I just want to take a moment and say thank you. Since I wrote Beginning the Next Adventure, I’ve had many reach out and let me know that they were happy to see me writing again, and that means a lot to me. So again, thank you.
One of the challenges of the lessons in Freemasonry is that they are not always evident. So often in our ritual we see the surface meaning but may never actually pickup on what may be a much more useful lesson. I spoke about this back in an earlier piece Duly and Truly Prepared, where I took a look at the phrase from a different perspective, and it takes on a whole different meaning.
The same is true in our lives outside the Lodge room if we just want to take a moment and look for them.
The above clip demonstrates it in a couple of places in the movie The Dark Knight, what I mean.
In both instances, the question put to Bruce is, “Why do we fall?” I’m sure that many of us can relate to the answer, “To learn to pick ourselves up.” I will certainly not argue the point, it is definitely a lesson we learn.
Have you thought about the other lesson in these situations?
Follow me on this one, since I’m a father I’m going to tap that experience, as I’ve seen my own children fall, and indeed they learned to pick themselves back up, but that is not the only lesson to be learned. When a child is starting to walk, they fall down, a lot, and they learn to pick themselves backup, but they also learn to stand, walk, and develop their balance. It’s a simple example, but I think it proves the point, there are other lessons to learn when you fall.
In the case of the scenes from the movie, it’s about the inner growth the character needs to make, to overcome his own self-doubts, his own fears, and the need to grow as an individual, not just pick himself up from the fall.
It’s something our own ritual is trying to teach us, to look beyond the surface, to delve into our own falls or failures to figure out the lessons that we need to learn. The first thing that comes to mind is always the easiest one to find, and likely the one that is most pressing to address. It’s those other lessons that you need to ferret out, to spend time contemplating on, to do that soul-searching to find where you can really work on your ashlar and improve yourself by chipping away another rough part.
Last week’s episode of The Granite Cornerstone Podcast was postponed and will be broadcast live tonight at 7:30pm Eastern. We’re going to be discussing the Masonic term “Going Dark.” You can catch it in a number of places, links below.
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