THE CONVERSATION

How do we prepare a man for the conversation about to follow him until the end of days? If being redefined is being reborn, then masonry has been doing a very important piece of work for a very long time.   The work isn't done because it is appreciated or popular. It is choice made about the importance we place on the thinking of a man, an assumption that it can be influenced for the betterment of the man and those he influences. By presenting teachings in metaphor and allegory, masonry's  symbolic language shields us from our harshest critic's potential to make us a dangerous presence.  We are quite famous for erudite rationalizations. We draw on reason and philosophy in a way uncommon to most. While we exist as specks on a spectrum populated with 7+billion souls, we notice what connects and what divides. Asking men to moderate their thinking, to turn judgment into understanding and to show the power of self restraint has never been a difficulty.  As long as some men are able to convince other men to war, and dominant, we have a role.  At initiation we are drawn into an on going deep discussion, Conscience, values, honesty, all are called into question before our harshest judge.  Is there a man who reaches adulthood without scars of some sort? Machiavelli taught us a man who assumes the mantel of just a lion is a fool because it is the fox attitude that allows him to identify traps.  We can rely on the conversation to ask questions. Whether we fell pressured speaks more about our individual traits as well as whether we hesitate to ignore who and what we are in the bigger scheme of life.  Stories about old moral working tools keep their secrets until we recognize the context in which they are vital.  Of course we should be temperate in who we select because this lifestyle is not for everyone. I walk along the ocean shore, having the strangest thoughts and then the Craft speaks back..