When I was a youngster growing up in the mid-west, I was fascinated by the windmills that were found on just about every farm. These windmills were used to pump water, so they were really wind-pumps. At that time the city water and sewage lines did not extend to rural areas. Water had to be pumped out of wells to an elevated tank which thereby supplied pressurized water to house and barn. Since all the farms practiced what is called dry farming, there was no water used for irrigation. With the availability of electricity the windmill soon gave way to electric pumps, but the windmill still is an environmentally friendly source of power and it is cheap since the wind is free. In this modern age of energy conservation and the EPA the windmill is coming back as a source of cheap, clean electrical power. As one travels across mountain passes today such as the Tehachapi to the Mojave Desert or the Altamont to the S.F. Bay area, one can see row on row of tall windmills driven by the prevailing winds funneling through the passes.
Windmills are also a common sight in Europe where they are used to pump water from lowlands and as a source of power to mill grain into flour, hence the word windmill. The milling of flour is a very technical operation, and requires much skill. Through a series of shafts and gears a grindstone rotates so as to grind the grain spread on a similar stationary stone. If the spacing between the stones is too great, the flour is coarse. If the spacing is too close, the flour may be scorched from the heat of friction. A well known café in Paris is the 'Moulin Rouge', meaning 'red mill.'
In the 1960's Dusty Springfield wrote a poem entitled "The Windmills of your Mind." This poem was put to music and used as a theme song for the movie, 'The Thomas Crown Affair,' starring Steve McQueen. It pictures how the mind works in circles to process and store information.
"Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning in an ever spinning reel As the images unwind like the circle that you find In the windmills of your mind."
The Bible pictures the winds of doctrine as blowing through your mind (Eph .4:14) and as these winds circulate they produce thoughts and ideas that may be good or bad. We really don't know how the brain remembers, but it involves some kind of electrical circuitry. As the images unwind in the windmills of your mind, what kind of flour is produced? Is it coarse or fine? Is the windmill generating good or defective ideas and memories? The only way this wind can enter our minds is through the five senses We are told to be on guard as to what winds we allow to blow, so we must monitor carefully what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch so that only the good winds blow. The winds of false doctrine are blowing ever stronger as the end-time draws near. Hedonism, evolutionism, materialism, new-age mysticism, and many other ism winds are blowing. Satan is going "about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" or deceive. It behooves each of us to guard what kind of wind is turning "the windmills of your mind."
