LIVED LIFE

To understand freemasonry, requires lived life. It has bits that require a slow deep read because metaphor is often layered. There are pieces that you want to have on your bed table for years, so its available to infect your thinking. It's not surprising readers struggle with meaning. I think anyone trying to get a masonic education, will already have some familiarity with the classics, the genius of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Proust, Melville, Dante. He will know about a rawness of life through Tolstoy's War and Peace, one of the greatest novels ever written. It sits on my shelf because it contains so much description of thought, his delicate explorations of freemasonry. Agreed, it is easier to appreciate some, but remember Ulysses was offered up by James Joyce defiantly to readers as a 17 year read. It is hard, every chapter an experiment in literary convention. Freemasonry is indespensible to a man who values the private mysteries we absorb from written language. Add philosophy, history and metaphyics, to grasping meaning. Masonry isn't restrained by borders or language and neither should you. There are rich rewards following Scottish, French, Czech and German journeys into critical thinking. This takes nothing away from English masonry. And remember, there is always more to read, that will change the thinking of open minded types. Imagine a life in which imagination and fact flows into the virtuous life of a freemason. Keep asking yourself why- why are certain things boring, why do some works excite and resonnate? Read and talk about your work as often as you can, using the lexicon. Continue to indulge. Commit to metalearning, learning how to learn. Learn the art. Visit MasonicFX.