Outwitting Nature

I remember growing up on the farm where all the neighbors got together to rent a corn “harvester” which would remove the individual grains of corn from the cob. This was before the advent of combines where this machine took 3 men and concentrated work to manage. 

Now, you can sit in an air-conditioned cab and let your GPS drive while you pick the corn.

My father tells the story of when a family member from the “old country” came to the USA for a visit and saw the corn stalks ripe and drying he wondered why my father was not out there already picking the corn, putting it in “shocks” for it to dry. This was the process that was even BEFORE the neighborhood corn harvester. He though my father was slacking off and the grain was going to fall off the plant and he would lose his crop. My father had to explain the machine used to pick the corn. This old farmer from the “old country” was amazed to see such a miraculous invention.

“Machine” comes from the Greek word “machen” which is defined as a “cunning device to outwit nature.” Which has a root word for “having power over” something. Its first use in its current form was in the 1500’s where it was used to name a device for breaching enemies’ walls.

We are now finding that we have outwitted nature too much.

Now we have “getting back to nature” outing and the desire to “unplug” along with the desire to get outside and experience nature. We are moving to “natural” and “organic” foods and even clothing. We have a nostalgic view of homegrown and outdoorsy. We no longer want to outwit nature, we want to live with it and adapt to it instead of adapting nature to fit our needs.

I see this trend in the upcoming generation and I am torn. On the one hand I too have the desire to grow my own food and raise chickens for eggs and meat. But on the other hand I also am old enough to know that “problems” with natural and outdoorsy. I remember a time where there were no showers for cleaning, when laundry was a full time job, and a farmer could only feed himself and a few other people. I remember a time when having a lot of children was not a problem it was a necessity. There were a minimum amount of children you had to “produce” in order to make sure that a few lived to adulthood as well as enough children to work the farm and other necessary chores. There is a balance that must be maintained in nature, a “chi” and “ma’at” that must be maintained. I believe we have swung too far into the realm of machines and away from nature. But I think I fear the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction even more.

God created nature and natural but he also created us in his image to be creative. So there is nothing inherently wrong with machines and medicine to outwit nature (especially our fallen nature). But, as in all things, we must balance and we humans are not very good at balancing … we tend to collect in groups on the extremes.