What City Dwellers Miss

Having lived in both the rural country and the big city, I know that there are some major differences in lifestyle between the two places. For example, rush hour is the city can last for hours, clogging major transportation arteries and causing certain other arteries to get majorly stressed. In the country, rush hour lasts for 15 minutes and consists of two pickups, a sedan, a green tractor, and one beat-up work van missing its license plate.

I just read an article via Yahoo extolling the virtues of choosing the country over the city. Titled, "Six amazing things city dwellers miss out on," it pretty much tells you what you might expect such an article to say: life is more peaceful away from the city.

Here's the full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ygreen/20101111/sc_ygreen/sixamazingthingscitydwellersmissouton/print

The six things are:

1. Stars
2. Fresh Air
3. Peace and Quiet
4. Greenery
5. Sounds of Nature
6. Animals and Wildlife

Is there anything else?

There are other major differences between the city and country, of course, and generally people choose to live in one climate or the other — though these days more and more people are living in the country and commuting to city jobs. While I follow the logic, I question the sanity. Why put so many miles on the car, fight the traffic every day, and miss out on mornings and evenings at home just to get some noise-and-light-free sleep at night?

A suburban product, I once (twice, actually) lived in Gainesville, a city of 16,000 about an hour north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Cooke County has about 32,000 people total. By contrast, Denton County to the south has over a million. I used to love the lower stress on just about every area of life. Traffic wasn't a problem. Pollution wasn't a major problem (it's growing, though). And noise was never a problem. Life was just... simpler.

I could see the stars at night and I was mesmerized by them. Never did I feel so small and God so big than when I started at the mass of twinkling beings above my head. Never did I feel more important than when I realized that God considered me of more value than any of those celestial lights. I guess the stars were a big part of my spiritual life back then.

I also loved the fresh air and greenery. And the peace and quiet and those other things, too. Sometimes God has to be "found" outside of the big city (though He resides there, too). When we have lights and noises and stresses surrounding us it can be very hard to be spiritual. I know I struggle in the city. Those rare times I get to travel are generally my most peaceful, spiritual times. Times when I can forget about life in the concrete jungle and relax.

Maybe that's why Jesus sometimes called His guys to the countryside to pray and relax. They needed to get away. Of course, they had the creator of the universe among them but.. they still needed to get away. Our Lord knew that was important for spiritual health. Do I? Do you? Do we?

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