History or Yesterdays Future

Our numbers dwindle and still we avoid making changes. 

Men are not attracted to freemasonry because unlike days gone by, there is competition for his attention.

No so gentlemen. I suggest freemasonic meetings have lost appeal because knowledge of the craft is not expected of a brother.  I suggest men of days gone past had more distractions than we could imagine. I suggest the struggle to survive too greater effort, of greater importance than something entertaining like a movie, a baseball game, a service club.

Smooth roads did not exist so travel was a major undertaking that took significant planning and commitment.  If you and I undertook to change a routine to attend a meeting, travelling over rough roads, that we would expect something useful would occur.

Written word had not yet replace spoken word.  Men passing on lessons one to the other, caused a bond that was shared by each mason.  Today, we behave as if taking time is wrong.  We act as if the years of skirting over our lessons just doesn't effect outcomes.

As our numbers decline, status quo will eventually change.  The creme of the organization will congretate and from those ashes, the order will recommit just as it has for hundreds of years.

We know that small forest fires keep a forest safe from fire-storms. But we continue to extinguish every spark and express shock when the hills are charred in a disconnected way.

Our order is experiencing renewal that has nothing at all to do with the distractions around us. Distractions have always plagued a man who can't stay on task. 

Meanwhile, we have an opportunity to open the books and recommit to learn the meaning of our antient landmarks and have opinions on the philosophy of freemasonry that are not plagarized.  As we are free thinkers, we learn from our mistakes. 

So the take away lesson is to know we are not different from our antient brethren. We are them and time is always on our side.

Dg