My Lodge, Pride of Mt. Pisgah #135, Dallas, Texas prefers to do its charitable/community outreach with programs that takes them directly to the people to actually perform a service or provide relief in some manner to those in their own community who they can meet face to face. In other words we are not big on Institutionalized Charity nor do we desire to turn Freemasonry into a Service Club. As Masons we are called to help those in need if within the length of our cable tow. But my Lodge wants a direct connect with those who they aid.
Thus we do Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets which we present directly to the people who are receiving them. Our latest venture is involvement in the Keep Dallas Beautiful program sponsored by the City of Dallas, whereby we enter a section or area of the community and clean up, fix & repair and make attractive areas of the community as well as individual private property. Last Saturday was our second work day in the community which we have now adopted. Past Master LaGrone explains the program and what we accomplished in more detail.
“On September 26th along with the Keep Dallas Beautiful program the Pride of Mount Pisgah #135 P.H.A. successfully completed phase one for our adopted community, Cedar Oaks. When I first brought this idea to the lodge to increase our community service and visibility, we unanimously voted to participate in 4 events throughout the year to help communities identified as needing assistance. We later voted to adopt Cedar Oaks as our own and in the past have picked up trash and last week painted a retaining wall.”
“The Cedar Oaks community was phase one of the pilot program of Keep Dallas Beautiful (KDB). As KDB is a city funded program, each year the city of Dallas moves to a new phase and adopts new communities while dropping the communities from the existing year after providing a year of support. Speaking with W.M. Williams the decision has been made to continue to support Cedar Oaks as a community providing whatever assistance we can within the length of our cable tow. “
“I wanted to thanks all the brothers that have participated and wished to participate as well as our W.M. for his commitment to the community.”
Memo
To: Fran Phillips, President, KDB, Jim Hobbs, KDB
From: Joy McBeth, Community Projects Manager, VCNT
CC: Dan Fitzgerald, Chief Financial Officer, VCNT
Shari Hicks, City of Dallas
Date: September 28, 2009
Re: Pride in Your Neighborhood Cedar Oaks Beautification Event
Event Date: Saturday, September 26, 2009
Event Time: 8am – 12 noon
Total Attendees: 19
KDB Board Members: 1
(External) Volunteers: 7
City Employees: —
VCNT Staff: 1
Residents: 10
In-kind donations: Water, Gatorade
Total Expenses: $17.72
Overview:
The residents of Cedar Oaks and volunteers from the Mt. Pisgah Masons group were involved in a neighborhood beautification project this past weekend. Mr. Taylor, HOA leader, identified a retaining wall at the entrance of the community on Marsalis Ave. that needed re-painting. Residents and volunteers painted over graffiti as they gave the wall a fresh coat of paint.
Next Steps:
Cedar Oaks has completed its second beautification event and is now ready to begin the home improvement incentive. We plan to conduct site visits and begin the work this week.
Grand Lodge of Colorado Masonic membership:
Informational Content:
, Freemasons were well versed to talk about the founding fathers and the Knights Templar. With the lost symbol, lodges and individual Masons need to be just as prepared to talk about 
when he quoted “To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books.” Brown circumvented the patriotic picture of Washington (the man) and went directly to the post war enlightenment that tapped into the ideas of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis and 
’s deism (all faiths beginning at one source).
has artfully woven an update of an ancient parable into a modern suspense novel that features prominently the one group that should be most apt to see the connection, the Freemasons. Freemasonry, a fraternity “veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols”, is central to the plot under pinning’s, but by its end, merely the back drop by which the modern parable is played out.
is a prime example, the telling of the story of the Christ, but not as a divine emanation of God, but rather a mortal man who walked the earth like the rest of us. Brown’s novel was a work of fiction then, just as it is now with his release of the 
, as in the unfolding pages, the actions and activities seem to be bullet points on a map of D.C. rather than more well thought out (or conceived) stages. It seems most of Langdon’s ah-ha moments happen in the less important rooms of these Washington landmarks. Sub sub basements, kitchens, and church offices hardly seem as sexy as the Vatican library, but their mundane setting is really the same places all of us have time to reflect and think in our day to day life. This secondary settings may be a clever illusion to the importance of the idea of discover of the inner sanctum to which we each must travel for our own discoveries, but again, this is Dan brown, and he is writing about the allegorical and symbolic Masons, so you must treat the text with just as much symbolic verve. And brown’s use of these locations give clues to the broader idea of the story too, the chamber of reflection in the 
features large here, but not in a first person the reason de etre way, but in a “this is similar to this” allegorical way. Religious mysticism (of all religions) is really at the core of this new science, but besides being an early plot point and step stone to link Freemasonry, mysticism, and 
