I first arrived as a NASA engineer at the John F. Kennedy Space Center just a few years after the age of the dinosaurs – as measured on a calendar carefully kept by my eight sweet grandchildren. Shortly after arriving, I wound up standing squarely inside geek heaven with one of those nerdy smiles fixed across my face. Let me try and describe why this was on my typical morning. As a NASA Engineer and Safety Specialist, I found myself assigned to the newly constructed, completely stripped out, cavernous, open bay of Orbiter Processing Facility #3 (OPF-3). (Today that processing…
Next Sunday, 15 September 2024, is the inaugural Temple Church Virtual Business Meeting at 7:00 PM. As a Priory member, you are strongly encouraged to be present. We want your input! Our semiannual Business Meeting is your opportunity to listen to the Officer and Scholarship Committee updates, participate in planning discussions, offer your comments, and help determine how Temple Church moves forward as we continue to engage our Templars and perform the SMOTJ mission to serve and protect Christians at risk in the Holy Land and Middle East. Priory business meetings were formerly held during Convent and Investiture weekends either…
Last week, our Deputy Grand Prior for Region III stepped down (due to extended health issues) from his duties after many years of service in the DGP position. His Excellency CAPT Chev. George Custodi, GCTJ, CMTJ, has been a faithful mentor – a rock-solid example of what a 21st-century Templar actually looks like in his chivalrous manner, his words, and authentic Christlike deeds. I have personally depended on Brother George over these past years for his professional and personal advice during important and challenging times. Claudia and I have enjoyed visiting with him and Sandi at their lovely home in…
One of the things that always awes and surprises me about fellowshipping with Templars is their approach to politics. And what is that approach? It is described in a pair of words: resilient respect. I have rarely seen this code of respect broken in the years I have been associated with SMOTJ. When political seasons come and go, when the culture outside is having its periodic meltdowns, when the rumors of extraordinary social division and the cyclic drumbeat of “inevitable civil war” spring up once again, the climate among groups of Templars is reliably always bathed in resilient respect for…
In the Priory of the Temple Church, there have been six Priors who have preceded me as Prior VII. Hence, there has been a Prior leading us for over a decade, always assisted in the background by their predecessors. According to the SMOTJ Manual of the Order, these assembled Past Priors are sometimes referred to as the “Council of Elders.” (SMOTJ Manual of the Order, V 5.0 – Marshal’s Manual, p. 5) Shown here is the Council of Elrond, described in chapter two of the second book of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the elders of three kingdoms…
As a novelist, I use a powerful tool drawn from true life for character development called “character awareness.” Real humans have a very conscious and profoundly deep, seminal knowledge of who they are in the deepest core of their being. That “character self-awareness” comprises the most profound knowledge of our truest self. Only God knows us this completely – and even far more intimately. This minutely detailed self-awareness is the most powerful single kernel of energy that drives us, guides us, shapes us, and motivates our behavior each minute of every day. It is so powerful that people will die…
This Saturday, 3 August, is your last chance to use the Priory members’ exclusive registration window for the Fall C&I at the Kennedy Space Center. Seating at the banquet venue overlooking the Kennedy Space Center Rocket Garden is limited to 50 and we currently have 40 seats filled! On Sunday, 4 August, registration will open to all Knights and Dames in GPUSA. We are fairly certain all remaining available seats will be quickly filled. I just wanted to be sure you knew about that deadline that is rapidly approaching. Obviously, registration for the event will remain open until will receive…
During the last week of June 1975, the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa suddenly awoke from a 25-year slumber. From volcanic fields asleep for decades, fissures opened, and a white vapor poured forth comprised of steam mixed with sulfur dioxide gas. As the molten magma began to shift and move upward, the ground started shaking in a swarm of earthquakes that could easily be felt underfoot. From our military quarters at Ft. DeRussy on the island of Oahu (location of Honolulu), my friend Bill and I read the news with heightened anticipation. We had already planned a visit to the Volcanoes…
As Prior, it’s very easy not to forget I am a Templar Knight. My responsibility to the Priory requires constant attention or things fall apart very quickly and, invariably, something vital would not get done. Therefore, having to consistently work as a Templar each day refreshes the reality of who I really am: a Christ Follower, husband, father, granddad, and a Templar – in that order. A lot of other identities follow Templar, of course, for I am truly blessed to have an overflowing plate in this life. “I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and…
There’s almost nothing worse than finding yourself being abducted by a UFO packed full of aliens on the way to the golf course. You lose your tee time, it throws your day’s schedule completely out the window and makes you late for everything thereafter. You never know when they will finish their experiments and toss your amnesic body out in the middle of a New Mexico desert. It is a thing, you know. But there is something even worse than a UFO abduction. And that is a Templar Priory being abducted by anything unrelated to our prime mission! In comparison,…