The Birchbark Letters

In the distance I heard the faint beating of a drum.  Steady, persistant, out there somewhere in the darkness, someone boomed the sound over the valley.  I expect it was a ritual of some sort, meant to bring the drummer closer to nature in a place that was, in his mind, sacred.

The place was Brown Mountain.  Standing watch over the Linville Gorge, the mountain is dark, perhaps forboding, but rather beautiful.  Wiseman’s View Overlook is where I was standing when I heard the drumming.  Brown Mountain was staring back at me from across the valley and the drumming was drifting through the night air from behind me, somewhere in the woods.

I was there with several friends and my own family to see the Brown Mountain Lights.  Oh they’re real.  That’s not even a question.  Undisputed even, are these strange lights.  And we saw them.  Right after dark, the appeared, slowly at first, incandescent through the black darkness, then brightening, shimmering, moving slowly up the ridge line, hovering across the ridge, then fizzling out.  Then they would reappear, in a different spot, maybe a different shade, marching up the mountain, sculling suprisingly fast through space, going this way and that, sometimes standing completely still.

Fascinating.

The drumming continued, boom…boom…boom.

The tribes of the Cherokees and Catawbas tell the legend of a great indian battle that took place on Brown Mountain in the 12th century.  The fighting was fierce and the loss of life great.  The respective tribes sent their young maidens, after the battle, to search for survivors.  None were found.  The lights, say the Cherokees, are the torches of the maidens, looking for their slain warriors.

Another legend tells of a slave, from ages gone by, returning night after night, searching for his master who was lost on a long hunting trip.

I’ve also heard the more logical explanations.  Foxfire, a light-producing fungus that grows in the forest.  Railcar lights, truck and car headlights, atvs, people hiking with flashlights.  Oh I almost forgot…aliens.

None of these have been proven and they all have been meticulously researched.  There are no roads on Brown Mountain, no hiking trails, certainly no railroad tracks.  The lights are too consistent to be hikers, and if you saw them, you would agree that aliens are the most likely explanation.  They’re that weird looking.

So that’s why drummer was drumming.  Wiseman’s view is a special place and Brown Mountain is a special mountain.  Not because of paranormal activity or naturalistic significance, but because the mountain and lights were created, yes created, by God.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am driven by curiosity.  I would love to know what causes the Brown Mountain Lights.  It is very interesting to me that after 800 documented years of their viewing, no one has accurately explained them.  But I’m okay with that.  I’m okay with the fact that there are things out there that cannot be explained with our human abilities.

The drummer was seeking a connection with the mountain.  While I admire his acting on his beliefs, I would suggest that rather than seek a connection with the mountain which was created, seek a connection with the Creator.  God’s word tells us that God’s handiwork points us to Him and that is a tremendous comfort to me.  Because honestly, that visit to Wiseman’s View, seeing the lights, certainly had tendencies toward spookiness.  But, as my friend and I were discussing on our way back to the cars, God knows exactly what those lights are.  Think about that.  He knows-He made ‘em.

As I drove away from the parking lot I noticed a church van pulling in.  Out poured youth, racing to the overlook, hoping to see the lights.  I hope they saw them.  I hope their leaders pointed them to the Creator of the lights.