Nature as Flow

But there’s another nature at college, a nature we might call “nature as flow” or “nature as system.” This is the nature that’s hidden in plain sight, the nature of our everyday lives. Let’s look at some local examples of the nature of St. Olaf College.

Environmentally speaking, a college campus is a machine for converting natural energy to human thoughtfulness. It’s a place where the solar-powered organisms we call human beings use other living organisms (like plants and animals) and the dead organisms we call fossil fuels to maintain themselves so that they can think effectively, creatively and compassionately. Like all other colleges and universities, St. Olaf is an organic machine, a synthesis of nature’s energy and nature’s human energy. On campus, human energy shapes other energies and vice versa. A campus is one way of making love to nature—or of making war on it. It’s a way of caring for God’s evolving creation. As we suggest on black & gold & green, a campus is, like it or not, good or bad, always an ecological design.