Building Builders!: Random Building Thoughts

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"Seek, and ye shall find, knowledge and the truth.

The practical object of Masonry

is the physical and moral amelioration

and the intellectual and spiritual improvement

of individuals and society.

Neither can be effected,

except by the dissemination of truth.

It is falsehood in doctrines

and fallacy in principles,

to which most of the miseries of men

and the misfortunes of nations are owing”

-- Albert Pike (M&D, p. 218).

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All things being equal, if you're looking for entitlement, there's no better way to produce entitled Freemasons than demanding members parrot without understanding and advancing them without proof that they're fully capable of applying the very things that each degree demands.

However, if you're looking to produce Masons, you must insist that each Brother who desires to Progress through the Degrees has completed the Work that each Degree points him toward, not just memorizing a script.

This one requirement will clearly identify and separate...

1) those who are not truly proficient in any one degree before progressing and who have advanced because they have memorized a script,

from

2) those who recognize, understand and are proficient in what each degree demands of them.

If you want to know which one is more important to the organization you belong to, examine how your members are advanced and provided titles and ask yourself this one question:

Are the titles bestowed commensurate with what they are supposed to exemplify?

-------------- CHARACTER --------------

I have a simple policy:

don't tell me anything that you know
would get me in trouble

if I didn't share the information with the proper authority

and share only those things

that I would have only good conscience keeping in my chest.

How did I get this?

Those 12 remaining FC were Ruffians too,

even though they did come clean in the end.

For Further Light:

15 Ruffians...

-------------- BE TRUE --------------

The Work of the Apprentice...

-------------- MYTH --------------

“Out of perfection nothing can be made.
Every process involves breaking something up.
The earth must be broken to bring forth life.
If the seed does not die, there is no plant.
Bread results from the death of wheat.
Life lives on lives.
Our own life lives on the acts of other people.
If you are lifeworthy, you can take it.”
-- Joseph Campbell,

“A Joseph Campbell Companion:

Reflections on the Art of Living. p. 19

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