If you ask a Mason what lodge he belongs to, he will give you a name and a number. If you ask what kind of lodge, he will almost certainly say "a blue lodge." Most people outside the Craft have never heard the term. It is worth explaining, because it describes something fundamental about how Freemasonry is organized — and what Centennial Lodge No. 84 actually is.
The Term
A blue lodge — sometimes called a craft lodge or symbolic lodge — is the foundational body of Freemasonry. It is where the three degrees of the fraternity are conferred: the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft, and the Master Mason. The name comes from the color traditionally associated with the order: blue, the color of the sky and the celestial canopy, has been linked to Freemasonry since its earliest organized period and is used in lodge furnishings, regalia, and symbolism throughout the degrees. It is the color of fidelity, of the unclouded heavens, of something that does not change.
The blue lodge is not one branch of Freemasonry among many. It is the trunk. Every other Masonic body — the Scottish Rite, the York Rite, the Shrine, the Royal Arch, the various appendant and concordant orders — requires Master Mason membership in a blue lodge as a prerequisite. A man may spend his entire Masonic life in his blue lodge and be a full, complete Mason. The other bodies offer additional degrees and experiences; the blue lodge is the thing itself.
The Structure of a Lodge
A Masonic lodge is both an organization and a place. The word refers to the body of men working together under a charter from a grand lodge, and also to the room where they meet. Centennial Lodge No. 84, chartered under the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Colorado, is a blue lodge in both senses — the brotherhood and its meeting space at 1614 Welton Street.
A lodge is governed by a line of elected and appointed officers, each with a specific role. The Worshipful Master presides over the lodge for one year, directs its work, and is responsible for the conferral of degrees and the conduct of meetings. The Senior and Junior Wardens assist the Master and oversee different aspects of the lodge's work. The Secretary and Treasurer manage correspondence and finances. Deacons and Stewards assist with ceremonies and hospitality. The Tyler guards the outer door of the lodge room, ensuring that meetings are held with the proper membership present.
These offices are not ceremonial titles. They carry real responsibilities, and the men who hold them are elected by the lodge's members. The fraternity has governed itself this way for three centuries.
What Happens at a Lodge Meeting
A lodge holds two kinds of meetings. A stated communication is the regular monthly gathering — the equivalent of a standing appointment that the lodge keeps regardless of what else is happening. Business is conducted, correspondence is read, bills are paid, petitions for membership are considered, and committee reports are heard. A special communication is called for a specific purpose, usually to confer a degree or conduct a ceremony.
The lodge is opened and closed with ceremony, following a ritual form that is consistent across the fraternity. This is not theater for its own sake. The opening and closing are the lodge's way of marking the boundary between ordinary time and Masonic time — of signaling that what happens inside the lodge room operates by different rules than what happens outside it. Rank, occupation, and status are set aside. Men meet on the level.
When a candidate receives a degree, the lodge is at work in the fullest sense. The degree ceremony is a formal initiation — a structured experience designed to convey moral and philosophical lessons through symbol and drama. It is not a hazing. It is not a test of endurance. It is an attempt to make a man feel and understand something that could not be conveyed as efficiently by lecture or reading alone.
What a Blue Lodge Is Not
A blue lodge is not a social club, though the fellowship is genuine. It is not a charity organization, though charitable giving is part of the tradition. It is not a networking group, though men of good character tend to find each other useful to know. It is not a secret society in any meaningful sense — the existence of lodges, the names of members, and the general character of the degrees are freely acknowledged. What is kept private is the specific content of the ritual, for reasons the fraternity has always been willing to explain: some things teach better as experience than as description.
A blue lodge is a fraternity, in the oldest sense of that word: an association of men bound by common obligations, practicing common principles, and holding themselves accountable to a shared standard. That is the whole of it. The rest is detail.
Centennial Lodge No. 84
Centennial Lodge No. 84 is a blue lodge of the Grand Lodge of Colorado — one of approximately 104 lodges currently active in the state, and one of the oldest lodges in Denver. It meets at 1614 Welton Street, in the building that Denver's Masons built in 1889 and 1890 and have maintained ever since. It confers the three degrees, elects its officers, conducts its business, and does the work the fraternity has always done.
If you are a man of good character who believes in something greater than yourself and is looking for a brotherhood of substance, a blue lodge is where it starts. This one meets on the second Thursday of every month. Dinner is at 6:00 PM. Come as you are.
SOURCES & REFERENCES
Grand Lodge of Colorado A.F. & A.M. — coloradofreemasons.org
George Washington's Mount Vernon, Freemasonry — mountvernon.org
Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry, The Blue Lodge — freemasons-freemasonry.com