Corn and Grass

I just returned from a couple days at a ministerial retreat at Shalom Center, a retreat center for ministers founded on an old farm in southwestern Minnesota. The center was designed to have a light footprint on the earth, with buildings set in the hillside that require minimal heat or cooling, emphasis on locally grown food for meals, a wind power plant, and surrounded by land that is being returned to prairie.

I was able to walk for a couple hours on the prairie and enjoy some time in nature and away from others. The ecological connections were palpable, the spirit of the land hung in the air. It was hard not to hear the whispers of Aldo Leopold or Wendel Berry in this place. And yet across the way corn was being mowed down by a combine, most likely to be processed into ethanol, the current speculative market expansion scheme of agribusiness. The giant machine whirred along, casting a cloud of dust, with headlights on, working well into the night. It would be easy to hate the corn and love the grass, but I know it is so much more complicated than that.