An excerpt:

To look out upon a clean, sharply defined world, devoid of smog and muck, the view not sterile but wholesomely unsullied by man—that is the gift of living out away from the city.

Here where the immediate neighbors have four legs, there are two bright moments in every year. The first is that glorious splash of warming spring that shakes off the long, glacial winter, and the second is the refreshing arrival of crisp, dry autumn after the doldrums of withering heat and humidity. These two moments revive and cleanse not only the world about us, but our lagging spirits. Month after month of either oppressive heat or dull, aching cold can slowly beat us down, suppressing the brighter spirit that dwells within.

This is the refreshment of God’s Spirit. And part of the joy in these two seasons is that they represent our eternal longing for His refreshment. Day after day, month after month we are oppressed by the spirit of this world, submitting to the doldrums, becoming acclimated to the smog that we eventually come to believe is clean air.

But twice a year God’s nature reminds us that it is all false, all a muck-coated sham meant to numb us to the true brightness of His refreshing Spirit. So we come to Him, bathing in His restorative grace to cleanse away the foul muck that has for too long numbed us to His presence.

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