Chapter one

The Kindred Spirit Connection

Because I had a jeep, I figured I could go anywhere.  The year was 1967 and a friend and I were in my old 1953 ex-military jeep headed for an isolated lake far from our naval air base at Keflavik, Iceland.  We had fishing on our minds.

Rather than drive the miles around the lake, I decided to take a shortcut. So, off the road and down a grassy, but also a boulder strewn and muddy mountainside we went.  About halfway down, the right side of the jeep suddenly sank in the mud clear up to the body. I couldn’t believe we were stuck, I mean, shoot, that hill was steep and we were going down. 

But we were. 

My buddy and I spent over half a day trying to unstick the jeep.  We couldn’t winch it out because there was nothing to winch to—besides, I didn’t have a winch.  All we could do was jack it up and try to move forward by driving off the jack.  Unfortunately, the only thing that happened was the jack simply sank into the mud as pressure was applied upward. 

We knew we needed boards under the jack for support, so we started looking until we found some.  This, I knew, was impossible.  After all, this was Iceland…the national forest is a nice tree.  Why would boards be out here in this desolate place where there was nothing else as far as we could see?  But, there they were, right out in plain sight, a couple of weathered and broken one by eight inch boards that were a foot to a foot and a half long.  And fairly close to the jeep, too.

Once we placed them under the jack we were able to raise it.  So, after several hours of frustration, the jeep was finally unstuck from the mire it had bogged down in, which was when we discovered that the right rear tire was flat. 

Hey, that’s no big deal, right?  Just jack it up again and change it.  Nothing to it.  Do it everyday. 

Wrong! 

Not even with one end of my four way lug wrench on a nut, my friend holding the other end, and me jumping up and down on one of the ends sticking out to the side, would they break loose.  Previous excursions to salt water beaches had rusted them tight on tight.

We must have done this for a couple of hours before giving up.  I remember sitting down on my front bumper in complete disgust: I was hungry, angry and worn out.  This fishing trip was totally ruined.  I remember saying disgustedly to myself, “Oh God, what do I do now?”

That’s when I saw the two men in navy dungarees approaching.

“What’s the problem?” one of them asked.

When I told him, he said, “Let me give it a try.”

My first impulse was to laugh.  Here he was, a small man about half my size, thinking he could do what I had been unable to.  Impossible!  He wouldn’t be able to budge those nuts and I knew it.

Instead of laughing, however, I merely expressed some doubt and handed him the wrench.  He casually put it on a nut, made some sort of miraculous maneuver and off came the nut.  In less than a minute he had the tire completely off.  In no more than three minutes he had the spare on and the flat where the spare had been.  And he wasn’t even hurrying.

“How did you do that?” I asked incredulously.

“I used to be part of a pit crew at the Indy 500,” he said.

I thanked him profusely, and he left. 

I turned away for a thirty seconds to a minute, and looked back in the direction they had gone.

There was nobody there.  I thought to myself, “They must have gone over the hill.”

It was over twenty years later before I realized that something out of the ordinary had happened that day.  In an out of the way spot, alone and isolated, two men in trouble got the help they needed because two other men, Americans¾one of whom just happened to have been part of the Indianapolis 500 pit crew¾were out for a stroll in the drizzling rain on an Icelandic mountain side. 

If somebody told me that tale, I’d say, “Yeah, sure.  Right!”

But that’s the way it happened.

How (and why) were they there?  It would have been odd enough to be called bizarre if we’d been on a major highway and they had come strolling along in the rain.  It’s events like this I call the “Kindred Spirit Connection.”  We need something and it happens.  Usually in such a natural way that we don’t notice the miraculous event that took place.  This is not a new discovery.  What I call the KSC (Kindred Spirit Connection), Karl Jung called “synchronicity.”  Either way, needs get filled, and in such a manner as to prove the existence of something beyond ourselves; something that is interested in our welfare and is able to respond to our thoughts. (Oh God! What do I do now?)

I call these type of events “Minor miracles.” They happen often, but are usually unnoticed.  When we do notice, we think of it as luck, but luck has nothing to do with it.  This is just one of the ways God interacts with His blindly stubborn people. 

The Kindred Spirit Connection in action is simply this: good things happening inexplicably to good people.

Because we don’t know what to look for we often miss the miracles in our lives.  After all, Biblical miracles were always accompanied by something grand, like burning bushes, parting seas, or visiting angels.  So, we automatically assume it has to be accompanied by a wild extravaganza.  When it isn’t, we are slow to accept the godly or angelic event that actually took place.  Yet they are as miraculous as the Red Sea parting for Moses, or an angel talking to Mary.

Most miracles would be just ordinary events except for one thing:  timing.  They happen when we need them the most.  They are extremely important to us because they prove something at work in our lives besides mere happenstance.  They are signs pointing to a loving and caring universe working in our behalf.  This same sort of thing happened when I moved back here from Virginia.

I was sick of city life and wanted to be back in the mountains, surrounded by lush, natural beauty.  I don’t know why.  For some reason this just seemed to have more appeal than the roar of traffic, honking horns, the profusion of people and the haze of smog over everything.  In southern Oregon the beauty is all around: lovely mountains, crystal clear rivers and streams, and mild, but rainy climate.  This area (Cave Junction) is not an easy place to make a living, but it’s beautiful here and I love it. 

Our sole heat was firewood.  In previous years I had gathered the next winter’s firewood in the spring, giving it ample time to season and dry before I used it.  In 1991 I didn’t, however, because my wife, Sylvia, and I had been looking for a nicer home for quite a while.  Since I was sure we were going to be moving, the last thing I wanted to do was add five cords of firewood to the long list of other things we would be moving.  Therefore, I gathered no wood.

By the time we had found the place we loved, bought it and moved in, it was September.  From past experience I knew this would be a cold winter, for it was too late to gather seasoned firewood, and unseasoned wood burns neither hot nor well.

Shortly after moving in we met our new neighbors, Rod and Terry.  They had just bought three acres next to us, and were vacationing on it while making plans for their retirement.  The day they left to go back home they stopped by to give us their address and phone number in case we needed to contact them.  Just before leaving Rod said, “I’ve cut a little firewood that you’re welcome to.  We won’t be back for at least six years and it won’t be any good by then.”[1]  I thanked him, but didn’t think too much about it—until I looked at his pile.  There they were, at least two cords of seasoned wood in a large heap.  Not enough to get through the winter on, but more than enough to insure my green wood would be more seasoned by the time we needed it.

This is another example of the Kindred Spirit Connection in action:  people helping people without realizing they’re doing anything out of the ordinary.  I believe this is a law of attraction, just like magnetism.  I also believe it to be a universal constant that works in the lives of all “good”[2] people.

Miracles of this type happen every day all around us.  Most things, such as the firewood event, I call “minor miracles.”[3]  If I’d had five cords of wood stashed away, the event would have been nothing but a friendly gesture on their part¾which indeed it was.  What makes it a minor miracle is that I had a need that became filled unexpectedly through the Kindred Spirit Connection.  Remember that it’s not what happens that makes an event miraculous; it‘s the timing.  I have observed this phenomena many times over the years, not just in my own life, but in many others’ as well.  And it almost always happens in such an ordinary and natural manner it’s often not noticed.  Which makes me think of the biblical admonition to be hospitable to strangers for we never know when they might be angels.

Heb 13:2

2.   Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

(ASV)

I believe the Kindred Spirit Connection to be the bond that links God, man, angels and other beings into a broad family.  Back in Iceland in 1967, I was oblivious to any such a thing.  I just assumed it was natural for people with amazing skills to come strolling along and help others with flat tires on steep mountains in the rain.  (I can’t help but wonder now why I didn’t attach more significance to the event.)

Because God usually chooses to work in a manner that is unobtrusive, uneventful, and seemingly very natural, when the event happens we don’t notice that anything out of the ordinary occurred.  It’s sort of like watching a cat show.

Have you ever watched a cat perform tricks?  They are one of nature’s smartest domestic animals, yet you never see them as acting in circus or other trained animal shows.  Why?  Because, when they perform they do it in such a natural way they’re boring.  I learned this by watching Ralph, my old cat . . .

Ralph was a good natured Manx of mixed origin.  If cats were people, he would have been one of those laid back fellows who smoke cigars, drink beer and swap sea stories with their buddies. 

One day my thirteen year old daughter, Joyce, came into the kitchen while I was fixing dinner.  “Dad,” she said, “I’ve taught Ralph to do tricks.”

“Right, Joyce,” I said in mock agreement.  “Cats can’t be trained,” I added knowingly.

About that time Ralph came strolling into the kitchen to see what was happening¾and for a possible handout.  “Here, I’ll show you,” Joyce said.  “Ralph, sit,” she commanded.

Sure enough, old Ralph sat down and started licking himself.  He was very casual about sitting, though.  It was as if he were just getting ready to sit anyway.

“Coincidence,” I thought.

“Ralph, lay!”  Joyce again commanded.

Ralph laid, but stretched out to full length as he did so, again making it look so casual that once more Joyce’s words appeared to be mere happenstance.

“Ralph, roll over,” she said.

Yup!  Ralph rolled over, and again it was so unimpressive it was almost boring.

So it went for the next five minutes or so.  Everything Joyce commanded, Ralph did, and right on cue.

Finally, after she and Ralph piled up a preponderance of evidence, I had to agree she had trained Ralph.  “But,” I added, “it’s the most unimpressive animal show I’ve ever seen.”

Most (not all) of God’s miracles are like that, so unimpressive and natural you don’t even notice they happened.  That’s what makes them uncanny.  Only their timing makes them worthy of note.  Rarely (if ever) is there a parting of the Red Sea.  Rarely do we get to talk with a burning bush.  God just doesn’t work that way.

Well, rarely, anyway.

Chapter addendum:

An interesting thing happened when I first wrote this chapter, circa 1990.  I had finished the story of the jeep and had ended it with the words “As God is my witness this is what happened.” (Or words to that affect.)  Then I printed out a copy so it would be easier to proof, filed it on a floppy disk and finished my writing for the day.

The next day when I started writing again, this chapter was missing.  It was nowhere to be found on the disk.[4]  Irked, but resolute, I retyped it from my hard copy, wrote a little more, refiled it, and quit. 

The following day I started writing again, and once more this chapter was gone.  Now I was getting really angry.  I retyped it once more and filed everything on a brand new disk.  This time, though, not content to wait until tomorrow, I called it up again immediately. 

Gone!

What’s wrong, I wondered?  My computer had never done this before and I was using new disks.  What could it possibly be?  Resolutely, I started typing it once more.  I was getting to know this chapter pretty well by then.  I could almost type it by memory and I was beginning to getting bored with it.  (Not a good sign).

While typing, I came to a line that read: “I was miles off the main road.”  The line appeared to be in heavier print and suspended above the page.  A thought popped into my mind, “If you’re going to say, ‘As God is my witness,’ get it right.”

OK.  The truth is, I wasn’t miles off the road, maybe six hundred yards at the most.  (I was out of sight over the hill, however.)  I had no intention of lying, I was simply using hyperbole to point out that help wasn’t available and I couldn’t be seen.  No cars went by all day on that road, so we were isolated.  But I wasn’t “miles off the main road.”

Anyway, I made the correction, filed it to disk, and never lost it again.

Hmmm!