Beginning of the year
The old has passed, the new has begun,
Good luck, good luck, in the New Year……………
Dear brother and friend of our St. John’s Lodge “Zum Widder”.
The Brotherhood and I send you and your family warm greetings from Berlin/Potsdam and wish you a peaceful and successful and especially a healthy New Year 2022 and a healthy, early reunion.
Let’s open a new book in 2022 with Theodor Fontane:
A new book – a new year, what will the days bring?
Will it be like it always was, half a failure, half a success?
I want to live until all this glow leaves behind a shining spark.
And not die away like the flame in the fireplace that has just sunk to ashes.
Especially in the past months and the past year,
characterized by worries about our health, our limited encounters with our families and
with our families and friends due to corona, as well as worries about
concern about how our work will continue in our everyday lives…I hope that in
the hardships will be less in 2022 and we will soon be able to work
be able to work masonically again soon. Until that time, our lodge will abide by
the instructions of the respective state government and our Grand Lodge
and will not carry out any ritual work via the Internet ect. This also applies to
Instruction lodges and virtual guest evenings.
It is important that we continue to maintain telephone contacts as well as
individual meetings between brothers within the framework of the legal regulations. We are all united by the need for deepening and for a community that is guided by positive values. This is about
a journey inwards, to myself, and a journey outwards, to the brothers and into the world.
Here are some thoughts for each of us:
Pay attention to your feelings, because they become thoughts.
Pay attention to your thoughts, because they become words.
Pay attention to your words, because they become actions.
Pay attention to your actions, because they become habits.
Pay attention to your habits, because they become your character.
Pay attention to your character, because it becomes your destiny.
With best regards
Your devoted brother
Ernst-Friedrich Fuchs
March
March 21, 2022 Guest evening in the lodge house of the National Mother Lodge 3 WK
| Thoughts are free, who can guess them, they flee past, like nocturnal shadows. No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them. It stays that way: Thoughts are free |
I think what I want, and what makes me happy, but everything in silence, and as it suits me. My wish and desire no one can deny, it remains so: thoughts are free. |
And if they lock me up in the dark dungeon, all these are purely vain works; for my thoughts tear down the barriers and walls in two: thoughts are free. |
For us, the guest evening is an important bridge between all brothers and interested parties who would like to see more than just the inside of the respective lodge. The brotherhood looks forward to meeting our guests. At one of our last candlelight evenings, the term “die Gedanken sind frei” (thoughts are free) was also mentioned, the lyrics of an old folk song; also a theme for our guest evening.
We look forward, in connection with the above-mentioned topic, to a lively discussion about the meaning of truth, goodness and necessity and free thoughts in our lives and today. I remain with best fraternal regards until our guest evening
April
April 19, 2022 Guest evening, St. John’s Lodge of Aries welcomes the Easter season.
When the Easter fox brought the eggs! It wasn’t always the Easter Bunny who brought the eggs at Easter: But the Easter Bunny replaced the Easter Fox…Until the middle of the 20th century, according to older literature, it was mainly the Easter Fox who was responsible for the eggs in Easter customs. This was then gradually replaced by the Easter bunny.
You can find out more at our guest evening, which focuses on the Easter season. April is the month of spring and Easter. Let’s welcome the spring and Easter season with good conversation.
Lectures on the Easter season will be given this time by Brothers of our Lodge. Our Chairman Master has planned a short talk on the Easter Fox! We believe that these lectures will lead to a lively discussion about the meaning of the not only Christian Easter time, in connection with truth, goodness, necessity and free thoughts in our lives and today; also in the relationship to Freemasonry.
Easter letter 2022
Dear brother and friend of our St. John’s Lodge “Zum Widder”.
The Brotherhood and I send you and your family warm greetings from Berlin/Potsdam and wish you a peaceful and relaxing Easter and a healthy and speedy reunion.
Especially in the past months and the past year, which has been characterized by concerns about our health, our limited encounters with our families and friends due to Corona, also by the concern about how to continue our work in our everyday life……. I hope that in this year 2022 the hardships will be less and that we will be able to work masonically again.
It is important that we continue to maintain telephone contact as well as individual meetings between brothers within the framework of the legal regulations. We are all united by the need for deepening and for a community that is guided by positive values. It is about a journey inwards, to myself, and a journey outwards, to the brothers and into the world.
Here are some thoughts for each of us: Less me, more we!
A little more joy
and less quarrelling.
A little more kindness
and less envy.
A little more truth
always
and more help in danger.
A little more YOU
and less ME.
A little more courage,
not so squeamish!
And a lot more flowers
during life,
because on the graves
“they” are in vain.
Mai
Pentecost greeting
Dear Brothers and Friends of St. John’s Lodge “Zum Widder” Potsdam.
After many weeks last year of abstinence from our Masonic work and our traditional guest evenings, we were able to resume our Masonic work this year. In addition to our Masonic work, it is important to us that all our sisters and brothers and their families and friends are “healthy”.
In the so-called Rose Month of June, we now celebrate the feast of the Holy Spirit “Pentecost”.
We wish you and your families a peaceful and restful Pentecost.
June
June vacation meeting
Dear guests and friends of our St. John’s Lodge, dear Brothers and Sisters,
Our St. John’s Lodge maintains the tradition of a barbecue evening for all brothers and sisters as well as guests of our lodge. Guests and brothers with their families obviously had and still have a lot of fun with new encounters and exchanges about very personal topics and experiences…. and this time under very special conditions for us Freemasons.
Family barbecue at Whitsun….with asparagus dinner galore
The catering department of the lodge invited us to this barbecue (i.e. the brothers and sisters and their
and their guests of our St. John’s Lodge) as organizers.
St. John’s greeting
Dear brothers and friends of our St. John’s Lodge,
In the first months of this year and in the past year, it has been difficult for all people, especially for us Freemasons, to live with the distance imposed on us. Nevertheless, we have survived the time we lost and will continue to do so in the faith and hope of good times to come. In the coming weeks and months, our Masonic life will be filled with life again. Our lodge will be holding work and guest evenings, and we are also excited about our new “Potsdam Circle Knowledge Forum” series of events. Let’s look forward to a good time. I would now like to recite a poem by Ludwig Uhland from 1834 to all readers of this St. John’s greeting:
Solstice
| Now the sun shall complete its longest beautiful orbit, How it hesitates to turn to the still ocean! Her goddess youthful inclination feels the foreboding nature, and it seems to me that the evening meadow is cautiously silent. |
Only the quail, which usually peels early, wakes the day. Now strikes a wake-up call to the watched glimmer; and the lark rises high in song from the fragrant valley, to catch a glimpse of the already sunlit beam. |
St. John’s Day, the feast of love. You are ready to make us happy;
and though spring’s splendor fade, you still give us bliss.
You lead us to wisdom, beauty, strength, you remove the bandage from our faces,
You consecrate us to good works. Do not forget the rose for us!
246th foundation celebration
The ram calls and many come.
On June 18, we gathered for the 246th foundation celebration. The founding year 1776 is – as mentioned earlier – the founding year of the Constitution of the United States of America. However, this year is also significant because of a world-class philosophical draft. Immanuel Kant published his ideas “On Perpetual Peace” in 1776. We find such topical sentences as “No state should interfere violently in the constitution and government of another state” and “The civil constitution in every state should be republican.” Furthermore, Kant speaks of international law, which should be based on the federation of free states and calls this federation the “League of Nations”, whose task is to preserve and secure the freedom of a state. And with this he sees the freedom of every citizen. How modern this all sounds. It shows us how open-minded some people were in the year our lodge was founded. Freemasonry stands for an open society and, for all its tradition, is forward-looking. Moral and spiritual orientation must emanate from us. The desire to deal in depth with fundamental questions has led to the founding of the “Potsdamer-Zirkel” knowledge forum.