The Common Gavel.
Pursuing the same metaphor, it might be said that the second great gift with which we are endowed at our birth is the gift of energy.
Healthy children simply bubble and boil with it (as we grandfathers know all too well!) and if it be true that, in the words of our ritual,
“labour is the lot of man”,
then it is also true that our God-given energy is the means whereby we accept that lot, and wield the Gavel of our allotted tasks in life.
To conserve the sources of our energy by right-living and temperate habits seems to me to be a duty implied, if not explicitly stated, by the charge concerning the Common Gavel.
As we pile on the yeas of our age, our energy becomes less overflowing, and sapped by normal fatigue, we become a set-up for one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” – Sloth, – or as we should now call it, Laziness, a tendency to procrastinate, to put off, or to neglect moral tasks which should go to the building of our character into
“a stately and superb Edifice, perfect in its parts and honorable to the builder.”
Say, we have a kindly impulse to write a letter to a distant or lonely relative or friend, whose spirits we know would be lifted by a message from us. But – oh, well, I’m a bit fagged this evening and there’s a very good program on the television. Or, say again, there is a meeting of some organization to which we belong, at which some special knowledge we possess would be a valuable help to the committee if we did but attend the meeting as we should; but, oh well, it’s been a rough day at the office, and it’s not a very nice night out, and anyway I might get stuck with a job to do!
So, we let it go, and our reputation for dependability suffers! Which of us, alas, does not recall some good, kindly or helpful action which on first impulse we might have taken, but we have let time slip by, and the opportunity is lost. The Gavel was in our grasp, but we did not wield it!
Truly, the road to Perdition is paved with good intentions.
“For the heart may conceive and the head devise; in vain, if the hand be not prompt to execute the Design”!
Editor’s Note: Brother Phil J. Croft ,of King David Lodge No. 93, West Vancouver, B.C. where the Canadian Ritual is followed, gave in Lodge a series of lectures on the working tools. His talk on the Entered Apprentice Tools appeared in the March and April 1972 issues of the MASONIC BULLETIN, B.C.R.
God is the Answer
We read the headlines daily and we listen to the news, We are anxious and bewildered with the World’s conflicting views.
We are restless and dissatisfied and sadly insecure, and we voice our discontentment over things we must endure.
For this violent age we live in, is filled with nameless fears, that grow as we discuss things that come daily to our ears.
So instead of reading headlines, that disturb the heart and mind, let us open up the Bible and in doing so we’ll find.
That this age is no different, from the millions gone before, But in every hour of crisis, God has opened up a door, for all all who sought his guidance and trusted in his plan.
For God provides the ANSWER that can not be found by man. And although there’s hate and violence and dissention all around, we can always find a refuge that is built on “ Solid Ground”
If we go to God believing that he hears our smallest prayer and that nothing can befall us, when we are in his care.
For only by believing in the things we cannot see, can all the Nations be United in a Peace that makes men Free.
For the skill of man can conquer new worlds in Outer Space, but only our Creator, can endow mankind with grace. And only Grace, that is divine, can unite us with each other and make our enemies our friends and.
EVERY MAN A BROTHER. Helen Steiner Rice from “Loving Thoughts” (published 1985)