Over the last 18 months, like most of us, I have experienced a large amount of anxiety. The chronic, nagging, exhausting awareness of collective stress that cannot be resolved or answered because the threat is not specific or actually resolvable. 2020 and 2021 was awash with the anxiety of COVID, parenting teenagers, leading a church, wondering if the church still exists, my parents’ health issues, and a million other concerns and stresses that are complicated by living through a pandemic. I was waking up regularly at 3am with my heart racing about a multitude of open loops that I had not closed and could not close, especially at 3am. So, I would lay back down in my pool of sweat and pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the living God, have mercy on me.” I that didn’t work, I turned on my phone and read the New York Times.
Sabbatical has been a huge and wonderful break from carrying all of the cumulative stress of church leadership. I am still parenting teenagers and concerned for my parents’ health and COVID continues to develop variants to worry about… but my anxiety level is altered in this Sabbath time. I have intentionally chosen to hand the reins over to God and let God steer the horses for awhile. I trust God enough to lead me through these changes and chances of life and I can peel my fingers away from obsessing about my responsibility for the outcome… most days. Some days, I still get all tangled up in my own anxiousness and have to remind myself to breathe and pray.
In this first month of Sabbatical, I have found that my 10 days on the Appalachian Trail were most helpful in easing my experience of chronic anxiety. You might think this is because I was free in nature, exploring mountains and valleys, and reveling in God’s creation without cell phone connection. That was part of the medicine. The other part of the medicine was encountering experiences that created real fear. I discovered that situations of actual life-threatening fear are extremely helpful to clarify what matters and what is not worth my energy. Anxiety was put in its place by tangible fear and engaging my survival instincts. Bears, Rattlesnakes, Lightening on a Ridgeline… these things can inspire real fear.
BEARS
Black bears are residents of the Appalachian mountains, I am their guest in these woods. I have spent enough time in the mountains and growing up with a cabin at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park that I have encountered a lot of bears. I have a healthy respect for their size, hunger, claws, and teeth. And I know that they are naturally shy and will usually run off if they hear a person coming. If they have become socialized and don’t run, I have learned to make lots of noise and throw rocks. The wildcard is always a mama bear with cubs. She is unpredictable and must be given a wide berth.
On the third day of my hiking trip I had a very steep climb out of a valley, the angle of the trail required more scrambling than walking. For a few miles, my calves burned as I climbed and the balls of my feet were the only part to touch the trail with each step. I had a little pattern of pausing every so often to stretch and turn to face downhill, this would relieve the pain in my feet and calves while I caught my breath. About midway through this climb, sweaty and tired, I picked a spot to pause ahead. Just as I reached my target for rest, a bear came barreling across the trail and crashing down the slope to my right. It was a good sized black bear and really startled me. As I began to yell and make noise to let the bear know I was not interested in seeing it again, and then I saw two small cubs climb up the tree on my right just ahead.
”Oh shit.” I’m not sure if I just thought it or said it out loud. A mama bear with two cubs, that means she is not far away at all. Suddenly, resting was no longer on the menu. My body flooded with an incredible dose of adrenaline and I bolted up the trail with energy and speed that had been impossible only moments before. I remember being shocked at my body discovering the ability to move up this steep climb without any physical complaints. It was like I had miraculously traded out my old tired self for a new energetic self. Adrenaline is an incredible chemical that allows us to flee from danger, and I was using it.
After I put significant distance between myself and the mama bear and her cubs, I began to slow down and check in with myself. Under the influence of fear, I was singularly focused on getting to safety and my other sensations went off-line. As safety returned, I discovered that I needed food and water. My muscles were shaken and spent. The burst of energy I had been given by fear cost me some fuel and now I really needed to recover. I found a rock to sit on, pulled out my trail mix and water, and began to feel normal again. I confess that for the rest of the day, even a squirrel rustling in the leaves sounded like a bear to me, I was still physically on alert. But the rest of my anxious thoughts or stress touchstones receded into the background. They were no match for mama bear.
The AT Conservancy in North Carolina and Tennessee is struggling with increasing encounters between bears and human beings. When bears experience the positive payoff of food in the encounter with humans, their fear lessens and they more bravely and boldly approach campsites. This is dangerous for everyone. To mitigate these experiences, hikers must hang their food from tree limbs or pack all food into a ‘bear canister’ to keep it inaccessible. Most designated campsites along the AT have cables with a pulley system to help hikers hoist their food for the night. When staying at a campsite without one of these pre-made bag hanging structures, the hiker must find a tree with a limb the appropriate height from the ground and be able to toss their rope over the limb before night fall. It is time consuming and sometimes, the trees do not cooperate.
On my fourth night, I camped at a tent-site that had no established food hanging system… I was on my own. You are probably already able to guess how successful my food bag hanging went. After many failed attempts, bug bites, scratches from brambles, and the ticking clock of the setting sun, I think I basically hung a bear piñata. I crossed my fingers, retreated to my tent to escape the bugs, and watched the sun set. At dusk my hiking companion Kelly and her dog Charlie showed up. I was so relieved to see them both.
Kelly quickly set up her tent (she had eaten dinner earlier) and I explained the difficulty of my bear bag hang. As we were talking, we heard the enormous crack of a limb breaking and my food bag hitting the forest floor… along with a successful bear enjoying his prize. We stared at each other and I said, “I am so glad you and Charlie are here. I think the bear found his piñata.”
We quickly secured the rest of camp. Kelly uses a bear canister for her food and I mentally decided that I would be buying one of those heavy things when I reached Hot Springs, NC. We tried to make a fire but the wood was too wet. Night fell and we shouted, talked loudly, made bear scaring noises, and I even got out my recorder to play horrible loud notes into the darkness. Every once in a while we would hear the bear grunt or move around in the dark and our efforts at noise making renewed. I put on my headlamp and looked in the direction of where I imagined the bear would come from. Every once in a while, I caught my breath when I saw a flash of green that looked like an animal eye glowing in the dark… only to realize instead that it was a firefly blinking in the summer night.
After a while, things got quiet in the woods and Kelly and I crawled into our tents and attempted to sleep. Charlie, the dog, was snoring the whole time, by the way. A completely useless dog for our bear scaring tactics. Sleep came for a little while, and then sleep left… I was suddenly wide awake with the sound of a bear investigating Kelly’s bear canister.
”Kelly, are you awake?” I said loudly.
”Yes.” She responded loudly.
”Do you hear that?”
”Yes, I think they are checking out the canister of food. Hey, bears! Leave my food alone. And don’t roll the canister too far away. You already had one meal tonight. Leave my food alone!”
We continued to talk loudly into the night, hoping the bears would think twice about coming near our tents… and also I think we were expending some of the adrenaline in our systems. We were ready to fight a bear, not sleep through one. As we lay in our tents, wide awake, we talked about our lives, our work, the people we love, the change we long for in the world, in ourselves. Kelly was getting off the trail in Hot Springs to meet up with her family for her grandmother’s funeral. After the funeral, she and her mom would get back on the AT and hike another four days. Charlie growled only once that night, and it was pretty half hearted. That dog was tired.
The next morning, I surveyed the carnage of my bear bag piñata and discovered that two items had bounced down the embankment and onto the trail. A Cliff bar and a container of honey. I ate the Cliff Bar for breakfast and found it ironic and sweet that the honey survived. The rest of my food was gone and only scraps of wrappers and ziplocks remained to be cleaned up. Kelly’s bear canister was knocked over and rolled a little bit, but the bears decided it wasn’t worth the effort. We survived the night!
SNAKES
After restocking food, buying a bear canister, and sleeping at the hostel in Hot Springs, I got back on the trail re-energized. It was two days before I found my next dose of fear. I was traveling at a swift pace along some ridge-line trail. I had seen very few people, one female peacock (totally bizarre!), and I was enjoying the coolness of the morning. As I stretched out my hiking pole in front of me, I saw a patterned movement on the ground. I stopped suddenly and backed up as my eyes focused onto a Timber Rattlesnake.
Clearly, the snake was focused on me because he coiled into a protective striking posture and began rattling his tail. Since it was still cool out, I was hoping that the snake was pretty slow and just needed some encouragement to get off the trail. I stretched forward with my hiking pole and tried to push him towards the bushes. This was not received by the snake as encouragement. He coiled up tighter, rattled louder, and raised his head. I tried tossing a few rocks onto the trail near him, maybe the vibrations would scare him off the trail… Ummmm, no go.
“Okay Mr. Rattlesnake. I see that you are claiming the trail, I will simply make a little blue-blaze trail around you.” I looked at the grasses, ferns, bushes, rotting logs, and trees surrounding the trail and could suddenly see hundreds of snakes lurking in the underbrush… in my imagination. Fear was getting a hold on me. Not the kind of adrenaline that sent me up the the steep mountain, but paralyzing fear that sees only snakebites and doom. I could feel my breathing getting shallow and constricted.
As I was considering my options, a young man came hiking up the the trail coming the opposite direction. “Good morning!” I greeted him. “There is a timber rattlesnake in between us on the trail and I am trying to figure out the best way around him.”
”Have you tried tossing a few rocks to scare him off?” He offered helpfully.
”Yup, it had the opposite effect. He is coiled, head cocked, and ready to tangle.”
”Oh. Where is he?” I pointed towards the snake with my hiking pole and immediately the rattling began again and his head followed my movement.
”Do you hear him? He is pissed off. I am going to try to hike around him, but all I can imagine is snakes in the bushes.” I laughed. “Tell you what, I’ll bushwhack around the snake, you watch and see if I stir up any other snakes. If I don’t die, then you can take the same path.” I grinned at the young man and he grinned back at me. I somehow felt less paralyzed with someone else watching.
”Sounds perfect,” he said. “My name’s Curtis. Also, you should know I just saw a bear a little bit ago cross the trail in front of me.”
”Great! My name is Adrien.” I looked up towards the God of all creation and asked, “One predator at a time, please.”
Curtis watched me safely tromp through the woods making a wide path around the snake. The snake rattled and curled and bobbed its head, tracking me along the way. Once I got back on the trail, Curtis retraced my path going the other opposite direction and neither of us died. Hurray!
”It looks like you are on a day hike?” I asked. His pack was too small for much more that lunch and some water.
”Yeah, well my family is staying at one of those fancy chalets in Gatlinburg. I came up here to bury my grandmother’s ashes on the AT.”
”Wow. This must be an important place for her and for you.” I had goosebumps immediately; this was a holy encounter for both of us.
”My grandmother hiked the whole AT leading Girl Scouts. Her trail name was Mama Boots. She wrote a memoir about it. They did it in sections.”
”She sounds like an amazing woman. I am so grateful you were able to come up here and honor her on the trail.”
”Yeah, she died in 2020. There wasn’t much we could do for a funeral or getting together because of COVID. So the family is together now.”
Curtis blessed me by sharing his love for his grandmother and his love for the woods because of her. I had a brief internal dialogue about whether I should say anything about being clergy, ask if he wanted to pray together… but it felt wrong, like I would be pulling the energy and attention to myself and away from Mamma Boots. Curtis was doing a fine job of consecrating the holy ground of these mountains and commending his grandmother into God’s loving embrace. My job was just to listen and appreciate the loving impact of this woman’s life.
Yet even at the grave we make our song. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
(Thank you Timber Rattler for giving Curtis and I an opportunity to slow down and connect about an important woman. God bless Mary Sands, of blessed memory, and every life she touched.)
