For many years I’ve felt there has to be something more. “This” cant be all there is to it. I’ve always had a sense that something was missing, that I needed more. During my 21 years in the U.S. Air Force I always had a sense of belonging, camaraderie, friendship, and maybe most important of all – a feeling of accomplishment only known by those that know what they do matters! Since I retired there has just been an emptiness that’s hard to explain or understand.
I’ve known many military retirees that have had issues coping with ‘being on the outside’. I’ve seen and heard of a lot of marriages failing and even a few people that just went into a deep depression and took their own life. Including my best friend. While working on another project I was researching markings on tombstones trying to catalog all the different symbols you commonly find. One item I found a lot was the Square and Compass and other Masonic symbols. The more I researched the more I got interested in Freemasonry.
As far as I know, there haven’t been any Freemasons in my family. During my lifetime, I’ve only known a few Masons. So I’m a Masonic Virgin, I didn’t have a base of reference or for that matter even a working knowledge of the Craft. The more I read the more I wanted to know. The more I got to know the more I wondered if Freemasonry was right for me.
American novelist Don Williams, Jr. once said "Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination." So it is with Freemasonary. Our path isnt to reach the top of the staircase, to get that 33º, it is to become the best person we can, to make good men better.
Im still working on learning to use the Compasses as intended and Im sad to admit I fail more often that I wish. As our late Bro. Theron Dunn used to say "It's not about me changing them, its about me changing me"