Ashlar Lodge No.28 G.R.A A.F & A.M.
330 - 12th Avenue SW T2R 0H2 Calgary, AB, Canada

In honor of International Clown Week, we’re taking you back behind the scenes of the Shiners Clown Competition from this year’s Imperial Session in Nashville.

This is a look inside the Freemasons' oldest Grand Lodge.

* Monumental Error * In a post yesterday Brother Arturo de Hoyos noted that the Albert Pike statue in Washington, DC, is a monument to him as a man, a Freemason..., a poet, and an attorney who was an advocate for Native America rights. The statue has *nothing* to do with the Civil War, and it is only adorned by the banner of the Supreme Council -- not a Confederate flag. Because facts and context don't matter to some people, Brother Arturo's post received several responses which recast the statue _as_ a Confederate monument. Other responses attempted to lure readers into confrontation by innuendo. Implying a "zero-tolerance" policy to anything remotely connected to the Confederacy, they cry for the destruction or removal of all public artifacts. As Brother Arturo noted, Pike was briefly a Confederate officer, as were many other Americans. He resigned his commission and returned to private life. Following the Civil War he returned to the Union, with other former Confederates. As a quiet and peaceable citizen his later works have continued to inspire many people to do good. Similarly, other former Confederates also returned to private life, with some becoming politicians, congressmen, senators, governors, mayors, etc., who have been honored by statues, monuments, and paintings, which continue to adorn our buildings and parks. Pike, like many of us, was a complex person. His experiences in the Civil War were, relatively speaking, perhaps a few feet of footage in the full-length feature of his life. Who among you would like to be forever judged by the worst act or poorest choice of your life? In Freemasonry we state that we "rough ashlars" -- stones which are gradually improved by repeated blows of the chisel, until we become "smooth" or "perfect ashlars" -- a stone fit for a building. Because we are capable of self-improvement, should we not rather see in this _Masonic monument_ a person who dedicated the remainder of his life to the notion of fraternity and self-improvement?