FINDING TIME MAKING TIME

The reason we value time so much as we mature, is because of potential.  Some men exhaust themselves for reasons they haven't examined. Others place high priority on quality of life. Everything is subservient. Are you one of those chasing time and never finding enough? Or are you clearer about priorities and have the skill to make the time?  I suppose the answers depend on whethere masonry is essential or preripheral to your thinking and being. To walk up the metaphoric steps, we need to feed and shelter ourselves and those around us. It takes an exceptional fortitude to reflect on meaning while being targeted. How many soldiers have returned scarred deeply by their experience, questioning if a G-d even exists in a world that can justify carnage on such a scale?  Masonry allows for Zen-like reflection, of course.  Our values endure when put to the test, as an overriding sensitivity in a world unable to find peace.  Masonry, if not its practictioners, by design realizes the failing of proselytizing. To make it right and perfect requires little more than a show of respect and an attitude of tolerance toward disenting opinion. When we step over the curb walking into a lodge for the first time, many of us fall flat on our face. Mutual respect and tolerance is an alien sensation in a materialist world and here it is being spoken out loud. To retrain our faculites to act and expect them is daunting. It makes us vulnerable when our expectations are not met.  During the early stages when we are testing new ideas but not yet consolidating them, we are prone to missteps and its easy to draw wrong conclusions. Aha, masonry is just like the profance world. Obligations are only fulfilled when you decide it is necessary. Any claim on masonic perrogative is likely to being from an overactive ego drive.  We are taught, and many agree, insight is not possible until ego has died.  Oh if only masonry were normal...