Solar Panels and Sunflowers

“What has been is what will be,

   and what has been done is what will be done;

   there is nothing new under the sun.” 

Ecclesiastes 1:9

We were driving through southwester Ontario the other week when I was noticing the free-standing solar panels in the fields.  They made me think of the fields of sunflowers one sees along the trans-Canada just west of Winnipeg and how no matter what the time of day, the sunflowers are facing the sun getting every bit of energy they can to make the most of the short growing season.

I wondered if the solar panels also turned to follow the sun? Surely someone had made that same connection as I did. With a little research [via Google] when I got home, I found this: “In relation to photovoltaic panels, solar trackers orient toward the sun to harness more sunlight. Solar trackers are positioned and attached to solar panels… In some cases, solar trackers can potentially make solar panels 25-35% more efficient, which means that more power can be generated with less space and less panels.” [The Solar Company]

And so once again we prove that adage from Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun. With Ontario expected to bring out its new climate change plan shortly, here is surely an ‘old’ way to use new technology to supply our needs. What has ‘always been’ is not necessarily useless just because it is outdated. It can contain wisdom that will lead us, not to the same solutions necessarily, but different ones.

And so it is with Christianity, as with all religions. Those tenets, that wisdom that lies under the surface in the biblical texts, are there for us to uncover and use in such a way that speaks to our present condition. We are asked to discover the meaning for ourselves and our time, to put that wisdom to use once again in creating a global society where all can co-exist. Remembering that the texts themselves are written within a specific culture, at a specific time in history, and by a specific people with their own agendas, means that we must be wary of taking them at face value, instead being ready to ‘dig’ down beneath the surface to find the meaning today.

I have heard countless people warn that we are ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’ when we talk about changes - be they changes from a literal understanding of what the wording in one particular translation of the Bible might say, or changes in how the church ‘does’ worship, because it has always been done or understood that way. 

But to me, the real ‘baby’ if you like, is the wisdom hidden in those ancient scriptures that is there for us to find. And when we do, we may well agree with the writer of Ecclesiastes that there IS nothing new under the sun!