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My lodge is trying with some success, but mixed. We have a blood program locally which in the past few months has EXPLODED. People want to come in to help others, and the Red Cross is collecting a lot and needs more Masons volunteering to help collect, so we've been doing a bit more of that...

Why do we repeat so many things and what does it do to us?

Click the link in the original post. ;)

This year's Mid-Atlantic Esotericon took place this past weekend, and I thought I'd put together a few notes and quick reactions about the conference. This conference started in 2019, and the pandemic wasn't enough to kill it, only enough to make the conference go online.

This looks like a lot of information to process -- I've already read all of the material on the website, and will order the book soon. I intend to make a good faith effort to work through this material and make up my own mind, but in the meantime I've added a bit of a disclaimer to the top of...

I don't want to publish incorrect information, but I made serious effort to find the appropriate citations & references. Can you be more specific about what exactly is wrong and what the good information is? I am happy to correct information with the right citations.

Yes, a little bit -- but not in much depth. It talks about their relationships to some of the other business concepts in the book, but when I say not in depth - I mean they don't lay out a set of proposed processes for a lodge, or processes within companies.

The story of Prince Hall and how the first lodge of black Americans came to be chartered. The broad outlines of this story can be read anywhere, but a number of sources have some of the details mixed up. I've attempted to pull it together and show a little bit more context about what Prince...

It's arguable he already had every vote in the lodge

Jon Ruark and Robert Johnson's book adapts popular business methods for improving lodges.

A look at how the industrial revolution changed society's view of women and how Masonic virtues have had a part in retaining cultural tradition.

I was recently reading a post called Just Too Efficient, where the author Tim Bray is noticing how sometimes when things get more efficient, productive, and profitable – they get worse along human dimensions. He starts with a story about 2 workers taking a smoke break and telling a joke. It’s a...

The point I was trying to make is about standing up for and speaking loudly about the principles of the institution, and how this is different than taking a political position or supporting one side over another. As 2 illustrations of that point, first was the link I provided to the list of...

Whether a disagreement is two-sided, or many sided, I don't see the relevance of that facet of the definition of "take a side" to what I said. The re-framing is about stating a positive position in terms of the institutions principles, as opposed to supporting or rejecting any other group's...

I'm unclear what was taken out of context, and I'd appreciate your view on the question that I posed; it wasn't my intention to misrepresent anyone, but if the discussion is off on a poor footing maybe it stops.

Most of my family knows effectively zero about it. And basically they have snatches of half-remembered memories of popular fiction depictions of Freemasonry, and some loosely held views based on that. You know, "Oh, it's a secret society, do you guys know where the grail is" that sort of...

What exactly is a social, political, cultural, or religious conflict and how may we know whether something is one of those things or not? n.b. "to take a side" is not the right framing, because it implies some form of two-sided sectarian conflict and the language focuses on the conflict between...

It depends on where you are. Here's some information on the status of GL re-openings. Here's some other information on what's going on in parts of the US. Can't make any general statements that covers everything - but lodges are starting to meet where I am again - but zero degree work is...

Another brother from Indiana wrote a blog post called "The Impotence of being Harmonious" - which does not reference black lives matter directly, but speaks directly about what we came here to do as EAs. Some key bits: That, maybe, by attempting to be quiet for the sake of harmony, by...

The concern is fair. I see the potential for a slippery slope, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. (I.e. it is not inevitable that a chain of events that starts with statements like these, ends with support of a political party). We agree that politicization is not a good idea...