The Master Craftsman Program is a pen and paper, old school by-mail correspondence course that walks its participants through the Scottish Rite Ritual Monitor and Guide – a huge tome compiled and annotated by Arturo de Hoyos – the Grand Archivist and Grand Historian of the Supreme Council.  It is one of the only official masonic education courses in the world, and it is open to anyone willing to take the time to complete it.  Yep, even women and non-masons.

While no secret handshakes or passwords are reviled in the two courses that make up the program – the much larger secret of Freemasonry is.  That secret is this: when the lessons of the degrees are recognized, then applied to one’s life, a more virtuous and honorable person emerges, and their feeling of a personal connection to God has increased manifold.

This hardly sounds like a secret, but it is.  It’s hard to accomplish.  Try it, once.

And that’s exactly what people taking Master Craftsman course are doing right now.  They are trying to apply the lessons of the 29 Scottish Rite Degrees directly to their lives, first through reading and reflection – then by action. 

On this month’s show, we take a peek at some of this work from around the country.  All of the essays you will hear came from the same exam – specifically Quiz 3 from Master Craftsman 2.  They are stories of great mortal peril leading to personal revelation, unswerving looks at solving the problems of contemporary society and a carefully reconsidered look at the definition of a virtue we thought we could agree on.  There may be views expressed that don’t necessarily comport with your own, because these stories are all very personal to those telling them.   But, as you will soon see, because of the universality of the subject matter, you almost can’t help but to feel their experiences as your own. 

We start with Eric Simms in Texas and his thoughts on heroism…