A Philosophy on Philosophers

Here's something I learned last weekend from my brother Caleb, who is chairman of the philosophy department at Messiah College.

When he was growing up, his age mate and friend, Loren, once told him that he thought he should be a philosopher. Loren made this observation when they were working together rogue-ing wheat--pulling out the rye from a wheat field so the harvest could be sold as certified seed wheat.

In recent years, when Loren was at Caleb's home church in PA for the funeral of the pastor's wife (who was Loren's aunt), Caleb told Loren that he remembered what he had said when they were young about Caleb becoming a philosopher. Caleb didn't give a huge amount of credit to Loren's suggestion for the fact that he did in fact eventually do that, but he thought he probably owed Loren at least the courtesy of acknowledging his prescient comment.

Caleb found Loren's response highly amusing. He said, "I didn't really know for sure what you should be, but I just knew you'd never make it as a farmer."