Focus - June 2008

2008 Twain Award Reminder

The Masonic Information Center invites lodges to enter the 2008 Mark Twain Award for Excellence in Masonic Awareness competition!

Background

Following the publication of It’s about Time! Moving Masonry into the 21st Century, www.msana.com the Masonic Information Center (MIC) initiated the Twain Award to challenge Masons to take the concept of Masonry off the shelf and put the values of Masonry into action!

Goals

The Twain Award celebrates Masonic lodges that show exemplary work in planning, implementing, documenting, and reflecting upon how its members collectively enrich the fraternal experience that is uniquely Masonic.  Lodges’ work must demonstrate high energy, fresh enthusiasm, new creativity, and visible productivity in communicating a positive identity of Freemasonry within the lodge and throughout the greater community. 

Step 1

Lodge-based entrants need to send Twain Award Entry Forms of contact information to MIC.  The deadline to contact MIC confirming the lodge’s desire to participate in the 2008 Contest is extended to August 31, 2008.

Step 2

Go to www.msana.com and click on the left-hand link to the Mark Twain Award.  The link to download the Entry Form is in the left hand column.  Fax or mail the form with completed contact information to the MSANA office.

Step 3

Final submissions must clearly document the lodge’s work on Masonic Awareness over the course of twelve months from December 1, 2007 through November 31, 2008.  MSANA’s Website www.msana.com provides comprehensive information for submission content and formatting.  The submission deadline is December 1, 2008. 

Evaluation

Being a large or small lodge offers no advantage because the Award recognizes the lodge that builds on its own Masonic identity within context of the Craft’s proud history, traditions, and standards of excellence.  The Twain Award offers lodges the opportunity to compete with themselves not against other lodges; it supports and recognizes participation in Grand Lodge programs; and it challenges lodges to produce ideas that are unique to their lodges’ strengths and Masonic identity both within the lodge and throughout the larger community.

Winners

MIC’s Executive Secretary Richard Fletcher, PGM, (VT), will announce the 2008 Twain Award winners at the Grand Masters Conference in February of 2009.  Winning lodges will receive a custom designed acrylic award naming the lodge and year.  Additionally, MIC will send winning lodges original press releases for local publications and will place feature stories on the MSANA Website.

Enter today and Build Excellence into Masonic Awareness!

 

Bloodline

Controversial New Documentary Set to Ignite Da Vinci Code Controversy

LOS ANGELES, CA (March 14, 2008) – More than three years in the making, a new documentary that takes up where Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code left off, has uncovered some remarkable evidence that may prove that a Jesus Christ-Mary Magdalene bloodline did exist. The film, BLOODLINE, has been acquired by Cinema Libre Studio for worldwide distribution and will premiere theatrically in New York on May 9 and in Los Angeles on May 16.

The idea of this bloodline, first set out in the 1982 international bestseller, Holy Blood Holy Grail, has captivated the world. However until now, although many experts and amateurs alike have painstakingly explored the subject, none have produced new substantiation. “Filmmakers Bruce Burgess and René Barnett have turned up some fascinating findings and connections that will cause even the strongest skeptic to take notice,” says Philippe Diaz, Chairman of Cinema Libre Studio.

(Source: Cinema Libre Studio News Release)

The new documentary Bloodline will be released to theaters sometime after May 16, 2008. There are several oblique references to Freemasonry and, one in particular, that says in an interview with what is referred to as “an important Freemason in France,” (never named), the following statement:

“There are Masonic lodges with links to the Vatican and the CIA.”

There is also an implication that there is a connection between Freemasonry and the Priory of Sion. Apparently all of these “sinister” connections are meant to show that searching for evidence of the “Bloodline of Jesus” is very dangerous.

Based on what we have seen of the documentary it is an accumulation of “conspiracy theories” attempting to discredit Christianity and more especially the Catholic Church.

 

International Conference on the History of Freemasonry

Following the success of the first International Conference on the History of Freemasonry held in Edinburgh last year it has been decided that this should become a biennial event. The conference will again be held in Freemasons' Hall Edinburgh 29 – 31 May 2009 before possibly moving elsewhere. As you know, 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns the poet and Freemason.

ICHF is intended to bring together scholars from all over the world who are researching Freemasonry in many of its aspects (Music, Philosophy, Literature, The Enlightenment, Colonialism and the Western Esoteric Tradition are some diverse examples.)

Please note: all general inquiries to:

Conference Organiser,
Northern Networking Events,
1 Tennant Avenue, College Milton South,
East Kilbride, Glasgow, G74 5NA, Scotland, UK
T-+44(0)1355 244966 F: +44(0)1355 249959
E: ichf@glasconf.demon.co.uk