Late to the Party

I finally got around to checking out The Setting Maul podcast (link goes directly to the podcast feed - you can also go to thesettingmaul.com) and so far I'm quite enjoying the Brothers' take on things.

I soured on a lot of internet-based Masonic discourse a while ago because so much of it is polarized and fraught with hyperbole... nothing is ever accomplished because the positions taken are often so fatalistic: either Masonry has been irrevocably ruined, or there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, and that's that.

The Setting Maul, at least the first few episodes I've listened to, is reality-based - that is to say, it acknowledges the frustrations we often encounter in Masonry, but rather than railing on about whose fault they are or how crappy it is that things are in such a state, the Setting Maul folks talk about ways to deal with some of those realities. The refreshing thing is that a lot of them start with ourselves: looking in our hearts and thinking about whether any of the problems and/or solutions lie within, rather than just pointing fingers. And even if there's not always a solution, it's nice to commiserate without quite so much drama.