Rural Lodge of Masons, A.F. & A.M.

There was an open house at this Masons lodge today, and one of my friends is a member who happened to be there, so I stopped by for a tour of the beautiful, majestic, building. The building was built in 1926 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
I was impressed. The space inside is enormous, and most of it has «charm» of years past. (I wish the theater downstairs was able to have sprinklers installed so dinner theater performances could be put on again here.)
The ceiling of the main lodge has a beautiful mural of the sky, and it can be lit at night to represent the stars in the sky.
All the rooms that were used for meetings were set up in a similar fashion, with the seats for leaders of the group in the same sections of the room, and a «G» on the wall that stands for, «God & geometry — the 2 most important things to Masons,» according to my tour guide.
I learned a little bit more about the Masons too. For instance, to be a Mason, you have to believe in a God, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a Christian God. They’ve had members swear in on the Bible, Torah, Koran, and even a Buddha statue.
They also have a women’s group affiliated with them, so women visiting the building for their own meetings is normal. (I had never stopped by an open house before, because I knew the Masons were a fraternal organization, so I didn’t know if women were allowed to visit.)
The Lodge has very philanthropic members that make community service a priority. They have partnered with the Quincy Public School System and have donated a wheelchair accessible school bus, defibrillators and EpiPens for every school, and numerous smaller gifts to help individual students. They also support youth baseball & soccer teams, and various other local nonprofits.
Even if you’re not interested in becoming a Mason, I highly recommend stopping by during an open house to get a tour of the building. And hey, they usually have a friendly person out front dressed up as Benjamin Franklin on open house days, so he’s fun to chat with.