ONE ENDING: ANOTHER BEGINNING

Self-development.  Wealth and power however they appear, require many others to exploit. Learning to live with that may be one reason money does not buy happiness.  While committing acts of humility in the service of others, acts of charity, empathizing with the people ignored and unheard- that's Masonry.  Science recently 'discovered' helping others is (the)resilience source of a contentment transferable to those who perform those actions.   Self-development is at the core of masonry, whether that is intellectual, spiritual, emotional; internal or external. If being in the presence of scholarly men, is affirming then so be it. If drinking from the cup of knowledge is suitable, it is found in masonry.  Comfort, challenge, familiarity, it is about meaning. It is about understanding. It is about wanting. So farm boys have been reading Byron secretly, and listening to Brahms and favouring Shelley over Wordsworth and influencing the rest of us as sources of inspiration.  Helping a neighbour, facing down critics with a controlled temper, masonry is a process, never imposed, many times confusing and always challenging. Ideas become a way of life. And the life becomes the quest.  It pleases the imagination to be one.