1 week before the vote.....

It has taken more than a week to compose this latest entry. I have always found it difficult to put my feelings to print or to words. I think it mostly come from having so many thoughts and emotions that it can sometimes be hard to form them together in a consice, logical format. As the month has rolled by and I have thought of the brethren of the Lodge I have petitioned get ready to come back from summer, one of their first duties will be to vote on my request to join them. I have struggled to find the words to describe what joining such a fraternity has meant to me. So like I'm sure many men have done before me I have tried to read what other masons have put to paper, and one man's writings keep pulling me forward; Manly Hall. I think I have read the Lost Keys of Freemasonry at least a dozen times, that is only up and to the end of the exerpt about the Entered Apprentice. I just can't bring myself to read further. I don't want to spoil the 'suprise'. The emotions that he describes match my own, it is sometimes un-nerving, but comforting at the same time. How does a man at 25 write so beautifully and so sussinctly about feelings shared by men from all over the world, from so many creeds, religions, and cultures.



I would guess that the comfort I get comes from knowing that I am not alone as I stand at the beginning of my journey. I can close my eyes and feel the presence of men all over the world standing at my back, not pushing me forward, but not letting me retreat in fear of not living up to my own expectations. The story of Chillon pacing in his cell, listening to the waves swish and lap, yearning to feel the warm light of the open sky, is not unknown to me. I have felt like I had some kind of unfinished work to do, but never could put my finger on the means to continue it. And in 1 short week it will be decided whether or not I will be presented the tools to begin that work!



'Many have read the story of the prisoner of Chillon who paced back and forth in the narrow confines of his prison cell, while the blue waters rolled ceaselessly above his head and the only sound that broke the stillness of his eternal night was the constant swishing and lapping of the waves. We pity the prisoner in his physical tomb and we are sad at heart, for we know how life loves liberty. But there is one prisoner whose plight is far worse than those of earth. He has not even the narrow confines of a prison cell around Him; He cannot pace ceaselessly to and fro and wear ruts in the cobblestones of His dungeon floor. That eternal Prisoner is Life incarnate within the dark stone walls of matter, with not a single ray to brighten the blackness of His fate. He fights eternally, praying in the dark confines of gloomy walls for light and opportunity. This is the eternal Prisoner who, through the ceaseless ages of cosmic unfoldment, through forms unnumbered an d species now unknown, strives eternally to libe rate Himself and gain self conscious expression, the birthright of every created thing. He awaits the day when, standing upon the rocks that now form His shapeless tomb, He may raise His arms to heaven, bathed in the sunlight of spiritual freedom, free to join the sparkling atoms and dancing light-beings released from the bonds of prison wall and tomb.'
exerpt from The Lost Keys of Freemasonry; the Candidate, Manly P. Hall