A nourishing read: Why farmers make the best intellectuals.
In class this morning, we were going over the distinction between speculative and practical knowledge – between what who know, and what you can do. Ideally, the two types of knowledge should work in harmony; sadly, as the article argues, they are becoming ever-more bifurcated, as those who profess to know, as Christ alludes in today’s Gospel, not only know almost nothing, living in a utopian fantasy, but block others from the true treasures of knowledge.
Woe to you lawyers! for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering
Sounds a lot like too many of today’s teachers. I sometimes ponder that if I had another to live, I’d like to have been a farmer. They know quite a bit, and can do even more, as I discovered on a visit to family farm on Thanksgiving Sunday. We should all thank God for farmers, and for the food they put on our table.