of my mind

Last year I told you about some windmills I saw outside Bowling Green, Ohio. Monstrously large. Graceful, standing in the middle of a corn field. A lot a clear thoughts ensued upon viewing those powerhouses standing in the gentle breeze. But they weren’t moving, and there weren’t many.
Today, Allison and I got to see 44 of them lined across the ridge outside Thomas, WV. We left Morgantown this evening and headed west on I-68 to Friendsville, Maryland. We traveled from there to Oakland and south to Thomas. As we came close to Thomas, we caught our first glimpse of the windmills towering above the trees at 328 feet.
I’ve seen construction in these mountains before. I’ve seen manmade things litter the pristine beauty of the mountains. As a matter of fact, nothing is more common in these hills than the evidence of coal mining, an endeavor undertaken for the same end as those windmills – power. But the extraction of the non-renewable coal imposes traumatic scars upon the landscape. Everywhere are rusted and falling coal chutes, falling buildings, abandoned machinery and even completely stripped-off and leveled hilltops, not to mention the traumatic scars imposed upon the miners. Electricity made by coal fueled power plants causes mercury to build up in marine life.
But these windmills are quite different. My first thought at glimpsing the line of propellers was, “this must be what was meant by the command to subdue the earth.”
"Inspiring, majestic", I said.
"harmonious," Allison said. Yes, harmonious with one another and their context. All lined up where they know the wind will be, ready, spinning.
Allison said, “wonder why we’ve done no better at harnessing the power of the sun?” Harness? Can’t be done. She agreed. Tapped-into. That’s more like it.
One can’t harness the power of the sun or the wind. One can stand in the wind and let it move him. But those 747 wingspan blades don’t catch any wind - they are merely manipulated by the wind. Moved. Even the sun, whose energy can be stored, is closer to being harnessed than the wind. The wind is wild, unpredictable, mysterious, invisible, and powerful. All you can do is be there when it blows.
As we drove away I thought of an observation by G.K. Chesterton, who said that it used to be that folks thought the trees were moved by the wind. These days, everyone knows that it’s the motion of the trees that causes the wind. As I took a final glance in the rearview of all those propellered monstrosities, I thought of how ridiculous it would be to look across there and to think that their purpose was to create wind. Let’s burn some coal and create some electricity to power the windmill engines and create wind. What a false spirit that would be – reverse, meaningless, damaging activity.
What a foolish pursuit it would be, to attempt to manipulate the wind.