90 min · about 6 sittings
Prepare for a Lodge office
We'll help you build the working knowledge an officer needs before installation. The room, the furniture, the jewels, the by-laws, and the Grand Lodge structure his Lodge sits inside.
Why this matters
Your Master taps your shoulder after a stated meeting. The Steward's line is open. You are flattered, you are nervous, and you are about to spend the next several years walking up the officer line one chair at a time. Every brother who took the same tap a year ago will tell you that the lecture material is the easy part. The hard part is the rest: the room, the furniture, the jewels, the by-laws your Lodge sits under, and the Grand Lodge structure on top of that. You have to know all of it without ever being formally taught most of it.
This goal walks the published officer knowledge in one path so you do not have to assemble it ad-hoc from late conversations and old proceedings. If you do this work before installation, you will arrive at your first stated meeting in office as a man who has read his own equipment; if you do it after, you will know what you needed before.
A brother considering an officer line, or already in one, is asked to know more than the lecture material the chair invites him to recite. He needs to know how the room is arranged, what the officers' jewels mean, what the charter is and what governs the by-laws on top of it, and where the Lodge sits in the Grand Lodge hierarchy. This goal collects the published chapters that cover all of that, drawn from Pound's Masonic Jurisprudence and the published Grand Lodge of New Mexico Code.
The path · practise in order
Start with "Form and Furniture of the Lodge" →- 1. BusinessForm and Furniture of the Lodge
Lodge form and furniture: the room itself.
- 2. BusinessLodge Furniture
Lodge furniture in detail: altar, pedestals, gavels.
- 3. The WorkOfficer Jewels
Officer jewels: the square, the level, the plumb, and the rest.
- 4. Community & CharityInstallation of Officers
Installation of officers: the published public ceremony you'll be in.
- 5. BusinessCharter and By-laws
Charter and by-laws: the legal ground every officer stands on.
- 6. BusinessGrand Lodge and Subordinate Lodge
Grand Lodge and subordinate Lodge: the structure your Lodge sits inside.
- 7. BusinessLandmarks, Constitutions, and the Grand Lodge
Landmarks and Grand Lodge: the principles a Lodge cannot legislate around.
What if (after you finish the path)
Reflective prompts
- Pick the chair you are heading to first (Steward, Deacon, Marshal). Which of the seven chapters here speaks most directly to its specific published duties? That is where you start re-reading.
- Ask your Lodge Secretary for a copy of your by-laws. Read them once after this goal is complete. The published rules become readable in a way they would not have been before.
Where to go next
- Learn the rules for the ballot
The ballot is one of the published procedures every officer will preside over.
- Installation of Officers
Installation of Officers. The published ceremony you will go through.
- The Grand Lodge of New Mexico
The Grand Lodge of New Mexico. The body your office answers to.
Make it stick
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