Close your eyes for a moment. Picture the life you want to build. The man you want to become. What you want to leave behind.
Now open them. Look around. Be honest with yourself... How much of your intentional, scheduled time today moved you closer to that vision?
Inside the lodge, you’ll find are ordinary men, just like you. Men with jobs, families, bills, and struggles. And one of the simplest, most profound lessons that binds them together is taught in the first degree, using a tool you’ve probably never even heard of: the 24-inch gauge.
Stop and Reflect
The Entered Apprentice degree introduces you to working tools that, at first glance, seem ordinary. Why did the choose them, and what do they even mean?
Among them, the 24-inch gauge. Operative stonemasons once used it to measure stone, but speculative Freemasons use it to measure something far more important: time.
Albert Mackey, one of the most renowned Masonic authors, wrote that the gauge symbolizes the division of our 24 hours into three equal parts:
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Eight hours for God and the service of others
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Eight hours for your vocation and livelihood
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Eight hours for refreshment and rest
Sounds simple, right? Most men will live their entire lives without ever asking themselves if the way they spend their hours truly aligns with the life, they claim they want. Intentionality, being the focus of the message. How are we planning (our calendars) for the good things we want in this lifetime. Whether it's impact, relationship, fitness, wealth, or otherwise, have we ever stopped to reflect objectively on how we plan to achieve our mission and purpose?
The Ordinary Man’s Secret to Real Impact
The lesson isn’t really about splitting time into equal thirds, it’s more about intentionally reclaiming your agency. You weren’t put here to drift through your days. The 24-inch gauge asks you to measure, not just your minutes, but your meaning. What can we place on our calendars to help us be successful at the end of the race.
Inside the lodge, you’ll find men who’ve chosen to confront this question head-on. Men who’ve realized they cannot control how many days they have, but they can decide what those days stand for. Men who’ve discovered that if they don’t control their time, their time will control them.
And that’s the quiet secret of the gauge... We’re chasing the kind of life where, at the end of it, you know you did something that mattered.
Applying the 24-Inch Gauge to Your Life
You may be thinking: “Eight hours for God? Eight for work? Eight for sleep? That’s not my reality.” And you’re right, and that’s exactly the point.
The gauge forces you to ask the hard questions:
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Where am I pouring my energy that doesn’t serve my highest calling?
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Who gets the best of me: my purpose, my family, or distractions?
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What could I accomplish if I became deliberate about where I plan to spend my time?
Because the truth is, time isn’t just passing. It’s fleeting.
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