HOW DISCOVERY

Begin to study our Order and the world becomes nuanced. But worse, the eager student finds how quickly he has uncorked the bottle and freed a free thinking, generous and mischieveous genie.  Bedeviling as it is, our long memories enrich the experience. Understanding facts and events without context is superficial until we want to know how and why phenomena happened as they did.  No one that I know has surrendered his apron because we have a rich history, full of challenging ideas. No milque toast start for Freemasonry is found values founded in the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment.  We flatter ourselves believing our situation is uniquely fraught.  We have always been an Order of discovery. A man stumbling through life, discovers defining moments, knowledge that deepens his thinking and understanding. And he begins asking the larger questions; what is a good life? is honesty better than dishonesty? Is God a noun or verb? what is an ethical life?  Discovery that surges forward, like a repeating incoming tide.  And even today, impatience is at play pushing us back into patterns of thinking and behaviour of the comfort zone we hear so much about. Better to reinvent Freemasonry into something we understand. Don't think for a moment tampering with the Craft won't have ramifications.  So obvious it is that the level of scholarship is a litmus test for effective Freemasonry.  Look in any direction, during any time in our history and the evidence is striking.  There is no dumbing down of Freemasonry- philosophy, history and symbolism, only rationalizing human fraity.   And it takes talent to balance needs with wants. How do we collectively preserve a way of thinking that is not popular? How to we create those opportunities for a man to discover us, without intrude? Commitment is his to give.  Perhaps we are closer to discovering the path. After all we are brotherhood.