A Mason's Work

Brian
00:01

All of the tools thus far in the first degree are about self-regulation. The tools in the second degree are about fitting your work together in the context of a greater social and kind of environmental set of conditions. The third degree tools is, is are about how you do your work. And it's the only real guidance on how to execute your work as a mason. And I think it's particularly telling in that way. And the trial reminds us to do all of our work with love. And so that means both using the first degree tools with love and the second degree tools with love. And so you can use that third degree how to kind of instruction across everything you do in Freemasonry. How are you treating yourself? How are you treating others? That is a often overlooked, I think, application of, of how this stuff works.

Brian
01:12

The, it's, it's very common as you are applying the gavel, let's say, to become a better version of yourself or to knock off those behavioral elements that you're trying to correct. It's another thing altogether to do that with love. And I can tell you from a personal perspective, as I decided to try and demonstrate how I loved myself, things like weight loss became just a reflection of that. I was able to look at how I was treating myself and it was not with the trial, it was not with loving kindness. And when I decided to do so, when I decided to live every day is a demonstration of self-care and how I love myself. The rest of my behaviors kind of fell off that weren't doing that. You'll find that when you start to apply that Master Mason's tool, set that trial to all of the other tools, that decision making gets a whole lot easier. It's, it's, it's funny because a lot of things you might wrestle with on a day-to-day basis, when you are sitting in the an apprentice Mason's mindset or the fellow craft mason's mindset just falls off when you sit as a master mason. And I think that's one of the big gifts of the degree is that that guidance on how to think about these things really does essentially completely change how you apply all the other tools. So as you go through and you're learning how to operate these tools,

Brian
02:59

When you get your Master Mason's degree and you learn how to apply love to the conversation, that rebirth that comes from that is absolutely something that you want to spend a ton of time in reflection when you're working with the other tools is how can I bring, how can I bring love into that conversation? I.

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