What is Masonry?
The world will change. It always has. The question is, will it change for the better? You and I, one moment at a time, get to answer that question.
Picture if you will the old story of the dad trying to finish his work while babysitting his son; the son was active, and dad needed to get his work done, so he took a page that had a map of the world on it, cut it up, and told the son that when he got the picture put together, he would play with him. Considering that the son had never seen the world, dad assumed that it would be quite a long time before the boy would bother him again. It wasn't long before the boy had completed the picture. Dad was astounded. "How did you do that so quickly?" he asked. The boy said, "I didn't know what the world looked like, but I noticed that there was a picture of a man on the other side, and I knew what a man looked like, so I figured that if I could get the man right, then the world would be right."
It is not what Masonry is supposed to be doing? Are we truly trying to get the man right in order to get the world right? One of our culture's most prominent lies is that there are no universal truths. Modern secularism is built on the lie that nothing is true for everyone.
The lies and false promises surrounding happiness wear a thousand faces, but they all have their roots in modern culture's philosophy, "The meaning of life is to get what you want, and the more you get, the happier you will be." We have settled for this second rate imitation of happiness for so long that it has become normal. We accept the world's lies so easily because we live in a culture of pretense and lies.
It's time to reignite our curiosity about who we are and what our purpose is, what matters most to us and what matters least, so we can start living the life we imagine when you consider the question, "What am I here for?"
We will eventually all rise or fall to the level of our friendships. Life is too short to waste time on social media, too meaningful to worry about what seems to be when that time can be used for what is and for living. People spend their time taking pictures of the life that they wish for rather than taking the time to live the life they are passing.
What place are we willing to give to truth in our lives? We can continue bickering among ourselves about things that will mean just about nothing to just about nobody a hundred years from now, or we can heal and unite and fight our way back into the light of life.
You cannot grow in character and virtue and not become a better version of yourself. Every time you grow in character, you grow closer to the Creator. You will find that we are here to help each
other, to give rather than get, to serve rather than to be waited on. That is where you will find what it is that you are seeking and hopefully what you joined the Fraternity for, the direction to improving yourself and your service to man and to glorify God who created you.
Life exists one moment at a time. Each moment can be a moment of light or a moment of darkness. It is the teachings of Masonry that direct you to make each moment one of light.
The world will change. It always has. The question is, will it change for the better? You and I, one moment at a time, get to answer that question.
By: Bro. Robert Bruneau
Reprinted by permission of Sir Knight Robert Bruneau, Past Commander of Commandery No. 38 Gulfport, Mississippi. Original published in Knight Templar Magazine, July 2020.
