Encounters with God are real

White paint marks. That’s how the Appalachian Trail is marked. An unbroken succession of two-inch by six-inch white paint marks, mostly on trees, sometimes on rocks or posts are the common thread that holds together the 2,150-mile path from Georgia to Maine.

This system of paint marks seems like a great idea most of the time. The trail is well maintained, easy to follow and the white paint blazes let you know you’re on the right track. That is until you are thigh deep in snow and every tree on the trail has been powder coated with snow blown about by 30-45 mph wind gusts. In New England, where these conditions are common, the blazes are accompanied by stone cairns in places where the trail would otherwise be lost.

That April in the mountains of East Tennessee, there were no stone cairns. Snow fell one April evening while my wife Victoria and I slept in a singular camping location, an old barn that served as an Appalachian Trail shelter. While we and a couple of dozen Boy Scouts and leaders slept, an inch and a half of snow blanketed our gear. This was the snow that was blown through the large cracks between the barn boards. Outside the official snow fall count would go to just over a foot. But that didn’t account for the wind. There were places with little snow and others with large drifts.

We waited out a full day in the barn with the scouts. We hunkered down in our sleeping bags and waited for better weather. The next day brought more wind and a dark sky. With no relief in sight, Victoria and I hiked north toward our goal of Mount Katahdin in Maine, leaving the Boy Scouts to hike south to their waiting cars.

As we left the relatively sheltered confines of the barn, the wind kicked up. We hiked into a bone cold day. Just then a hunting dog ran ahead of us on the trail. He had apparently spent the time up until then in the remains of a movie set house built alongside the barn. The incomplete structure was built to look like a house when filmed from a distant mountain top, but it provided enough shelter for the dog.

With the dog now leading the way, we tried our best to follow. The snow was usually calf deep, with occasional drifts that were thigh deep for me and hip deep for Victoria. The dog led the way, I broke through the snow as best I could and Victoria waded through behind me.

We couldn’t see any markings, and occasionally we would stop to brush the snow off a likely tree. Sometimes we found nothing. Sometimes we found the sought for white paint mark that assured us we were somewhat safely following a trail rather than wandering aimlessly in the southern Appalachians. Invariably, the hunting dog knew the path. There were times when we would look right or left to what could be a trail only to find that the dog was right.

Then when crossing over a couple of bald mountains called the Humps, we found ourselves following the natural dip in the mountain top that clearly showed a path and the dog cut down hard to the left off the mountain. Down at the tree break, there was a white paint blaze we would not have found without help.

As we continued north, we lost elevation and passed below the snow line into slush and then rain. The dog who had been going ahead and running back, making twice as many miles as his human companions, went ahead one time never to return. Soon we were at a state highway where we hitchhiked to a nearby motel to dry out, warm up and resupply at a grocery store.

We had seen the owner’s name on the collar and I wondered about calling. Would it turn out to have been a real dog. He seemed so much like an angel to us. Could it have been real? What would have happened to us that long cold day without our guide?

Fast forward nine years. I am sitting in the student lounge at Virginia Theological Seminary. On a break between classes a fellow student is telling me about a BMW angel that trumps my angel dog story.

My classmate was driving down the bypass around Richmond one evening. He was praying about this sense of call he had to ordained ministry. He poured out his heart to God saying that he needed some assurance. Within a couple of minutes, maybe even 90 seconds he said a BMW passed him on the left. The specialty tag read “SERVHIM.” And that was how he came to be sitting in a student lounge at a seminary.

He said that he had wanted to figure out how to run the tag with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. He wanted to know if there was such a car. That’s when the light turned on for me. That “Aha” moment when something on the edge of your mind clicks into place. I realized in a flash that the dog was real canine flesh, bone and fur just as surely as a real BMW had an honest-to-Jesus “SERVHIM” tag.

The reason is this: God uses the real stuff of life all the time. That’s why God becoming man in Jesus makes so much sense. The incarnation as it is called was just the ultimate example of God working through reality. Yes, there is a spiritual realm, but we encounter that realm through our bodies and through the real stuff of this world.

God didn’t have to create an angelic or phantom Beamer with the words magically giving my friend the sign he needed. All the Holy Spirit had to do was lay that sense of call on his heart just before the BMW already coming up from behind in his rear view mirror came alongside. I don’t wonder if the car was real. I wonder how many times God has used that tag to get someone’s attention.

I am just as sure that a real live hunting dog became an angel for us by leading us where we had to go. And I also know that you and I though far from perfect can sometimes help God’s perfect will be accomplished. In the small things you say to someone hurting showing that you really hear and really care. In the tire you change for someone in need. In all these little things, you can be Jesus for someone.

Like the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable, you can show the godly compassion at the right time to change someone’s life for the better. Be open to the ways God is using real things and real people and events to get your attention. Be open also to the ways in which you can be the one who shares the love of God with someone you meet.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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