Swans

Today's Thought is a rather fancy looking way to sum up the last four years of my life. While I found it on an educational page I follow on Facebook, I hardly took it to mean strictly formal, classroom learning.

As some of you may know, tonight I am giving my Swan Song, a symbolic final speech for members as they move to alumni status in my fraternity. If you wish to hear the speech, I will be recording it and posting it somewhere on these inter-webs.
As I think back on the last 3-4 years I am simply astounded. I've made and lost friends, I've joined the best group of gentlemen I've ever had the pleasure to be associated with, I've pursued my dream of teaching, I've lived half-way across the country, I've met the woman whom I'm pretty sure will be my future wife, I've had experiences beyond my wildest dreams. Talk about a big mess.
You see, I don't think I'm at college so much to get a degree in a given career field, as much to get a complete education in life. As an educator, I don't teach agriculture, I teach students. Learning is messy. People get hurt but people are strong. We bounce back to leave legacy's beyond our wildest dreams. Sorry about the mess for the last four years, but I've been learning.

What is your swan song? If you had the chance to tell the world anything for one night, what would you say? Would talk about how you've developed and learned as a person? Would you talk about the messes in your life? I think so much of the time we don't think about these messy experiences as times of learning. However, messes are the ONLY time we are truly learning.

Fraternity

Today's Thought comes from the archives over at Art of Manliness.  Being a fraternity man myself (MN FarmHouse, Fall '10), I really identified with this thought.  While we don't have someone firing bullets at us up in St. Paul, we do have same sense of camaraderie and cohesion.  I'm not sure what it is about the men we have, but each and every one us are brothers.  I've never experienced it, but I have no doubt that many other fraternities have this same sense of brotherhood.

This reminds me of an interesting ritual we do at FarmHouse when we are initiating new members.  We call the activity 'String Web'.  The idea is that a ball of yarn represents the bonds of our brotherhood.  Each brother explains why he is glad another brother is a part of the house.  After making this statement, the brother grabs a hold of the string and throws it to the brother he talked about.  At the end of the activity, the last brother makes the statement: "Just as a spiders web is the strongest structure in nature, the bond of brother is the strongest bond in life."

What is Fraternity?  Perhaps the first thing you thought of when you saw this title is Animal House.  I can tell you firsthand that Animal House is the furthest thing from true Fraternity.  Clancy Lyall gives us about the best description of Fraternity in this picture that I have ever heard.  It's not even a gender thing.  Anyone can have Fraternity the way Mr. Lyall meant the word.  Just as a spiderweb appears slight, yet strong beyond it's means, the bonds of Fraternity hold true through the worst storms.  While the sense of Fraternity in your life is probably not borne from fighting a war, it is likely the same sense.  Who are those people in your string web?  What is your Fraternity?