You Will Never Be Safe Again

Thomas Aquinas College is my alma mater, and a sweeter mother of learning I would be hard pressed to find. I was among the first classes to graduate from that lovely, lovely school. It was so small back then, so make shift with its prefab buildings and dirt paths, and yet so mighty in its studies and spiritual life. I would not give up that experience for the world. It saved me. I can say that in all confidence. I have traveled many miles since I graduated in 1980. My education served me well. These are my thoughts now, after having entrusted four of my sons to the college in recent years. I found them important to share with my readers, especially with parents who are nearing the question of college with their older children.

It’s the Iliad that always brings me back. That first, iconic sentence. “Sing, Muse, of the Wrath of Achilles”. That sentence, and the back porch off my kitchen all dappled in the setting sun of a deep, Midwestern summer. When I look out the squeaky screen door and find one more son’s head deep in its opened pages, I know the fall is coming and he is preparing to embark on the first year of his great and glorious adventure. And I get the same, misty feeling each time. Oh, to do it again. And again. And again. This is the alumni feeling. The deep seated nostalgia for our Alma Mater, Thomas Aquinas College.

It is a nostalgia steeped in vivid memories of a place that exists, in a real sense, out of time. A place where we learned to think, began to really pray like our lives depended upon it, and discovered what true friendships looked and felt like. The place is in our veins. So much so, that even after forty five years, we still remember it like it was yesterday. Whenever one of us posts pictures of the college from a visit we’ve made, all the comments are full of a wistful, eager longing for news of the place. “How is this tutor? Did you go down by the ponds? Please pray for me in that beautiful chapel.” And so on, and so on. Thomas Aquinas College was a bit like Shangri-la. A hidden secret of beauty ensconced in some stark, brown, Californian mountains. It was Shangri-la and we are filled with wonder that we once lived there.

(Graduation circa 1980)

There is a great shock when entering the rest of the world beginning with the initial, reluctant shedding of the graduation cap and gown. This begins a time of great disillusionment familiar to many an alumni - when you realize the world does not always think this way. The world does not always pray this way. The world does not have any interest in some tiny liberal arts college in some obscure little town in California. “What can anyone DO with an education like that, anyway?” they scoff just a bit. You feel like a stranger in a strange land as you and your friends scatter to your fates, like very small boats out at sea; achingly lonely for that easy and beautiful atmosphere - an almost visceral longing to be among your own again. Re-entry into the world after Thomas Aquinas College is not for the faint of heart, but enter you must. There is nothing for it.

I still even now after forty five years feel that lonely sense of being a stranger in ‘the world of men’ but, through the mercy of grace, God never let me forget something Ronald MacArthur said one afternoon - well, not quite said, but bellowed for the whole cafeteria to hear. A parent had mentioned that he was sending his child to Thomas Aquinas College to keep him safe from the world. Dr. MacArthur rose up to all of his imposing, six foot four frame and declared with frightening conviction: “SAFE? Your child will ne-ver be safe again once he comes here. He will know things now and will be responsible for knowing things. And he will be called to bring that knowledge into the world. Safe? He will never be safe again!” An honest assessment of things in his bracing, pithy Dr. MacArthur way. What a giant of a man he was! And he was correct. It is rather like the wisdom shared by the ever charming Mr. and Mrs. Beaver of Narnian fame, who minced no words when asked by Lucy if Aslan was “quite safe” replied, “Safe? Of course he’s not safe. But He’s good!” He’s good.

(Dr MacArthur)

It is our duty as alumni of Thomas Aquinas College to figure out a way to bring what we have learned and experienced through the grace of this Good Christ to a world that desperately waits for it. We will be tempted to wall ourselves off. To only talk to people who believe what we believe. To fear error so much that we are frozen in terror and suspicion when approached by someone who doesn’t believe at all what we believe, or perhaps writes a book that makes us ask urgent, difficult questions about ourselves. We will shy away from the awkward challenge of conversing with the world. All this is perfectly understandable …. and yet so perfectly wrong. We belong to Christ. And He is NOT safe. But He is good. And it is the goodness of Christ, through some providence of His own, that has called us to spend four years at Thomas Aquinas College, not so we will fearfully hide it under a bushel basket but that we will engage the world in heartfelt kindness, sincerity, honesty, and humility. That Christ may be all in all.

For many years, I mistakenly lived in fear and did not engage the world as I should have. It was very much an “us vs. them” mentality. All I can say is Mea Culpa. I have been uniquely blessed in these recent years with an “out of the mouth of babes” experience. I have learned to be more brave by watching my own children navigate this same world I inhabit.

I have four sons who were educated at Thomas Aquinas College. Four sons who couldn’t be more different in temperament. They are in every sense my heroes. What I was not able to do, they did. They took their time at Thomas Aquinas College and managed to find a way to bring it to the world in an attractive manner. They were absolutely unafraid of ‘different’ people. They engaged everyone and enjoyed it.

One son, who did long haul trucking for a year, had an impromptu yet bracing talk with a fellow trucker covered in tattoos about existentialism and Platonic forms and listened to him with an open interest. He called me and related this story with a kind of heady exuberance that it was my privilege to hear.

Another son found himself the guest of a group of buddhists, who graciously let him stay among them in the hills of Northern California through the long Covid year doing manual labor. He listened attentively to their thoughts and was able to share his own in a courteous give and take. He found their company blessedly simple, generous, kind, and gracious. He discovered that they had many profound questions. They thought the same of him. Who knows what seeds he left them with and what they think now? Because he was unafraid to engage those who were ‘not his kind’.

A third son has become the unofficial Theological advisor for his grandmother, taking her questions day or night. She in turn brings his answers to her Bible Study. He has learned to translate his theological knowledge into the language of the parish ladies without any condescension whatsoever and is tickled pink by his grandmother’s ingenuous questions. This son also reads widely and bravely whatever he finds to be thought provoking. He finds wisdom in a Stephen King novel as well as Scruton, Aquinas, or Kierkegaard, and lately the Russians Chekhov, and Turgenev.

My youngest son can distill the truth from every movie he watches. We have had some incredible conversations late at night and I always take his recommendations seriously. He also is unafraid to engage others in the opposite point of view just to see where it will lead. He managed to be invited to sit at a table full of lively, chattering lawyers one evening at a banquet where he was a server. They asked his opinion on a subject they were discussing and he gave it while pouring the wine. He did not agree with them in every way and he voiced it. They were so impressed that he was brave enough to disagree and to state his opinion in an articulate manner. They made a place for him at the table. This ability flowed from four years of Socratic dialogue in a classroom learning how to think, to ask the right questions, and to present a point of view.

These sons of mine? They are doing it right. They are my heroes.

They have confidence in their liberal education. They have learned to hone their skills of argument and discovery learned first at the college and they rely wholeheartedly upon them. This confidence has made them unafraid. I have seen them and rejoice. They have taught me to do the same. I have begun to speak plainly when people ask what I believe. But I also try to make an effort to listen without fear or condescension to their own point of view in return; to see where they might possibly have come up with that way of thinking. I always come away having learned something new. I have opened my eyes to the beauty that surrounds me outside of Thomas Aquinas College, and I can now engage it with confidence and see it for what it is. I have become less fearful of the world’s otherness and have discovered that, in the end, it just wants to be redeemed and loved in the worst way. Just like me. I thank my sons for that. And Dr. MacArthur. I fully understand now that indeed I am not safe, but HE is good. And this is cause for hope and courage and confidence.

Believe in the truth! Believe it will move others if you engage or invite them into your conversation. You may receive wonders in return. Trust your education. It is called liberal for a reason. It frees you to be brave. Don’t be afraid. Never be afraid.

Thank you Thomas Aquinas College for educating my sons, for educating me. There is not a day that goes by that I have not thanked God for you. You have given me the joy of knowledge and the confidence to share it. I could not, as a student, ask any more from a college nor, as a mother, from my four wonderfully brave sons.

Deo Gratias!

I do not feel inclined at this time to have a paid substack. But if we were together in a cafe discussing all these thoughts, I would not be opposed to you buying me a cup of coffee - with cream, of course. In that spirit, if any of my posts resonate with you and you feel so inclined, you can donate here: buymeacoffee.com/denise_trull