A Mason's Work

Brian
00:00

One of the things I like about the working tools that they use in the European jurisdictions for the first degree, namely the chisel, is that the chisel has in some ways a generative component. The idea that a focus and educated mind is part of how you should direct your effort, the ritual in my jurisdiction is completely absent of any, any mention of the chisel, at least in the first three degrees. And so when you look at the, the working tools of a Freemason in, in the Enter Apprentice context, there really isn't strictly speaking, a generative capacity, right? The gavel is a removal tool that removes rough edges. The 24 inch gauge is a, as a scaling tool for you to essentially evaluate time expenditure, relative time expenditure, and essentially remind you that the time you have should be managed because it is limited. So when you start to look at this as an editor apprentice and you walk through that kind of mindset you're looking for like, well, okay, this is great.

Brian
01:22

This helps me get a little bit more focused and a little bit tighter about how I spend my time and what, what sort of things I need to remove from my behavior set that may be holding me back. But it really doesn't talk the deficits. And this is one of the places where the Masonic symbolism obviously falls down, but is missing, I think some, some meaningful insight because there is a need for the individual to determine when they have a behavioral deficiency or a skill deficiency or, or even they want to pursue a, a goal or an objective, and they need to close a gap to achieve that objective. You know, an education gap, a fitness gap, whatever that gap might be. So as you go through here and look through the degrees, you don't find a ton of that because in the context of fitting stones into place, there's not a ton of context for adding stone, right? So you might find, and, and here's the something that I'm looking for in the event that you hear this podcast and have some insights, I would, I'm interested in finding out more from you guys what other Masonic symbols out there do have a generative component, something that is additive or an additive insight, because my jurisdiction doesn't include those. Certainly in the first three degrees, I am looking for

Brian
02:58

More insight and information. But with that, I think it's important too, as a man, as you go through the Enter Apprentice Mason's degrees, as you go through your work to identify what's missing from your, from your day-to-day approach, and then create a plan to, to fill that gap.

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