GROWTH OR ILLUSION

Who is to say what determines interest or why some samples take hold of a man? We have all the words; obsession, preoccupation, lingering ideas, motivation. Liking, connection, satisfaction. What determines the path? Good fortune?  The insights of Tarot?  A bittersweet sensation? Fortunately the Craft takes us in hand to the threshold of profound thinking and leaves us standing there, to decide or not, to enter and make those crazy connections for reasons not always apparent.  The Craft gives us entrance but it does not and can not tell us what we will find. That would make our detractors happy. It would reduce masonry to ideology.  Does this mean no one treats the Craft as an ideology?  Of course not. Many more than I care to admit, are transfixed by the simple framework. Participate in the lodge work. Treat your mates with respect and yourself with dignity and voila! Happiness. But I have to ask, why then leave us before doors marked with nameplates- Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Rosseau, deCartes, Nietzsche. And why encourage men to think literary minds get the most out of the Craft?  We might still be in the cave looking at shadows on the wall with our backs to the reality outside, but Freemasonry turns us to the cave edge high above.  No doubt we are the individual in the room, with unique POV, but are we ready for what will be revealed?  Masonry presumes if we are being honest, we will find things unflattering. It is easy to see the encouragement to reinvent ourselves. Use these principles. Learn about values and apply them all. Be that man. Then teach us what you found.  If we aren't competing, but we are striving what are we actually doing? Are we creating art? Is this calculus? Am I applying geometry to my thinking?  What is this experience that dares to sort us? We begin incomplete. Eastern thinking explores adapting. Western thinking explores modifying. Which are we?