According to the historic record, our Templar forefathers of antiquity were not perfect on the battlefield. Indeed, they were not even close to being invincible before their enemies. The historical accounts, although truthfully very incomplete, suggest that they won about 30-40% of their engagements struggling with the screaming infidels on the field of honor. That win-loss number reminds me of my Oklahoma State Alma Mater’s win-loss rate on the gridiron over the past 60 years. So, unfortunately, I have become very used to that statistic… Stepping back, that win-loss rate begs a very obvious question. If the Templar Knights were…

For some reason, the people of our culture have decided that making a resolution on the first day of each new year somehow signifies something more than making a resolution on any other given day. It is lent a mythical power that transcends “less important” promises made to self on the other 364 rotational cycles of our planet. Forbes Health has conducted several surveys on this issue and discovered that every New Year’s resolution has a lifespan of around 3.4 months (on average) before they disappear into the vast landfill of long forgotten promises to self. I totally get it….

Claudia and I wish to extend to you and your family our most heartfelt Christmas greetings with all our love. On this Holy Day of Christ-mass, we pray that you will find the peace that only our Savior can give – who came to us as an innocent babe, wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in a manger. But our Jesus also left this world in the same fashion – innocent, humble and with all our sins laid upon his pierced and broken form. He said “it is finished” at the end, departing this world with our transgressions in…

Remember The Holiday Party! Saturday, 3 January 2026 – at 1:00 – 4:00 PM Dixie Crossroads – Titusville, Florida RSVP by 27 December to Registrar@TempleChurchPriory.org ___________________________________________________________________ As modern Templars and Christians, the Season of Advent and Christmas takes on an acute significance. We cannot consider the profound implications of Christmas without likewise considering the events of two millennia ago in the tiny village of Bethlehem, just 30 miles due south of the gates of Jerusalem. And we likewise cannot forget that the Season of Advent is actually all about the Season of the Resurrection, which took place just outside Jerusalem’s…

NOTE: Claudia and I wish to thank you for your prayers and kind and heartfelt messages of condolences after the passing of my sister Caroline. Nothing prepares one for this kind of loss. But God used it for good, and Caroline is safe and healed in His everlasting arms. There is no better ending to any story than that! “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” Ps 116:15 – – – Please also be sure and not miss the Christmas note of thanks from our student in the Holy Land at the end…

Claudia and I wish to extend to each of you precious Knights and Dame Templars, followers, postulants and friends – our most sincere Thanksgiving blessings and the best holiday wishes for this 2025 season. One of (if not the) most powerful run of scriptures expresses this from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” In just 19 words, we learn three commands and then are assured in no uncertain terms that each of these are God’s implicit will for each of us. The third of…

JANUARY 3, 2026   1:00 pm – 4:00 pm (Saturday) Dixie Crossroads – Titusville AFTER the holiday rush is over and AFTER all the fun of the Dysfunctional Family Christmases, on the afternoon of January 3rd of the NEW YEAR, let’s party! Here is the official RSVP announcement created by our very talented Chancellor (and SOON to be Prior VIII), Tom Beaton: Click the link BELOW to download and save or print this invitation: 2025HolidayInvitation Click the link ABOVE to download and save or print this invitation:   The KEY WORD here is “RSVP” by December 27th to Margo Miller (Registrar@TempleChurchPriory.org)…

  The Templar’s Prime Directive “Everything is Always and Only About the Kingdom of God”   In The Spiritual Templar of the 21st Century, I mentioned that loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and having as much love and compassion for all other people as we do for ourselves is our prime eternal directive. As our Lord Master stated, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:40) God defines Himself as Love (1 John 4:8, 16), and everything we do is to…

I was about 15 years old, brimming with the energy of testosterone in all its broad-spectrum glory, just as my Creator intended. I grew up in the deep country of gently rolling hills of northeastern Oklahoma in an evolving landscape mixed with prairie near a particular high hill that had somehow morphed itself into a true mountain. That rare specimen—a very-high-hill-barely-a-mountain—some five miles distant, sat squarely framed in my bedroom window, crowned by a sparkling red light-studded television tower that blinked on and off at me all night, every night. Concharty Mountain rises very close to 1,000 feet above the…

On 27 January 1967, I was sitting in my living room on the plains of Oklahoma as a 15-year-old schoolboy when the staggeringly tragic news was announced on our small black and white Zenith TV: the crew of Apollo 1 was killed in a launch pad fire during a test on Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral. 30 years later, my team and I were assigned to the same Launch Complex 34 to build and outfit the Scott Carpenter Undersea Space Analog Station. This first Apollo launch pad complex had long been deserted; some of its external walls were stenciled “ABANDONED…