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The Trestle Board

Smithfield Lodge #455 A.F. & A.M.

8013 Main Street, North Richland Hills, Texas

P. O. Box 821413, Fort Worth, Texas 76182

Lodge telephone number:   817.656.2311

Contact the Lodge on  Tuesday and Thursday evenings between 7 PM and 9 PM

                                      WEB ADDRESS: http://www.smithfieldlodge.com

January  2007

Webmaster Note: Portions have been edited from the printed version in order to conform to standard webpage design practices and grammatical/spelling errors corrected.

Smithfield Lodge would like to congratulate Most Worshipful

Donny Broughton in his recent installment as Grand Master of

the Grand Lodge of Texas.

Congratulations also to Right Worshipful Robert P. Holmes in his appointment as District Deputy Grand Master of District 64A

From the East       

Brethren,

Last year was a pretty good year for us. I want to thank everyone for having a great attitude and for participating in the many activities we have been engaged in. Recently, we have gained some high quality members. We started a Mentor program. We captured the Traveling Gavel – twice. We sponsored a successful blood drive. We are getting out and visiting other lodges as a group and as individuals. We even had eleven members attend Grand Lodge. We should receive the Lamar Award for Lodges for this year. We are operating exactly the way a Masonic Lodge ought to be.

Next year it should only get better!  Our new District Deputy Grand Master, Bob Holmes, will make an official visit on January the 4^th. Eventually a Lodge or two may come and try to get the Traveling Gavel from us. On February 10^th we will be having our Sweetheart dinner –RSVP. On February the 14^th we will have the Masonic Service Bureau as our guest. On March 1^st we have our annual Fish Fry. Rite Worshipful Elmer Murphy III will be our speaker. Then we will have a Golden Trowel and several service awards to awarded. There will be the Mother of all Garage Sales in April. And there is no telling what else may happen in the upcoming months.

Thank you all for your concern and support of Brother Matthew Wingate. He is still awaiting surgery in California. He still needs our prayers.

All of our officers are doing an outstanding job. We have come together like a family of friends and brothers who care about one another! I have noticed a wife or two in the mix when we invite them. There is nothing wrong about being passionate and enthusiastic about Freemasonry. It is making better men out of all of us. That affects those around us and the world.

  I hope everybody that can, will make an effort to attend our stated meetings on the first Thursday each month. Not everyone can or wants to be a regular and active member, but it would be nice if you could pop in once in a while just to say “Hi”.  Just once a month for two hours will keep you involved – time well spent.

Fraternally,
Herb Taylor
Worshipful Master

As others have probably pointed out, we have had a great year.  We have been blessed with a great Worshipful Master, Bro. Herb has come up with some good ideas and has motivated a lot of the members to get involved in numerous things.  He has accomplished quite a bit in his short 6 months, and I for one do not look forward to filling his shoes, if I am elected in June.  I remember before I became a member of Masonry, I worked with Bro. Herb for some 20 odd years.  I knew he was a man of character and he always strived to do the right thing by everyone.  When I heard that he was a Mason, I remembered my great-grand dad (who I was close to as a child) was also a Mason and a good man of character.  So, it was Bro. Herb that inspired me to join.  After seeing how excited I was about Masonry, another co-worker of ours also joined Masonry.  What I’m getting at, is that we should all practice being good men, ALL the time!  You never know who might be watching.

  As you will see in the Junior Warden’s article, he is still having to deal with some personal issues.  Bro. Walt’s wife was involved in a tragic auto accident a couple of years ago in which she nearly lost her life,  She has had some setbacks recently and Walt is doing his best to tend to her and keep up his work.  Please keep them in your prayers.

  For those of you that have not been to the Lodge in a while, we are re-doing the pictures of the Past Masters.  This was another project of Bro. Herb’s.  We are moving the frames up closer to the ceiling and adding a second row under that.  This should save wall space and give future Past Masters a place to hang their pictures.  In the process of doing this, we have found that some names were missing and some dates were wrong, but after many hours of research, we think everything should be straight now.

Hope to see you soon at a stated meeting.

Fraternally,

Rick Montey

Fraternally,

Walter Busch

Brethren,

As I was searching desperately for some kind of information that I could fit in this spot, my wife suggested that with the beginning of the new year, maybe I could find something about new beginnings.  “What do I know about new beginnings?”  I thought.  New beginnings are kind of like “Re-do’s” or “Do-overs”, it’s a fresh start, a rebirth if you will.  How can this be applied to Freemasonry?  Like the Entered Apprentice, who gets a new start on becoming a better man, we as Master Masons can use the start of a new year as a “Do-over” for the things we meant to do last year.  We could go to the Lodge a little more, or maybe you haven’t been in a while and you hear some changes have been made.  The new beginning could get you there at least once to check it out.  Maybe we could spend a little more time helping the Lodge help others.  Smithfield, like so many Lodges, never seems to have enough volunteers to help out.  We recently had a blood drive and a couple of brothers had to stand around for 8 hours because there weren’t enough volunteers to cover the shifts.  I often wonder why men join Masonry, if they don’t want to get involved.  Isn’t that part of why we join?

One of great things about new beginnings is that your past is just that…the past.  It isn’t held against you!

The few of us that do show up, want that missing Brother’s input so  much, we don’t care why you haven’t been coming, or what kept you away.  Just try being there one more time!  Have a great New Year and look for your new beginning.

The New Year has started. We hope to make it a good one at Smithfield. The Worshipful Master has made plans for a sweetheart banquet in February. This will help us honor our wives and girl friends. Make plans to attend.

  The Grand Lodge session was great. We had a good group present for the 64th district breakfast to honor the outgoing, and incoming, District Deputies. Thanks for the good job the outgoing deputies did, and we are looking forward to the new ones.

  We can now accept petitions from 18-year-old candidates. In fact we have already gotten one petition. I think that this can strengthen our membership. If they are old enough to serve in the military, they are old enough to be Masons.

   We will have our District Deputy, Rt. W. Robert Holmes at the January meeting, we are looking forward to his meeting with us officially. We will also have the Masonic Service Bureau meeting at our Lodge in February. Our own Ernest L. Runyon is presently the treasurer of this organization.

   Our dues are due on December the 31st. If you have not sent them in please do so, this helps the secretary keep the books straight.

  We spoke earlier of the Grand Lodge meeting, if you do not get the Texas Mason magazine call or write me, and we will send your address to the Grand Lodge requesting it be sent to you.

Fraternally Yours,

BR Campbell

Secretary

The acacia, which in Scripture, is always called Shittah, and in the plural Shittim, was esteemed a sacred wood among the Hebrews. It grew abundantly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, where it is still to be found, and is familiar in its modern use as the tree from which the gum arabic of commerce is derived. Of it Moses was ordered to make the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the table for the shewbread, and the rest of the sacred furniture.

The first thing, then, that we notice in this symbol of the acacia, is that it had been always consecrated from among the other trees of the forest by the sacred purposes to which it was devoted. By the Jew, the tree from whose wood the sanctuary of the tabernacle and the holy ark had been constructed would ever be viewed as more sacred than ordinary trees. The early Masons, therefore, very naturally appropriated this hallowed plant to the equally sacred purpose of a symbol which was to teach an important divine truth in all ages to come. :

The acacia, in the mythic system of Freemasonry; is preeminently the symbol of the immortality of the soul-that important doctrine which it is the great design of the institution to teach. As the evanescent nature of the flower, which "cometh forth and is cut down," reminds us of the transitory nature of human life, so the perpetual renovation of the evergreen plant, which uninterruptedly presents the appearance of youth and vigor, is aptly compared to that spiritual life in which the soul, freed from the corruptible body, shall enjoy an eternal spring and an immortal youth. Hence, in the impressive funeral service of our Order, it is said that "this evergreen is an emblem of our faith in the immortality of the soul. By this we are reminded that we have an immortal part within us, which shall survive the grave, and which shall never, never, never die." And again; in the closing sentences of the monitorial lecture of the third degree, the same sentiment is repeated, and we are told that by "the evergreen and the ever-living sprig" the Mason is strengthened "with confidence and composure to look forward to a blessed immortality." Such an interpretation of the symbol is an easy and a natural one; it suggests itself at once to the least reflective mind; and consequently, in some one form or another, is to be found existing in all ages and nations.