This postI love spring. While the outdoors always has an allure to it, spring seems to offer the most intoxicating attraction. It is so hard to stay inside. Fluorescent lights feel like death, while just out the door life is blossoming all over. It’s not the flowers, either — in fact, I really don’t care so much for the bright and gaudy array of colors, preferring more muted tones instead. But flowers usually aren’t muted. They’re loud and brash. But at least they’re alive.
Spring makes me want to roll down a grassy hill, lie on my back and watch clouds sail by, sit on the bank of a river while a fresh breeze dances around me. It’s times like these when I regret the modernization of man; why on earth did we have to become inside-dwellers? Sure, there are a few problems with living out of doors — skin cancer, the elements, etc. — but you can work around them.
I’ve got an odd mix of longing for both the country and the city, I’ve found. I love the busyness of the city, people walking around like ants, shops on every corner, so much to see, so much story potential. And this is admittedly a little weird, but I’m in love with the smell of exhaust fumes as I walk down University Avenue — reminds me of my mission in Bangkok.
But at the same time there’s a very pastoral part of me, absolutely in love with the country. And the quiet. And nature — far, far away from all of man’s industrial creations, out there with wide open spaces and green green grass and apple trees and brooklets and hills and valleys. Mmm. Spring reminds me that there’s a wonderful world out there that isn’t man-made. It’s God-made, and it’s good.
