5/13/22 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: The OLP Class of 2018, now Seniors in High School!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

God is everywhere and in everybody if we just have the patience to see Him. Prayers are heard and answered, not always with a bolt of lightning or a dramatic miracle but through nature and through those with whom we interact.

Sometimes I don’t see that. Sometimes I start and end my day without looking for God. But He is always there with us, in us and among us.

But walking along the Appalachian Trail in the spring and summer of 1975 I had no doubt about that. His presence was as real to me as the rocks on which I tread, in the trees which lined the narrow path through the hills of Appalachia, in the cool spring water with which I drank right from its source, and most importantly, in the people I met.

We had read in the logbooks that sat in the trail shelters of a priest who took hikers in and let them sleep in the living room of his rectory. The church was Holy Family Parish in Pearisburg, Virginia. Rick and Nancy, my companions for a bit along the trail, stayed for a night. I decided to stay for a second night. It was the first time I had been able to attend Mass or receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist since my journey began at the beginning of May.

The journal entry is from that time in Pearisburg.

Day 41- Saturday, June 14, 1975, Holy Family Church, Pearisburg, Virgina

Weather: Beautiful Day

An interesting day in many ways, though instead of hiking as a dedicated backpacker should, I stayed at the Church and got fat from the enormous amount of food I consumed.

Fr. Charles drove me out to a dirt-poor house in the hills where a 22 year old proud Virginian named Carly lives with his skinny wife, Mary and smiling four year old, Larry. Fr. Charles is trying to get the Paine family into a new house and today was helping him with the legal ramifications of car buying. Carly got into the car with us to drive back to Holy Family.

We dropped Father off at the Church and I chauffeured Carly in Father’s car to a shoemaker’s shop in Narrows, where the sale of a 1965 Ford convertible was finalized.

My initial impression of Carly and his family was low. But in talking to him I found the man to be intelligent, ambitious, imaginative and loving. The Paines live in poverty that to this day I had only imagined. The have neither central heat, running water or a front door included in their shack they call home.

It makes me feel helpless and frustrated. I do hope that one day Carly’s dream of “taking a small vacation and seeing American when “My boy goes to college” comes true. He may not be a scholar but he’s one helluva gentleman.

I attended Saturday night Mass in the Chapel with a hand full of parishioners. The whole experience was a very emotional one for me deep inside of my heart. The Holy Spirit settled in me, and I felt very warm and loved. I don’t want to leave this place, but after two days I feel that my continued presence would be one of bother rather than company. My body is begging me to stay another night, my right foot remains in severe pain, but my toes are still itching to hit the trail. It’s only two more weeks until a long-awaited stop in Charlottesville.

I called home today and talked to Julie [my sister] on her birthday.

Jim Silcott