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January 17, 2025

Brethren and Friends,

Special Announcements

Freeze the Valuation of Your Home for Property Taxes - Did you know, if you are over 65 and your annual income is less than the HUD Medium Income ($86,600 in 2025), you can freeze the valuation of your home for property tax purposes? The value is frozen as of the date your application is approve. Deadline to file is March 15 of each year. Here is the website: https://assessor.tulsacounty.org/Exemption/SeniorFreeze You may file in person at the Tulsa Couty HQ, 5th floor, 218 W. Sixth St, Tulsa, OK 74119. By mail to John A. Wright, Tulsa County Assessor, Attn: Taxpayer Services, Tulsa County Headquarters, 5th floor, 218 W. Sixth St., Tulsa, OK 74119. You may also file at any of the sub-offices. The BA office is at 123 N. Main, St. between 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. See the website above for other local sub-offices.

Stardust!

Aren’t we lucky! We are literally made from the stars!

“We are made of stellar matter. We are made of the same matter as the stars, as the astronomer Harlow Shapley pointed out in 1929, in his article called ‘The stellar matter that man is’, published in the New York Times: ‘We are made of the same matter as the stars.

So, when we study astronomy, we are somehow investigating our remote ancestry and our place in the Universe of stellar matter.

Our own bodies are made up of the same chemical elements found in the most distant nebulae, and our activities are guided by the same universal rules.’”

From https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/article/202106a-masons-thought-about-death/

It’s easy in the everyday hustle and bustle to forget where we came from. Our mundane life can seem to close in on us. But we are born of stronger stuff. We would not be alive except for a giant red star that exploded in a distant galaxy.

The first law of Thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Our soul is energy. Does it not follow that our soul then is not destroyed? Does physics point to immortality?

Here is an interesting look the thought of passing on:

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed.

You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you.

And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.” From https://futurism.com/the-physics-of-death

We would not exist without the energy in the universe, which was created by an entity outside of time, space and matter. Some call that being The Great Architect of the Universe, Jehovah, or Yahweh. But those “names” are just descriptions of his character. We should be eternally grateful for the gift given to us and the energy used to create our soul.

Lord, open our minds to understand we were wonderfully made and will one day return to you. Amen.

A Word from our WM, W:. Nathan Dollarhide

Brethren,

Let me start by saying that I am humbled by the trust placed in me to be the Master of our lodge for the coming year. Attendance, participation, and financial stability are the top priorities for 2025. There are other things I would like to see happen, but I believe if we focus on those three the rest will fall into place. Attendance will drive participation, participation will drive financial stability and the fruit will be an active stable lodge for future generations to enjoy.

We have seen an uptick in attendance in recent weeks and months and it has been nice having some new faces, and some old, showing up to fellowship and attending some meetings or degrees. We would like to see the fellowship hall full for dinner and enough people in the meetings to make people uncomfortable because there aren’t enough seats to leave one open between each brother. We did a survey last year asking why people choose not to attend and one of the reasons was the length of the meeting. My personal goal this year is to try and limit business meetings to 1 hour max. This is not always possible, but I will do my best and if it is over, it will still be as short as possible. Everyone attending can also help by keeping discussions pithy and being respectful of the clock as well. Side note: we only hold business on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays, you can always come on an off night for dinner and fellowship, possibly some education or ritual practice. Just make sure you pay attention to the newsletter, lodge emails, and Facebook to be sure we are not meeting off site on an off night which is rare but does happen. I look forward to seeing many more of you and hopefully you can find a way to get involved as well.

A trend I have noticed since becoming a Mason and a member of our lodge is that when you volunteer or just attend any of our events, you tend to see the same faces repeatedly. One particularly upsetting thing I’ve noticed is the brethren voting for some event in lodge but then you don’t see them at said event. I have been guilty of this one, but I aim to improve or vote no when it comes up in lodge. If no one wants to do it but everyone votes yes, we are going to wear out the brothers that do show up every single time and that creates rifts and disharmony. On the other hand, if everyone opposed votes opposed and it passes or fails, both sides are happy, and no one can be upset with you for not showing up for something you didn’t want to do anyhow. With all that said, I would like to increase participation and encourage all of you to get involved. It doesn't have to be with everything but pick something. If you’re like me, even when you don’t want to go but do anyhow, you end up enjoying yourself and being glad you went.

Lastly, we must think about our financial stability. Currently, we are in a comfortable position, but we can’t allow ourselves to get comfortable. Those of us who have attended business meetings and have heard the treasurers report know the disturbing trend we are seeing. Every year the bills go up and dues receipts remain flat or worse, go down. This year it is my goal to only give money for charity or a cause if it can be raised by passing the hat or through a fundraising event. We cannot dip into the general fund for these things. That money is needed to keep the doors open, and we need to operate in the black. If we do not, we would have to dip into the building fund and with a building as old as hours, that is a non-starter. We have some ideas cooking for fundraisers and welcome ideas from anywhere. What I have noticed about our usual fundraising efforts is that we only appeal to other Masons and are just going to the same jar every time we need to raise money for something. The ideal fundraiser would be something that appeals to the public and where they would receive some type of benefit from it. John Q. Citizen does not care if we are able to pay our electric bill but might enjoy a cornhole tournament or want a chance to with a nice firearm. I believe this needs to be the focus of our fundraising efforts. For any fundraiser to be successful, however we will need participation, and you can’t participate in what you don’t know about, so we also need attendance.

I look forward to many successes this year and hopefully a couple of certificates and a trophy to cap it off at the end of the year. I hope to see many new faces and continue to see the old ones and end the year having spent less money than we brought in. We have a great group of men that show up week in and week out and together we can achieve everything laid out and more. Thanks for reading this far if you did and let’s have some fun this year!

Fraternally,

Nathan Dollarhide, Worshipful Master

Lodge Calendar

Jan 21 (Tuesday) – Stated Communication. Dinner at 6 pm. Lodge at 7 pm.

Jan 28 (Tuesday) – Dinner and fellowship at 6 pm . Note we are moving Masonic Birthdays to the first business meeting in February, Feb. 4th.

March 1 (Saturday) – Chili Cookoff – Fundraiser for Rainbow Girls Assembly #74. Starts at 11 am

March – Egg Scramble – Date to be determined.

April All Month - Fishing Tournament –Details to follow.

April 27 – (Saturday) – Master Builder School. 8 am. (It’s also my birthday, see me for a list of gift ideas. 😊)

May 15 (Thursday) – Sr. Deacon’s Night – Drillers Game - $40 per ticket. Limited seating so buy your tickets now. You may purchase tickets here: https://balodge243.square.site/ or send a check to the Lodge.

September - Fish Fry – Date to be determined.

Other Business

Please remember to pay your dues. 2025 Dues Notices are out. You can pay dues at https://balodge243.square.site/ . Or mail in your dues to 117 W. Commercial St., Broken Arrow, OK, 74012. Due date is Dec. 31.

For those who are behind in your dues, we do not want to be a financial hardship for you. We will work with you on staying in good standing, but you have to reach out to us. Please contact the lodge office at 918.251.9282 to make arrangements or email us at brokenarrowmasons@gmail.com .

Please note we are making every attempt to keep our meetings to one hour. However, if you attend and the meeting is going long, you can certainly excuse yourself from the meeting at any time.

As always, if you need a ride to/from any of these activities, please contact the lodge office at 918.251.9282.

Sincerely,

W:. Scott A. MacDonald, Treasurer and Membership Calling Chairman

PS – I will be posting the weekly newsletter on our website at https://ba-mason.org/newsletter .