Gordon Bearn

Photo by Bobby George. Kodak Portra 400 + Leica M2

After nearly twenty years away, I returned to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I attended school at Lehigh University.

Going back was cathartic. It was a Proustian experience. Everything was more diminutive than I remembered. The campus was smaller, even though the trees were larger. In this experience, the twists and turns down memory lane, memories expanded in the most rich and unexpected of ways. Layers upon layers unfolded.

I returned, after all these years, to visit Gordon Bearn and his beautiful wife, Ellen. We had brunch and dinner and oh so many conversations and we walked along the Monocacy Creek, stopping at gardens and bends, following the railroad tracks.

Professor Bearn introduced me to philosophy, showcasing what it means to think and learn. In our time together, we explored so many thinkers: from Wittgenstein and Nietzsche to Klee and Deleuze. More than anything, he demonstrated the philosophical way of life: modesty, humility and humor, compassion and a passion for life.

What a beautiful man.