If you've ever seen the movie Woodstock, you know the song.  It's a song by Canned Heat of San Francisco, Up to the Country.  Sung in a high pitched voice by lead singer Bob Hite, it describes, in very upbeat tones, the adventure of going to the "country," of dancing in the forest, of playing in the water, of getting out of the city to a enjoy, for a while, a new home.  Hite makes the prospect of leaving a city seem a dream fulfilled.
     Contrast this with Neil Young's words in Here We are in the Years on his first solo album that "the people of the city can't relate to the slower things that the country brings."  Maybe so.  Maybe one must have lived in the country to appreciate it most fully. More of us, however, live in the city than not.  And almost all of us enjoy or at least appreciate the natural beauty of the world, whether we live in the country or city.  Hite and Young's words seem to tell us different things; the one, to go into the country with abandon, the other to go into the country acutely aware that we will not be able to relate to it fully.
     Perhaps they're both right.  Yes, the country, in all of its various manifestations--mountain, prairie, forest, desert, tundra, and sea--offers enormous prospects for fun and discovery.  Yet unless we go into it wanting or expecting to find something, we may not find such things.  We may never connect, fully.
     Theologians talk about natural revelation, the idea that the natural world, its beauty, order, and balance attest to the fact of God.  Across the planet, the creation testifies to the presence of its creator.  God speaks in what he has made.  Hence, any time we go into the "country," we will find something, sometimes big, sometimes small.  Moreover, since as many observers have noted, all truth is God's truth, we will always find inklings and intimations of God.
     Go to the country!