Masters of Humanity

College has taught me many things.

In fact, everyone who goes to college learns something—whether it is the concentration level of certain fermented beverages, the best way to ill-intentionally woo delightful looking young college women, or how to engage in weekend “festivities” at the local who-knows-where.

I didn’t learn those things (alas). College life taught me something rather different, rather refreshing. In fact, my college education, though vast, could be summed up in three things--the highest and earthiest things I learned:

Sacrament

I babysat for a family of four young boys every week in college. Like all good Catholic boys, they enjoy two things above all else: playing Mass and shooting things. Usually the activities don’t remain independent of each other for long. One of the boys inevitably starts “shooting” his brother with a crucifix while another grabs a Swiffer Wet Jet as a processional cross and chants “alleluia” over and over through the hallways. The boy playing the priest inevitably becomes a military chaplain as hot wheels cars and lego “bombs” come crashing down on the altar. The scene usually ends with a living room chapel in disarray, sacramentals put out of reach, and the boys sent to the backyard where the killing may resume.

These boys taught me how to live sacramentally. No, not just how to go to Mass and confession (though it did give me that), but how to live sacramentally. How to see the beauty in little things, the grace in each moment. To live sacramentally is to see things for what they are—no more (the danger of romanticism), and no less (the danger of cynicism). Sacramentality lies directly in the middle of these two extremes—it is the worldview of the pilgrim who continues on his journey, rejoicing in each passing milestone and meal. Sacrament makes us more human. It reminds us that children are the best “life coaches”; that cigars offer priceless opportunities for good conversation and fraternity; that coffee is an avenue to the timeless when enjoyed with friends. Oh, and that coffee must always be taken black. Always.

College taught me to appreciate these little things. To see how they bring us joy but do not satisfy, life but not life eternal. It taught me to look at them, and to wonder.

Wonder

Wonder is what makes us human. Wonder the window to the eternal. Wonder is the antithesis of amusement and yet the heart of the Muses. Wonder is not only to see the world as sacrament, but to be fascinated by it, to let it astonish you. Wonder is to step outside oneself for but a moment, and to recognize how blessed one is. Wonder takes not for granted. Everything is grace for he who wonders.

G.K. Chesterton (one of the patrons of my college experience) wrote in his must-read Orthodoxy:

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

He who wonders is never bored. Those who constantly flee reality, who go from one thrill to another—whether it be weekend parties or alcohol or drugs or amusement park rides—have not wonder. Wonder can sit at leisure. Wonder can be still.

Silence

At an admissions weekend, one delightful prospective student asked me how, if at all, I could sum up my college experience. I thought for a moment, then answered, “I think as students go through college, they become quieter. College has silenced me.”

Sacrament and wonder humbles man to silence. He finally sees how very little he knows, and how very much there is to know. In my four years, I was silenced by the magnanimity of Pericles, hushed by the simplicity of Aristotle, quieted by the purity of St. Thomas. I was “sssh-ed” by Virgil, like the great poets in Dante. And like Dante himself, I was struck silent many times before the power of beauty.

This silence taught me vocation. After all, the Lord did not speak in the earthquake, but in the still small voice. Silence has taught me receptivity, it has taught me fiat. Silence has made me more human.

And in this, perhaps, these three things could be summed up in one: college has made me more human.  As I left the school one last time, one of my dearest professors approached me, shook my hand, bid me be well, and told me, “Be a good husband. Be a good father. The world is in need of people who live authentic human lives. Be, as Pope John Paul II always said, a Master of Humanity.”

After all, in the end, that is the only degree that matters.