Student Speech at Alumni/Christmas Dinner

I believe that everyone here tonight is here because we share a common love. It is this love, for the education we receive, for those who’ve dedicated themselves to providing for it, and for those who’ve pursued it alongside us– that has called us together. Love, and certainly in our case, is not something merely between two people, but once one is made aware of it there you find it, wherever you are. So, too, is this education, extending beyond the confines of our classroom, or hotel room as the case may be. Each of you who have graduated, I would assume, have returned because you’ve been made more acutely aware of this experience through your interactions, wherever you are, your lives somehow affected by your four years at Thomas More College.

Whether you call it Thomas More or Erasmus, the spirit of the school is not bound to the institution. This spirit is what we endeavour to protect and to foster. For many of us the decision to leave Thomas More was not a simple one. It was, indeed, tremendous; it was a decision that went beyond matters of practicality and was a decision somehow informative of who we are and who we will become.

The love of this education that we had gotten such a small taste of called us here. Fight its presence with what vigour we may, we could not refute it, we could not ignore it for long. For as long as we are confronted with it, this decision will always be before us. And, ever so slowly, perhaps it takes the time of a life, you come to see that you cannot live a genuine and human life without the gifts we’ve been given through our education. You come to see that perhaps being human means giving yourself up to what you’ve already been given to, and what has already been given to you. Perhaps it is that you can only really be human and life really be life by participating in the love in which you find yourself.

Tonight marks a crossing of boundaries- we, as a body of students no matter our age or circumstances, have, whether it has been spoken aloud or not, promised ourselves to that which is to come. Moving forward together we shall take it upon ourselves to foster this spirit of love and learning, and vow to see it develop its own character, planting its roots in each of us and awaiting to see what flower will unfold. I, as I’m sure all the current students do, thank you alumni for being here and for supporting what we all love so dearly. Knowing that there are those who have experienced this education and strive to see it succeed has made quite a difference. It imbues within us a sense of comradery, and a sense of another often used word, communitas.

To our professors, I can offer no more right now than a humble thank you. Your dedication to the education and to the students of past and present is admirable. Without your care and concern none of this would be possible. And when you look around, at the faces that sat in your classroom years ago and the faces that sit in your classroom now, I hope that you find a constant reassurance that what you have done has mattered in our lives and in a smaller way, in the lives of those we meet; that you have set us upon a firm foundation from which, as distant as we may roam, we can never truly leave behind. For these four years, you have been as parents, and for the years to come I will remember you as such, and as we mature so hopefully will our relationships.

Everyone who has embarked upon this journey with its unknown destination has shown courage and bravery. Those who have fought for the education that they believe will begin to direct all of us ultimately toward truth has been costly. What we have come together to do is to celebrate the birth of a new school, and remember the loss of another. Here, Dr. Sampo, I nod my head to you and recall to our minds the words of Abraham Lincoln, a good bit out of context, so I do hope you will forgive me. “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what [we have done] here.

Now for Dr. Mumbach, I would imagine that this pursuit of a college that teaches more than facts and numbers has been, as Faulkner said, “a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit,” so that we might reacquaint ourselves with the “old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed.”

Our story began well before I was born, and I am nothing but grateful that I am being given a chance to put my pen to paper and to direct my own chapter. Though, to call it my own is perhaps misleading. It is mine in as much as I am participating in it, it shall be yours in as much as you do, and it shall be ours in as much as we all participate. The story of this institution has written itself upon all of our hearts, and from here we shall set forth together.

The timing of our gathering, could not, I think, have been better. In the Christmas spirit of selflessness and giving what all of you have done is most keenly noticed. Our thanks will resound now and in times to come. But as for all of the seriousness of today’s matters, meetings and such, I think Ms. Enos might just be willing to say, “nunc est bibendum“. So I’ll end here and leave it to you all to fill in the rest.

The Musings of OVER Ambitious Undergrads

Merriweather-

When in Rome there is an overwhelming urge to be in Rome. A sense of being somewhere set apart from one one is to be anywhere else. This want, or expectancy, must stem from something, but what? Whatever it is, it requires a participation unlike any that I’ve encountered in other places (but then again- I’m still quite a young’n.) But what is this endeavour we’ve all set ourselves on, what new path shall we be walking? Rome, as we’re often told here, is a place to refine the senses, but I’m quite sure I agree with that phrasing. Rather, I prefer to think of it as a discovery of the senses– and in the simplest of ways I just did- through a hearty Italian dinner.

Flora-

I think that changing the place where we are, telling us to be in Rome, teaches us to be in a universal way. It expands our experience and educates our entire self. Can anyone really ever just be? Don’t we have to be somewhere? And here in Rome is the fullest place to be. Just some thoughts…

Merriweather-

I’m not sure that it does teach us in a universal way— in fact, I’d say that it teaches us in such particular ways that the poignancy carries itself in an almost ripple-effect that educates our persons in ways we have yet to fully realize. Yes, I think that people can simply “be”- because to be, the act of being, is an incredibly fulfilling act. It’s a unifying act, when we are directed properly, and maybe that’s our task. There’s something to Rome, to directing ourselves in and toward and beyond the city that, again, I’m not sure we’ll understand until much farther down the line. We do have to be somewhere but it’s an internal a somewhere as it is external.

Flora-

That’s true, it is an internal somewhere, too, the internal somewhere is somewhere where we always are.  Being implies thinking, seeing, breathing, it is a fulfilling and unifying act and cannot be taken in isolation which is why just “being” seems like an impossibility to me. I like what you are saying about Rome directing ourselves, and I don’t think we will understand it fully yet but I do think we can understand some of it now.

   I keep thinking about the statement “all roads lead to Rome” and how that, in a cliche way, points to Rome really as a center.

Merriweather-

True, true… (Connellogism, anyone?) but I do disagree with how you think of being, or of what you say is implied by being. Shall I be corny and ask whether the question at hand is “To be or not to be?”

Flora-

Be as corny as you’d like, I did it, too . (Yes, over ambitious undergrads use “emoticons”.) I don’t think non-being is ever a possibility. Hamlet sees this, too, because he thinks of death as sleep, and sleep always brings dreams. There will always be something we perceive and think and want. We cannot be separated from ourselves.

In Roma

“and paths are strange /To him, that are your paths, in the wilderness,/

And were your fathers’ paths, and once were mine.” Donald Davidson

Here we are in Rome, walking the paths of our fathers; our fathers in faith and our fathers in thought.  The paths in Rome are old and wind in unpredictable ways.  Around every corner is something unexpected ( a church perhaps or an open air market) or something familiar ( a wine shop or bakery).  The tangles that are the streets suddenly open up before you into a piazza full of sunshine, or rain as the case may be.  This is where we will be reading, writing, thinking, and discussing.  This is our home for the next three months.

Hello!

Something from Epictetus

—“Oh! when shall I see Athens and its Acropolis again?”—Miserable man! art thou not contented with the daily sights that meet thine eyes? Canst thou behold aught greater or nobler than the Sun, Moon, and Stars; than the outspread Earth and Sea? If indeed thou apprehendest Him who administers the universe, if thou bearest Him about within thee, canst thou still hanker after mere fragments of stone and a fine rock? When thou art about to bid farewell to the Sun and Moon itself, wilt thou sit down and cry like a child? Why, what didst thou hear, what didst thou learn? why didst thou write thyself down a philosopher, when thou mightest have written what was the fact, namely, “I have made one or two Compendiums, I have read some works of Chrysippus, and I have not even touched the hem of Philosophy’s robe!”

I found this while flipping through an edition of Epictetus at my house.  The first two sentences caught my attention, and I thought others might like to read it.