A Special Meeting

Just over a year ago several central Iowa Masons began a new venture. Specialis Procer Lodge was the idea of Kurt Hoffmann, Tim Bonney and myself. We had heard about a new type of Lodge where the Stated Meetings were not the most important part of the life of the Lodge. Actually I think that Kurt took off on the idea that I had when I said, "Sometimes I just want to go out to eat and sit with my Brothers and talk about Masonry. (That is Kurt on the left in the picture above.) I then told him a fun story about the "Secret Princes of the Hidden Temple" that some other Brothers and I had been going on about for many years. Kurt put the ideas together and along with the idea of an actual Lodge which would have an emphasis on education and learning.
Brother Tim Bonney, (on the left above) had recently moved here from Indiana and had been involved with Masons there and the Lodge Vitruvian which meets in Indianapolis on a quarterly basis so we involved him in our talks and we decided to go ahead and try to set something up. I contacted Grand Lodge to find out what the procedure would be and we developed a list of Brothers we thought might be interested in joining such a Lodge. Because of the nature of the Lodge we chose the name Specialis Procer which is supposed to mean Secret Princes according to an on-line translator which Kurt found. It could also mean Noble Friend and some other things. We liked it, held our meeting and invited others to join us. Iowa requires 15 in order to start a new Lodge. We found the Brothers and contacted the (then) Grand Master Don Mosier who worked with us along with Grand Secretary William Crawford and we were granted a Dispensation to work. Thus on July 7 of 2008 we became Specialis Procer Lodge Under Dispensation or S P U D as we lovingly refer to it. Tim Bonney was appointed the first Master of the Lodge, Kurt is Senior Warden and I am Secretary.

We have had a wonderful year. We raised Kurt's Brother (blood) as a courtesy for Gnemeth Lodge and also had a petitioner (and did all three degrees for him) and have seen several brothers affiliate with us including two Past Grand Masters. We have had short stated meetings which we hold only every other month and longer Festive Boards where we have a fine meal with wine and listen to a paper and have a discussion following. We publish our papers on a Blog called Scire Facias. We have had our own members present papers and one of the papers has been made into a book which you can purchase on Amazon. (A Chronology of Masonic Degrees.)

It turns out that one of my good friends from church here in Ames has a son who lived in Indiana and he just happened to be the Master this year of Lodge Vitruvian I invited him to come to Lodge with me when he was here as he was moving to New Mexico (I had met him several times and read his blogs. So it was a real treat to have him at one of our meetings to tell us about his experience as Master of Vitruvian.

But more than anything we have bonded into a very special group of Brothers. Last night was the last meeting of S P U D. We must (according to Grand Lodge Code) cease our Labors as of August 15 and then submit a report to Grand Lodge about our activities. In other words have we and can we do the work. We will then be assigned a number instead of the Under Dispensation and Become Specialis Procer Lodge No 678. (Grand Lodge already uses the number for their records.) We are looking forward to this event which will take place in September at Grand Lodge and then the Lodge will be constituted on September 25. It is very exciting to be a part of this.

The pictures above were taken by Brother Kevin Christians who is our Senior Steward. Brother Kevin is a wonderful Mason and friend and I am so glad that I have met him through Masonry. Kevin and I were talking about SPUD one day and we both agree that while we can't quite define it we both feel something extra special after we have been to Lodge at Specialis Procer.

Well that is the up-date on the meeting and the Lodge. The pictures below are some I took on the way down to Des Moines. Brother Craig (on the right in the picture above) and I like to drive down on the back roads. Some time ago my friend Bob took some pictures of lilies which he shared with us. I stopped by the place where he took them and snapped these photos of the gardens as they are now. My photos are more of the "drive by shooting" variety but you get a taste of what is there now. Enjoy. Thanks for stopping by. Hugs, j