.jpg)
Well, I am writing a post today basically to help me sleep I guess. This one is hitting pretty close to home today. We as Free and Accepted Mason's know the imperfections in life that tend to make up who we are. As a Soldier, I know the imperfections I have that make me who I am as a Soldier. So here it is. This is what everyone has always wanted out of my blogs. The Military and Freemason life.As a Soldier you learn from day one of Basic Combat Training (BCT) That you are not perfect. No
matter how well you scored on your ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery), or how well you scored on your APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), or how well you qualified on Basic Marksmanship. There is always room to grow. You could make the highest score on your APFT, which is a 300 but if you do that, what is next? We use to have what we call the extended scale. However, we no longer use that scale to measure the muscular strength and endurance of a Soldier. Instead the measurement is now personal. If you scored a 300 on your PT test but you know that you could have given more push-ups in the two minutes you are allotted, you did not give it your all. You know that if you come in on your 2 mile run at the best time for your age bracket but if you're not throwing up at the finish line there is still more in you to be faster. If you know all this then and you don't care and you don't strive to make that happen then you are failing nobody but yourself. You want to be the best of the best than be the best of the best.
On the other hand if you are throwing up at the finish line and your run time was barely passing, you need to work harder. You need to be better. You need to break your body until you are the best of the best. Chisel away the pain and weakness and be better than who you want to be. Sure, passing is good enough but is it good enough for you?
In the world of Freemasonry instead of chiseling our body's we chisel our hearts, minds and souls. We take a deep look at ourselves and study our flaws. My flaw, I tend to get jealous over somethings that shouldn't bother me. I know this. I now need to look deep within and figure out what I need to do in order to stop this feeling I get. I need to cut the head off whatever it is inside me that makes me feel the way I do when situations arise that make me feel jealous.
The term "We Make Good Men Better" is not meaning that Freemasonry will make you perfect. It won't. We all have our flaws and need to work on them. We have them in our professional lives, our school work, our Masonic works, our personal lives. This could include our relationships with other people in and outside the lodge, our co-workers, our classmates, or our partners. When we finally accept our flaws and begin to work on them then we can be perfected and become that perfect ashlar.
With accepting and working on our flaws we must accept the people that surround us have flaws as well. Help them work on their flaws as well as your own. When we come together and work together and help chisel away our flaws it can be done more smoothly and with less heart and headache. But the first step is starting with yourself.
As Michael Jackson coined "I'm starting with the man in the mirror."
