NOTICE PROGRESS

I know there is a sense freemasonry is struggling, but I am here to suggest that depends who is commenting.  There are so many benefits of life for so many, but that does not erase suffering.  Though it is difficult, there is a sense of common morality. Help the vulnerable. End poverty if you can. Find constructive alternatives to war. Punish transgression. Produce an argument of hope. Thanks to the absolute truths of science and philosophy, we have continued to refine our understanding of the world.  The Grand Theory of Everything so evasive for Einstein, still slips through out hands. We might tell ourselves we have an ability to define existence to suit our own narrative, but we know better. Life is all of this and more. We strive to improve, to be better than we were. Along the way we accumulate standards that carry on into the future.  We want to be masters of our own situation but we don't like it when the neighbours try the same thing. Even though we don't have complete explanations, change happens around us constantly and we search it for patterns of predictability because that makes us feel safer. Being exposed to those old reliable tools may be the most significant overlooked aspect of masonry if not one of them.  Our progress isn't as institutional as our scale of adminstration might like. It's molecular. Individual. Influences in the moment. We can and often do thoroughly enjoy a lodge meeting without a change of atmosphere.  We can still be stimulated by conversation, especially when we are with mature brethren, who don't have need to dominant the conversation or prove their worth to anybody.  Afterall, we are 300+ years old. We've seen it all before.