2/20/08:

Fraternal Spirituality - Dan Schaefer

Fraternity life was never for me, there seemed to be no point. Everything seemed the same as any other group I was involved in. Meetings, service opportunities, social functions, etc. These were all aspects that caused me to be indifferent towards joining Greek Life. I’m standing here during my second term as president of a fraternity, so let me explain this a little further. The one aspect that actually caused me to object to joining Tau Kappa Epsilon was brotherhood. Awkward I know.

If you look at any fraternity website you’ll find something involving brotherhood. For example, after searching for “Fraternity and brotherhood” in Google, East Carolina University came up and their Inter-fraternity Council stated: Brotherhood is a private bond based on intangible, invisible principles. Private bond, intangible…Not exactly music to my ears.

See, throughout my life I was sort of a loner and still am today, but to a lesser degree. Family wise, I have a father that is currently battling alcoholism and as a result, lost his job. Obviously this made me angry at my father and the situation as a whole. I was determined not to go down that path. Today at 54, he is divorced, still unemployed, and still battling this disease. Not the life for me. So I made a decision, I was going to do everything in my power to not become like that. So I started almost immediately; sophomore year of high school I got another job to help my mom pay for bills, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Whenever it felt like I wasn’t helping her enough or pulling enough weight, I felt like I wasn’t on track to reaching my goal that I just mentioned. So I found another job, and then another. At the end of it all, I entered my junior year with four jobs.

You can imagine that between that and something called academics, I didn’t have time for much else socially. I had my usual set of friends in high school and was still close to others from my grade school days. I did my own thing, had 4 jobs, attended Notre Dame High School near Chicago, didn’t really have time to do much else.

I kept my friends at a distance. I felt that no one should have to worry about anything that was happening with me or my family. I was on top of everything. I was working to help mom with the bills, making sure my sister was doing okay in school, even though she is three years older, she took this much harder than I did. I had to make sure my dad was constantly out looking for a new job, but without accepting his problem and addressing it, people barely gave him the time of day. Again, I was pretty busy, but had everything under control.  

Besides the time factor, my lacking relationship with my dad made me lose value in other relationships. I would see other guys my age with strong relationships with their fathers and it really took a toll on me. I began to close myself up even more. Focusing on my goal of being the best I could be and making sure my family was taken care of. My friendships were still there, but for the majority, it was the type of friends you see on the weekend and then go your separate ways.

I have two friends that were with me through it all. My friends John and Ryan. We have known each other since kindergarten. Ryan and I were actually baptized on the same day, which is some useless information for you. These are the two guys that I have always gone to with my problems and they always saw me through things. My two best friends.

Well, there I was 3 ½ hours from home, freshmen year at St. Norbert College. You can imagine how excited I was to be here with my fantastic ability to make friends. What was I going to do when problems came my way, I couldn’t call John and Ryan every time something came up, they had lives too. I came to St. Norbert with the intention of getting away. I had been dealing with my family’s issues since the beginning of my sophomore year of high school and things were still happening there. I felt that I needed to get away and start living life for me. I started to make friends, but kept them at a distance of course.

Then I went to meet a professor, John Neary, at Luna to talk about a paper. I walked in and saw John and two other guys sitting at a table. I later found out they were from the TKE fraternity. Like an idiot I gave them my contact information, they really knew how to recruit and before you knew it, I was hanging out with them.
The idea of fraternity never came up in the beginning, as far as I knew, they were just two normal guys. Once they started talking about fraternity and brotherhood, I became uneasy. It was quite the opposite of the “keep your distance” plan that I had been following.

“I really don’t do the whole brotherhood thing” I said to one of them. He said, not many people do, at first. “Take it for what it is and see how you feel in a couple days.”
Throughout the course of the education program, I got a chance to meet with the guys and they became friends.

Then it happened, my dad went into the hospital as a result of his sad attempt to quit drinking. The withdrawal was too much for him and he collapsed. We almost lost him.    

This is about the time that I would have jumped up and again tried to be the rock for my mom and sister. Make sure they knew that everything was going to be okay and I would take care of it. There was just one problem, I was 3 ½ hours away! The most I could give was a phone call. I had been in the fraternity for about a semester and a half now and usually, I wouldn’t know who to call, who to talk to, who would even care.

This situation was different; I had an entire phone full of members of TKE that I could call if I ever needed anything. Then I realized, before I only had 2 guys that I felt comfortable talking to about my problems. That day, I had 20 brothers. That was the first time that I ever really referred to them as brothers. Sure, I assumed I had fraternity brothers, but it really didn’t hit me until the time when I needed them most.

They were there when I needed them and continued to be. The amazing thing was that there were no limits. At first, I kept things small, only saying things when they was asked, but eventually I started to seek people out when I needed them.

They helped me get through a really tough time which in turn allowed me to help my family a couple hundred miles away. This is something that I had to be sure of and would have never forgiven myself if I left and my mom and sister were at a disadvantage.

This brotherhood also helped me realize that I didn’t have to take care of everyone all the time. My family is going to be fine, sure I’ll have to be there at certain points in time, but they can do things on their own. Something that I needed help realizing.

You see, for me, brotherhood is a concept that goes way beyond the letters that I wear on my chest or the homecoming competition we won- now twice. Brotherhood is about caring for the people who are around me, and trusting that they'll do the same for me. It’s about family, my community, and what we owe to one another.