Tracking God

J-Bell

This morning's walk was not different.  Jezebel (aka J-Bell) started for the path that I cut through the woods.  Then her nose hit the ground. Fresh scent....  Round in circles she tracked, then backed up and retraced the scent....quick, deliberate movement. The DNA test that revealed that she is 80% Lab came through in her hot pursuit.  We started up the trail.  She did not want to go and in fact stood behind me.  J-Bell pulled back, not wanted to go forward....any way but ahead!  That must be the 20% that is not Lab.  Finally just up ahead, three fawns crossed the trail and darted into the underbrush.  These must be the famous three that I have spotted before--only now the spots are grown out.  All three stopped and looked right at us. J-Bell's hackles shot up as if to say--Why are we messing with them?  Then behind us...the breaking of branches and three adult deer watching the proceedings.  Okay, J-Bell, let's not get into the middle of family doings! 

No question.  J-Bell had tracked these deer.  The signs were there.  And she came with the nose to find them.  

Walker Percy, the author and winner of the National Book Award, wrote in The Moviegoer that Binx Boling was "onto God...knew his scent, how to track him."  In the same way that J Bell has her nose for the news of what's ahead--we have our scent to develop like Binx to track God.  And it is the God who lays down a trail like those deer for us to follow and find him...or like Elijah, catch sight of his backside as he passes by. 

Bishop John Coburn says that the place to look for God is right under your nose--where life presses on you is the place where you find God seeking you out.  He is nailed to the cross...the ultimate pressure point, where death approaches and life seeks to be born in a new way.