IS FREEMASONRY FOR BEGINNERS?

We can't all be boys all our lives. At some point some of us begin to understand what it means, what it requires to make and keep a commitment.  Our culture has experienced change as it always has done. This is not unique to our culture, but what may be unique is the amount of information we have and the unusual level of access we have to facts.  For many of us, masonry is a stabilizing process. Just like marriage and having a child.  Does this play out in the neighbourhoods around us?  Clearly not.  Across Canada divorce rates hover just under 50% of marriages.  A thoughtful man would wonder what this tells us.  For the purposes of MasonicFX it tells us something about commitment and the exercise of options in a country with one of the most progressive Constitutions on earth. All I'm saying is that disengagement isn't simply a reaction to freemasonry. If we want to understand the 80:20- so many initiations/disappointing level of engagement, we need to look deeply into the mirror.    One school of thinking will cite the effect of social welfare entitlements. While we espouse concern for ignorance and poverty, when entitlements were put in place in the 60's masonry member started fading. This brings to mind a time when good men sought protection for their families should he die or become infirmed by joining benevolent societies.  If we subscribe to this cause-effect notion, we are saying the appeal of the Order has been factual different than what we thought. Apologists surface as if the Craft in some way must shy away from reality.  That fits with the 'no controversy rule'. It isn't membership that faces the metaphorical body blow. It is  the idea of freemasonry. Is it asking too much to control our emotions and think about the consequence of the need for a narrative.   We should talk.