Let's Discuss The Third Degree
Or at least a bit of it
Before I begin, I should mention that the format of this discussion post (and all such posts into the future) will be a little different from what we are used to.
Since I began here with Emeth, Substack has offered two different kinds of posts. Posts specifically designed for essays, and posts specifically designed for questions. Like the discussion posts I’ve always done here.
Starting today, those discussion type posts have been discontinued as an option within the service that delivers Emeth to you. So, from here on out, I’m going to have to run these discussion posts via the essay form.
This isn’t a huge deal. The only change you will see is that from now on, all of the comments won’t load automatically. You’ll have to hit a link down in the comments section to actually see all of the comments. Not a big deal, but not as seamless as it was before.
I have let the Substack company know that this will make things less seamless for us here. They won’t bring the discussion post type back, as they say that pretty much no one uses it except for me I guess. But, they are going to see if Emeth can be tweaked a bit so that all comments here load automatically. Hopefully they will be able to do that for us.
But for now, we’ll have to click that extra link.
All of that out of the way, on with today’s post!
At our most recent Rummer & Grapes a Brother asked a question in passing that really struck me. And I thought that it would be great to discuss it here.
I don’t know that I have the quote exactly right, as I was jumping for a pen to scratch it down, but this is pretty close:
“As Masons, are we to live as if we have died already?”
Given the content and symbolism of our Third Degree, is that one of the perspectives it was designed to communicate to us?
Let’s chat about it…
“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.56.
Interesting question and my answer would be Yes. Simply put the first 2 degrees for me advise us how we should live our lives and how to achieve a greater knowledge of ourselves. One of the lessons of the third for me is to take the lessons of the first two, recognise what we should change in ourselves, and begin again.