Hiking Through: One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail

by Paul V. Stutzman

  ———

  The Egremont Inn has welcomed guests for over 225 years, and was built first as a tavern in 1780. Six years later, the final battle of Shay’s Rebellion was fought and lost only one mile from the tavern. The rebellion was led by a group of farmers, angry at high taxes imposed by the state. In many cases, the state confiscated properties of those unable to pay. The farmers rebelled and, in effective protests, shut down local courts, prohibiting judges from enforcing the debt collections. In return, the government assembled a four-thousand-man militia to show the farmers who was in charge. At the battle near South Egremont, four farmers were killed and the rest fled north. Shay’s Rebellion was over.

  During the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the South Egremont Inn was used as a hospital. At different times in its history, it also housed a store, a school, a post office, a temperance house, and a hotel. Today it is a charming twenty-room inn. History creaked from the long flights of wooden steps leading to my hot shower and soft bed.

  I was in danger of becoming soft myself. My hike was turning into a town-to-town trek. I found myself scheduling my days around towns, not shelters. Something was changing. I acknowledged that it wasn’t the soft beds that lured me into town; I could sleep just as well on a hard shelter floor or on the ground in the forest. I came to town for the people. I craved interaction with more folks than just my few fellow hikers.

  Leaving town after breakfast at Mom’s Country Cafe, we passed the field where a tilting stone obelisk marked the battle of Shay’s Rebellion. The farmers’ last stand against the government had taken place here. Where are those brave farmers today when we need them? There are so few people still willing to take a stand against injustice.

  The next two Massachusetts days were filled with river fordings, railroad crossings, and bog bridges across marshy lowlands. At mile 1,537, the trail crossed I-90 over an enclosed footbridge. The traffic whizzed beneath us as we walked over the Massachusetts Turnpike. Six weeks later, I would be rushing through here at 70 mph, but today I was still traveling between 2 and 3 mph.

  Our goal was to be in Dalton, Massachusetts, for Fourth of July weekend. For several weeks, the trail grapevine had been telling us about the Bird Cage Hostel in Dalton; it was not listed in our guidebook, but our curiosity was roused and we hoped to celebrate the holiday there.

  Early one morning, I set forth from the shelter by myself; Fargo would get a later start, but I was on a mission. I left the trail when it crossed Pittsfield Road. Just a short way down this road lived a lady I wished to meet, the famous cookie lady.

  Marilyn and her husband run a small blueberry farm; hikers have been stopping here for many years, enjoying her home-baked cookies. No one was stirring at the shingled house when I arrived. I walked around the yard, admired potted plants, and dawdled on the front porch, signing a note board on the wall and making no attempt at quiet, hoping the household would soon wake up. Rufus finally realized a visitor had arrived, and he barked Marilyn awake.

  The two chocolate chip cookies were good, but far more satisfying was my conversation with Marilyn Wiley, a real trail angel. I had woken her for two cookies, but the hospitality and warmth she gave in return brightened my day.

  Sometimes it takes only a few kind words to transform someone’s day. How can we be too busy to tell the people we most cherish what they mean to us? I remembered Maria McCabe’s notebook, where total strangers had written “nice things” that warmed her in lonely times.

  Maria McCabe knew the secret: seeds of kindness sown into others’ lives can return and encourage us in our own winters of loneliness.

  ———

  Fargo was just arriving at the Pittsfield Road crossing as I came back to the trail after my chocolate chip detour. I kindly described for him the cookies I had eaten.

  Shortly after noon, we followed the AT into Dalton. At first glance, the small town seems quintessential Americana, but it’s a real money town, built on money by money for money. Dalton’s largest employer is Crane & Company, producing all the paper used for Federal Reserve notes in America. Every piece of paper money in your wallet right now came from Dalton, Massachusetts.

  But it wasn’t the money made here that warmed my spirits. What made my stay in Dalton a favorite memory was something of real value: families. Front porches and lawns were filled with family activities on this holiday weekend.

  We’d found the Bird Cage Hostel, marked not by a sign but by a bird cage on the lawn, and my own hiker family was gathering there. Fargo, Padre, Rhino and Ronja, myself, and others celebrated the Fourth in Dalton. Another hostel in town invited the Bird Cage guests to a hiker feed, and we sat down to corn on the cob, baked beans, and an all-American picnic.

  In this town that produces the money that often brings out the worst in people, I saw and felt what life is truly about: families, togetherness, unity, acceptance, respect, and love for God. Those ingredients build strong spines and foster the courage to do what’s right in any situation.

  That’s something all the money in Dalton can never buy.

  Hey, Padre, who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?”

  Apostle and the priest enjoyed Independence Day, strolling through small town America. Padre had shattered so many of my stereotypes about the Catholic Church. Here was a man who fasted and prayed and sought God’s will for his life. I confess, though, I did think maybe I’d trip him up with this question. I expected one of those predictably vague answers, such as, “No one can know who will get to heaven,” or “No one’s sure if hell exists.” But I should have known that Padre would never give me a pat answer.

  “Many years ago, St. Catherine of Siena said, ‘All the way to heaven is heaven because Christ is the way.’ In my faith, we now say, ‘Heaven all the way to heaven; hell all the way to hell.’ The path you’re on today will lead you to your eternal destiny. If Christ is your guide, He will lead you to heaven. There are two guides and two paths, and you choose which you will follow.”

  I also believe in two paths for our lives. And our choice of path has life-and-death consequences. Both paths take us to a chasm at the end of this life, but one of those paths has a cross that spans the chasm and leads to another life.

  The pathways to our eternities also reminded me of the trail I hiked every day. The Appalachian Trail had a destination. As long as I followed the white blazes and studied my guidebook diligently, the path would lead me to Mt. Katahdin. Countless other paths led away from the AT and away from my goal. My life was like this trail. I had already taken many of those side paths, but God always welcomed me back.

  ———

  I enjoyed hiking with my new trail friends, but times of solitude on the trail gave birth to new growth within me. Conversations with Padre had given me much to think about, and for the next several days I would have plenty of time to ponder. I would be alone on the trail over the next mountain.

  Fargo worried about everything, and now he worried about the difficulty of Mt. Greylock looming ahead of us. The hostel owner offered to take hikers twenty miles ahead, to the other side of the mountain and a higher elevation, from which hikers would have a much easier hike back to Dalton. While Padre and I walked the streets of Dalton and talked paths to eternity, Fargo was slackpacking those twenty miles back to town. He’d join us for the festivities that evening, and then the next morning he’d get a ride back to the other side of Mt. Greylock and continue north, a full day ahead of me.

  Padre and Rhino would meet the TV crew tomorrow for an update on Rhino’s hike, so I would be alone for the next few days. I planned to hike several big days to catch up with Fargo. Without me to coax him into longer days, he liked to stop early in the afternoon, so I felt confident I would catch him again.

  Mt. Greylock lived up to its reputation as a difficult climb for purists heading north. As I neared the summit, rain and fog obscured the War Memorial Tower with its plaque declaring this the highest point in Massachusetts and telling me to “Take a deep breath and enjoy
the views.” I took deep breaths, but the shroud of fog hid the views. Even the white blazes were difficult to spot, and I moved cautiously, careful not to lose my path. Six miles of slippery trails going down the mountain made the descent as exhausting as the climb. Rainy Mt. Greylock was everything Fargo had feared.

  Late in the afternoon, the trail intersected Rt. 2. I was tired, wet, and hungry, so I trudged three-tenths of a mile west to a motel and grocery. Being warm and dry was such a relief and pleasure, I did not care that I paid far too much for the motel room. My feet were dry when I crossed the road to the grocery; the motel room hair dryer had overheated several times during the hour it took to dry my shoes.

  I went wild in the grocery store. If you’ve ever gone grocery shopping when you’re extremely hungry, you know what happened. The bags I lugged back across the road cost me over fifty dollars, but what a feast I had that night: a whole chicken, a container of mashed potatoes, an apple pie, bananas, a bag of chips, a can of Coke, and a pint of chocolate ice cream.

  Sunday, July 6. This well-fed hiker was on the road at five in the morning, heading down Rt. 2. I crossed the Hoosic River, followed Massachusetts Avenue, and turned into a residential driveway. White blazes painted on the blacktop led me between the house and a flower garden and back into the woods.

  Nature worshiped that morning. The brook’s song often broke into choruses of waterfalls, and rounding a bend, I caught sight of a tree rejoicing. The leaves on one branch were shaking and dancing while the rest of the tree remained silent and still. I’d seen this once before on my hike; it was probably caused by the patterns of breezes, but I remembered Psalm 96 talking about the trees singing for joy and Isaiah 55 speaking of the mountains and hills bursting into song and clapping their hands. This tree was clapping its hands and singing for joy that morning, surely one charismatic tree.

  Climbing toward Eph’s Lookout, I encountered God through an emotional conversation that left me weeping facedown on the ground and changed my life’s journey.

  But first, I want to tell you a story.

  I was a seeker. I wanted to know who God was. For most of my life, I knew I wanted to follow the right path, but it always seemed so difficult—almost impossible. I’d been taught the rights and wrongs of living, but I knew little about the heart of God. Now I wanted to know Him, and I wanted to know if He was involved in my life here on earth. If His divine hand was in events, what was His plan?

  I had three uncles who were ministers at three local churches. The church I attended as a young boy was led by one uncle. Ours was the most conservative of the three churches. We looked askance at the second uncle’s church, where more liberal dress and smaller head coverings were permitted. Both these churches watched in horror as the even more liberal Mennonite church of my third uncle permitted far more insidious evils, such as television and the disappearing head covering.

  But what interested me was the peace that all three of these men carried about themselves. While I had all kinds of doubts, fears, and confusion, my uncles seemed to have no questions about their faith. I watched them, and wondered.

  I discovered their secret on December 31, 2002, during the funeral service for the uncle who had led the most liberal Mennonite church. Apparently, he had fallen in love and spent his life reading love letters. He passed away at ninety-three, and he was in love with God, a real, genuine love. The love letters came from the Bible, God’s letters to us. My uncle was committed to reading his Bible daily, and in the last eight years of his life he had read the Book cover to cover ten times. When he lost his sight toward the end of his life, another uncle would drive to his house and read the Scriptures to him.

  The moment of insight at his funeral hit me like a physical force, and I slumped down in the pew. How could I know God if I didn’t read what He had written to me? When I was dating Mary, she had sometimes sent me a love letter, and I couldn’t wait to rip it open and read what her heart was feeling. That was what I wanted now. I desperately wanted to know the heart of God.

  As soon as the burial service was over, I drove to the local bookstore and purchased a new Bible, determined to read it with a new mindset. If my uncle could read this Book ten times from age eighty-five to ninety-three, then I certainly could read it through too. On January 1, 2003, I started my journey. I begged God to reveal Himself to me in His Word.

  By June 1, I had read it through. I read it again and again, ten times over the next five years. I kept myself on a daily reading schedule, and I took my Bible with me everywhere. Before that year, I would have been embarrassed to be seen carrying my Bible anywhere except church. Now I no longer cared who saw me. In airports, hotel lobbies, hospital waiting rooms, or traffic jams, I was never without my book of love letters.

  Little by little, the heart of God came into focus. His patience and mercy amazed me as I read of His love toward so many flawed individuals in the Bible. King David stumbled and sinned many times, yet he was a man “after God’s own heart.” Story after story about weak people God used in mighty ways gave me hope. I wondered at the courage of those who obeyed when God asked them to do seemingly ridiculous tasks. Noah could have protested, “Dear God, You want me to build a large boat and You’re going to destroy the world with a flood? I don’t get it.”

  I was encouraged by John 14, where Jesus promises to go to heaven to prepare a place for us and then return and take us there. In the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, Jesus tells us twice, Behold, I am coming soon. The verses reminded me of that pulpit-pounding minister who had scared me so badly over forty years ago.

  As I hiked that July morning, I thought back to all the doctors’ offices and hospital rooms where I’d read my Bible during Mary’s four-year battle with cancer. When the first bottle of chemotherapy chemicals dripped into her body, our family gathered around her bed and prayed. I opened my Bible at random and read Psalm 91. In this psalm, God promises to be our refuge and our fortress if we trust in Him. Mary took this chapter to heart and read it every day for the next four years.

  On the day I left Springer Mountain, I opened my Bible and saw that Psalm 91 was the next chapter in my reading regimen. I remembered how Mary cherished that psalm, but now it spoke new meaning to me as I read God’s promise that if I made Him my dwelling place, He would command His angels to guard me. As I started my hike, God’s Word told me no disaster shall come near my tent and that the angels would protect me from striking my foot against a stone. An encouraging message for someone getting ready to hike the AT! I knew I was not alone in that horrible storm.

  I didn’t hike alone this Sunday morning either. As I had done countless times before, I asked God why He had taken Mary. “Do you realize the loneliness, the grief, the hurt we’ve endured without her?”

  A soft voice spoke in my spirit. Paul, I’m coming soon.

  “What? What are You saying?” I asked in bewilderment.

  I am coming soon.

  “You’re coming soon,” I repeated. “Yes, I’ve read that in the Bible and many people have said that for many years, and nothing has happened.” My tears started. “Did You take my wife away from me and ask me to give up my job so You and I could meet on this mountaintop and You could tell me this?”

  If that were true, then God truly was in control of my life. He had been there all the time during Mary’s sickness.

  “But why are You giving me this message? Scriptures say no human can know the actual time You’ll be returning, and Your ‘soon’ in Scriptures has already been several thousand years. Why are You telling me this now?”

  Paul, I want you to take this message to others: I am coming soon.

  “Oh no, not me, God! You’ve got the wrong man. That’s not for me to do—that’s a message for ministers to deliver,” I argued. “I’m a scoundrel. Don’t You remember that silly naked hike?”

  But you’re My scoundrel. You’ll reach people that ministers will never reach.

  “How’s that going to work? How am I going to
reach anyone?”

  You’re writing a book, aren’t you? Put this message in your book.

  “Oh my goodness, God, now You’re messing with my book too.”

  I’ll get it into the hands of people who need to hear My message.

  “But everyone will think I’m completely crazy,” I sputtered.

  Yet I could not ignore everything God had been teaching me on this hike. Did I really believe the things I said I believed? Did I believe God told Pilgrim to let his hair grow long? Wasn’t I telling folks that God would speak? Hadn’t I admired the bravery of those farmers in Shay’s Rebellion? What about my courage? In the face of probable ridicule, would I sink into cowardice?

  So I was a scoundrel; I might as well also be a fool for God.

  Our conversation had brought me to the top of Eph’s Lookout. I dropped my pack and fell facedown on the rocks, weeping.

  “God, if that’s the message You want delivered, I’ll do it.”

  ———

  I stood up, picked up my pack, and took in the surrounding views. Four little words brought me freedom, like new life breathed into me.

  I am coming soon.

  It is a message from God that assures me He is in control. There’s so much anger and hatred everywhere, and greed and corruption are out of control. But nothing that happens is a surprise to God; He is right on schedule—His schedule.

  To everyone who wonders what this world is coming to, God says, I am coming soon.

  God is not telling us to sit around and waste our time waiting. He doesn’t operate on our timetable. I am coming soon is a message to live, a message of healing and a message of peace. When all around you is despair and chaos, God is in control and will be your refuge and fortress if you trust Him.