant in the Philippines. Sadly, I missed the Annual Communication of the Grand Lodge of the Philippines due to a very tight schedule prioritizing some family time.
Meanwhile, I am happy to hear that SW Andrew Hawes, as expected, did a very good job as he sat in the East and presided over the May Stated meeting. I heard an incident happened during the balloting but he and officers handled it gracefully. I am excited that we have favorably voted upon our newest candidates, Joshua Prichard and Brian Canton. I am looking forward to welcoming them to the Craft and seeing their progression.
At the moment, our Officer’s Coach and the members of the Third Degree Team are busy with ritual rehearsals to make sure we provide meaningful and quality degrees. As scheduled, we are looking into a Third Degree conferral in the months of June and July. One of which will be a traveling degree to the historic Mendocino Lodge. Please let us know if any of you would like to join the fun and adventure. Much appreciation to Wor. Brian Ross for coordinating and handling the logistics of this activity while I am away.
After these couple of “Thirds" (and possibly one more), we will be switching gears back to First Degree conferrals. All in all, we are expecting to raise at least 3 or more brothers and initiate 4 new EAs by the end of this year, not to mention some FC conferrals in between. Much work needs to be done to accommodate the progress of our lodge and the ascension of our brothers. Credits to all the officers, degree teams, working committees, candidate coaches, kitchen crew, youth groups and their adult leadership, who had been continuously laboring and collaborating with each other to make things happen.
We are indeed one Masonic Family working together harmoniously for the benefit of Masonry in general and Crow Canyon Lodge in particular. In doing so, we are also transforming ourselves to become better at working with and serving others - truly a masonic benefit to our own personal ascension to become better men, polishing that "rough ashlar”, little by little, chip by chip, day by day.
I look forward to seeing you soon!