My brethren, where has time gone? I was just getting ready to start my list of things I need to do in February and then I realized it's February - halfway through February! I have no idea how time has moved forward this fast, and I have no idea how I will catch up with all my projects, but here's what I'm working on:
1. An article on how and why to do a Trend Analysis on the health of your lodge. It discusses how to find, organize, and analyze your data holistically as a Doctor would do in an annual physical exam for you. Doctors look at more than your heart rate when they assess your overall health, and we need to look at several numbers to assess the health of our lodges. So, if you're watching your membership numbers as a sign of health, there are many other numbers you need to look at to discover trends in your lodge health. I hope to have this article posted on my website by March 1 and then perhaps I will work it into one of my next books.
2. Noah's Quest Volume's II and III are moving. Volume II is at the publisher waiting its turn at the editor's desk, and I'm working on Volume III which I think will provide many surprises for those following the series. Once Volume II (Eternal Awakening) is out, I will start observing and waiting to see who can put the pieces together and decipher the puzzle of Noah's Quest! That's not all there is to say on that, but it's all I'm going to say right now!
3. I'm also working on two non-masonic articles for publication perhaps in some publications or magazines.
4. Then add in my attempt to get my streaming broadcasts/podcasts up and running using "Sat Chat's" as the venue, but I keep working through the hours when I want to do the Sat Chats. There will be some near-future attempts (again) to test my YouTube Channel (A Mason's Journey) and my FaceBook page (also "A Mason's Journey") in the live stream mode, so watch those notifications!
5. I am putting together some education presentations for lodges and those presentations are based on "return to basics". I want to help our brothers envision masonry as our grandfathers and perhaps great-grandfathers did and I've just finished the first of several in that series of presentations.
6. I Spent quite a bit of time researching the masonic influence on and in the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and I've just completed a full presentation with slides that steps through analysis of the masonic histories of the writer and certain characters and then a full analysis and comparison of the symbolism of the Royal Arch Degree and the various scenes of the movie. Unfortunately this presentation can only be given in a York Rite Chapter/Council or perhaps an AMD Council because of the in-depth discussion of that particular degree.
7. Underlying all of these projects of course is lodge and my Chapter & Council duties. I'm on the Grant and Scholarship Committees for one of my lodges and my Chapter & Council and we have degrees coming up in another of my lodges. I didn't put this at number seven as any indication of priority, rather these obligations run through everything and are the duties my projects either support or compete with. Balance can be a challenge!
8. And finally, in the background I've been taking care of some health issues that were put off in the "Year of Pandemic" and it has required several appointments and procedures which should be winding down now.
So, I'm frequently congratulated on my retirement, but in reality "going to work" is the only item removed from my "to do" list! I do plan to slow down at some point and I honestly hope that point is somewhere in my near future; I just need to figure out what I want my priorities to be in this new reality called "retirement".
Thank you my brothers for this moment of your attention and I beg you - travel on and continue your journey!
May Peace and Harmony Prevail!
Bro. Bill
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