The Vinedresser
It was an unseasonably cold and windy day at the end of June when I arrived at the Harbor Pavilion jutting out to the East Bay of Lake Michigan in Elk Rapids. Several white haired women scuttled their way inside for the monthly Elk Rapids Garden Club meeting where Dave would be presenting on biodynamic farming.
When I spotted him, he and his sister Elizabeth were making their way inside carrying several cardboard boxes of wine and supplies. Dave was wearing his typical navy baseball cap donned with sunglasses and a short sleeved farmer’s plaid shirt. As they made their way towards the back of the room, we worked together to lay out a charcuterie-like spread of wine from their wine garden, several books on biodynamic farming, a cow horn, small white bowls of soil prep, and handfuls of white yarrow and nettle.
We snapped a few pictures, made a few introductions, and then Dave began with his lecture with a captive audience of gardeners on the edge of their seats. And I, who cannot even count myself a gardener, was right there with them. Even though I had known Dave from the several interactions we had over the course of four years in the vineyards, I was eager to listen in to discover more. Dave began,
“Rudolf Steiner gave a three day series of lectures in 1924 to a group of dairy farmers in Germany. It became the foundation of biodynamic agriculture, one of the first forms of modern organic farming. In the wake of the industrial revolution after World War I, the implementation of machines and synthetic fertilizers were becoming a concern.
Farmers were already seeing an impact on the quality, vitality, and health of their farming system, and they were wondering, ‘where is agriculture going and how can we respond to the changes that are going on?’ So, Steiner gave these lectures as a response. He believed the principles of biodynamic farming would help heal the earth that was already struggling in the wake of industry.
Steiner was a student of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who studied the process of transformation and the interdependent relationship that plants have with each other. But because what Goethe was teaching wasn’t empirical, because it was relational, it fell by the wayside and Isaac Newton’s way of empirical science (aka Chemistry) won out.”
A Clash of Cultures
What Dave was describing here was a clash of cultures, a clash of worldviews emerging as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the ripple effects of the Enlightenment. As the Industrial Revolution’s way of machinery and Newton's approach to empirical science won out in history, we became more and more shaped by rational, pragmatic, and systematic approaches to farming and life. As a result, we also became more disconnected from the land. We lost the wisdom of creation and the art of cultivation. Crops and soil have been diminishing in health, quality, and vitality ever since.
The Industrial Revolution was not bad in itself. But it was the motivation and means of the industrial revolution that made it so destructive to the land. Beneath the drive for the efficiency and ease of machines and fertilizers was a desire for power, profit, and prestige. These forces create a culture in which products, metrics, and progress (outcomes) are more valuable than the intangibles of transformation and relationships. Psychologists call this the “ego.” Activists call this “empire.” And theologians call this “the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world” (Ephesians 6:12). For our purposes, we will call this, “the productivity approach.”
In the productivity approach, even in ministry contexts, fruitfulness is often defined by measurables and outcomes. We ask questions like,
“How much fruit was produced?”
“What is the value of the harvest?”
“How efficient is the harvesting process?”
When this is a primary value in our culture, we are always striving.
Ever striving for numerical growth.
Ever striving to go up and to the right.
And what defines success? Quantity.
Makoto Fujimura describes the effects of this approach in his book Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life,
“Success for a large part of our culture is now judged by efficient production and mass consumption. We often value repetitive, machine-like performance as critical to bottom-line success. In the seductive industrialist mentality, people become ‘workers’ or ‘human resources’ who are first seen as interchangeable cogs, then treated as machines - and are now often replaced by machines.”
The methods of the productivity approach have a dehumanizing effect. It forms us to push ourselves, others, and creation towards measurable outputs like the machines we operate on. Our relationships become transactional at best, and oppressive at worst.
When tangible products, metrics, and progress (outcomes) are valued higher than the intangibles of transformation and relationships, we will see, like these German farmers did, that the result is trauma that gives way to disease and death. The soil of our bodies, souls, and communities become malnourished; inactive and closed. The quality of life diminishes under the demand for quantity.
Maybe, like me, you can feel this in your bones. The feeling that along with creation itself, something has been diminishing in health, quality, and vitality within you and the communities you are a part of. Perhaps you feel the dissonance between our culture’s value for efficiency and measurable outcomes and the resulting experience of striving, depletion, and isolation. Maybe you long for a more holistic and compassionate approach that fosters flourishing in your life and relationships.
The good news is, biodynamic farmers like Dave have been working hard to re-imagine and re-train the farming systems back to the way they were designed. While farmers are now beginning to embrace cultivation practices based on the wisdom of creation, these practices are anything but new. Some of the best biodynamic farmers are indigenous peoples who have always had a deep appreciation for the land and have employed sustainable cultivation practices long before biodynamic farming was a trend. We have much to learn from those who have led the way in creation care and land stewardship.
The vision of biodynamic farmers, like our Father vinedresser, is for the flourishing of the whole farm system. It is an approach to farming that looks a lot more like the Kingdom of God, because ultimately, it is an approach founded on love.
A Foundation of Love
Vinedressing is a lot of work that yields slow and meager results. But good vinedressers don’t do it for the money. They do all the hard work to cultivate vines because they love vines. They love to watch things grow. When the motivation is love, vinedressers willingly invest their time. They will seek the long term thriving of the vine over quick results that may compromise its health.
Dave often reminds me that Jesus could have chosen an olive tree or a fig tree to describe our relationship with him, but he didn’t. He chose a vine, one of the most high maintenance plants around. Why? Because God doesn’t want to stay at a distance with long absences between visits. No, he wants to be an active participant in your life and formation. Because he loves you. Love is not only the motivation for good vinedressing, but the methods and means as well.
As we walk alongside Dave, we will get a glimpse of cultivation methods that are informed by love. We will see evidence of a loving vinedresser who is actively at work to cultivate his vineyard with the values of his kingdom. We will discover an entirely different value system from the productivity approach rooted in ego and power. If we are to surrender to the loving cultivation of our vinedresser, we must carefully identify the differences between these two ways of life.
Contemplation Over Exploitation
One of the primary components to biodynamic farming is observation. One might even go so far as to say, good vinedressers contemplate their vines. Dave studies his vines carefully, getting into the vineyards regularly to behold them with a sense of wonder and attunement to their needs.
He takes multiple passes through the vineyards throughout the growing season. He feels the leaves and can tell by touch whether or not it is well watered. He knows which ones need to be pruned back because they have experienced winter damage, or which ones are ready to hang fruit. He gives careful attention to the different needs of each branch, and responds with small, almost imperceivable changes to help them flourish.
In his new book, The Life We Are Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, Andy Crouch quotes Leean Payne, “we either contemplate or we exploit.” He explains, “exploitation asks ‘what can this person, or thing for that matter do for me? Contemplation asks, ‘Who or what am I beholding without regard for their usefulness to me?”
Unlike the productivity mindset which views us as machines to be exploited, love beholds. Love contemplates.
Unlike machines that need to be managed, Jesus tells us we are more like branches on a vine that need to be cultivated (John 15). God is not some boss who is putting the squeeze on you to achieve more fruitfulness. He is not transactional with you. He is not sitting on his throne fretting about the yields you produce. God doesn’t have a profit margin that he needs to make every year. He isn’t interested in making something lucrative from you. He is interested in making you beautiful. Making you whole. Making you like him. He wants you at your best. The kind of vine that produces $300 bottles of wine - not for the profit of it, but for the beauty, the richness, and the fullness of it. And because it reveals his glory.
God beholds his creation without regard for its usefulness to him. He is deeply attentive to his creation, cultivating the necessary environment for us to thrive. This is the culture of his kingdom. It’s how he designed all of creation to flourish; by beholding one another in loving contemplation.
As his image bearers, we reflect his image when we see one another not as objects to be used for some kind of gain or profit, but as image bearers who reflect the beauty and glory of God. As we take this approach, we will see creation (including ourselves) not as a problem to be solved or an object to be controlled, but as a sacred masterpiece that must be beheld. And as we do, we will do whatever is within our power to cultivate one another to thrive in all the beauty and glory we were created to be.
Empowerment Over Control
On one cloudless morning in July, a few friends and I spent time with Dave in a vineyard in Elk Rapids where the vines were just starting to ripen grapes. He drew our attention to one particular vine that had no fruit, and explained that the fruit had been taken off because the vine wasn’t healthy enough to bear it through the harvest season.
As he said this, my heart sank. I felt in my body the times in my life where I wasn’t strong enough or in a healthy enough place to produce fruit. I felt that for the church in the West as it experiences rapid decline. I felt that for the many dear ones I love going through trauma or loss who couldn’t produce fruit in the way they wanted to because of grief.
But then what Dave shared next as he gestured to this vine gave me so much hope, “This vine has been stripped of its fruit this year. It’s just not healthy enough to bear it. But you better believe I’m going to do everything within my power to cultivate it back to health.”
My throat caught for a moment. “Everything within my power to cultivate it back to health?”
What if the very places we feel ashamed for not producing fruit, for being weak and in need of healing, God looks upon us with this same kind of compassion as Dave with his vines. With this same kind of mercy that says, “I see you there struggling. And instead of forcing you to produce fruit that will cause you to burn out, I am going to strip your fruit from you for a while. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make you healthy again.”
When vinedressers are motivated more by power, prestige, and profit, they will approach their vines like a top-down management line and develop tight systems of control. Instead of beholding their vines like a mystery to be embraced, they treat their vines like problems to be solved.
But, unlike a productivity approach that yields power over vines for the sake of an output, the loving vinedresser leverages his power for his vines for the sake of their flourishing.
God did not create us as robots. He doesn’t want predictable and systematic machines. He wants a relationship with us. He wants partners. And He has called us such. He has called us ambassadors (2 Cor 5:20). Friends (John 15:15). And even, lovers (2 Cor 11:2).
Love does not control, but empowers others to thrive at their best. Instead of treating us like machines that need to be fixed, managed, and pressed for an output, God empowers us with the necessary wisdom, skills, tools, and resources for the sake of our health, quality, and vitality. And the results will be drastically different.
A productivity approach may yield a large quantity of fruit, but it will crash the vine in the short term. The flourishing approach may take longer to produce fruit, but the vine will yield enduring and quality wine from a vine that thrives over the long haul.
Consider for a moment:
How has the productivity approach shaped your worldview? Do you see threads of this approach in how you look at yourself, God, and creation?
In what ways might God want to free you through his approach towards flourishing? How does it change your view of God when you see He is more interested in empowering you than controlling you? And beholding you than exploiting you?
How might this change your approach to your relationships?
