Breaking Bread on Iron Mountain

Photos and story by John Feister

A garden-size statue of St. Francis of Assisi sets a welcome tone on the outside; inside the warm, delicious smell of banana-nut bread makes this small mobile home seem three times bigger. It’s early May in Unicoi, Tennessee: Brother Tom Sheehy is preparing to set up shop on the Appalachian Trail.

The next morning, Brother Tom, a carpenter, goes to the garage that he built out back and loads his modest Chevy pickup truck with food, chairs, a shade umbrella, and his trademark sign for the tailgate: Glenmary Home Missioners. One more check to be sure his two guard dogs, Moses and Job, are safe and comfortable in the mobile home, then Brother Tom heads up to Iron Mountain.

The hikers call him a Trail Angel, one of hundreds along the 2,200 mile trek from Georgia to Maine who provide food and respite for those who make the journey each year. Brother Tom thinks of it more as a ministry of presence. “My diocese’s office, in Knoxville, calls it ‘threshold conversations,’” Brother Tom explains. He

meets people both on the physical threshold between Tennessee and North Carolina, and, more important, on the moral threshold of life’s journey, for many, a threshold of faith. He nourishes them with food and drink, and lends a listening ear.

“What do they call it?” he scratches his ahead as if trying to recall—he clearly avoids technical terms for his simple witness. “Pre-evangelization,” he says after a pause. “A lot of it is just dealing with some of the hurts that are out there. Many hikers are disenfranchised from organized religion for significant reasons. So in a short period of time, if alone, we can talk about this. I say ‘You know, we are very imperfect people. You know, there's only one perfect person. He was hung on a tree.’”

Whether it’s disaffection with the Church in the wake of scandal, or family, or relationship pain, or a struggle with faith, Brother Tom listens, and might even talk. “What's the line attributed to St. Francis?” he asks. “‘Preach the Gospel always, and use words if necessary?’” His indeed is a ministry of presence.

Brother Tom got this idea when he was sent by Glenmary to help lay the groundwork for an official Catholic presence in Unicoi County, Tenn. He was on the heels of his successful battle against prostate cancer, ready to head back to the missions. He spent a short stint in the coalfields, in Logan, West Virginia. Then he got a request from Glenmary’s leadership: “‘We’re opening up in eastern Tennessee,’” the leadership Council told me. ‘Go down there and explore for an opportunity that suits you, then bring it back to us for approval.’”

He started by helping Glenmary Father Tom Charters locate a site for a mission church. He worked with Father Tom and a planning committee of scattered Catholics in the area, who celebrated Mass in Father Tom’s house, to discern the best approach to building.

One place he discovered a need was with a local ecumenical group seeking to establish a Habitat for Humanity organization. A local Habitat group would partner with community leaders and low-income families to build homes (see box on page 11).

There was another opportunity, a few miles from Erwin, on the Appalachian Trail. It would not be a typical Glenmary outreach, but it would seal for Brother Tom a place in a community trying to strengthen its ties to this regional tourist phenomenon.

A Place on the Trail Brother Tom had seen people around the area, setting up refreshment stands in parking lots as a way to lure hikers into conversation—generally with some hope of

Would it be cost-cutting and simple, or built to feel a bit more established? The planning committee chose an approach to build what they considered the most permanent building they and the diocese could afford. They hired an architect and got to work. (St. Michael the Archangel Mission celebrated its first Mass in the new building June 30.)

Brother Tom’s work was done, so he set out to see what other local needs he might serve.

Perhaps this is one of the more difficult parts of Glenmary’s ministry: How do you find your way in a location which has had no formal Catholic presence, where people often are predisposed to reject Catholicism? While working with Father Tom Charters, Brother Tom explored the local area and talked to people.

religious conversion. He also had learned that the folks on the Tennessee side of the border—notably local law enforcement—were more open-minded than those on the North Carolina side about local volunteers encouraging these young, sometimes unruly, hikers. When Brother Tom heard of a nearby Trail Angels festival sponsored by Appalachian Trail Conservancy (a trailimprovement organization), he attended. “It was there I met Miss Janet,” he says. Clearly she was instrumental in helping him set up his trail ministry.

Janet Hensley, “Miss Janet,” had been assigned by the Conservancy to work up and down the various sections of the trail. Brother Tom met her at the local festival and told her, “I’m interested in some sort of trail ministry. I’m just not sure where to begin or how to start. Can you give me some clue?” Her reply? “Absolutely!” She told him the first step would be to visit all of the local trailheads (access points). He tells the story from there.

“‘Step number two,’ she said, ‘Start picking up the hikers and carry them to wherever they want to go. Like Walgreen’s, Walmart, just converse back and forth.’” "Why do that?" he asked. “She replied, ‘They will decide for you what your ministry will look like.’”

Being Present That type of listening is nothing new to a Glenmarian. He took her advice and learned from the hikers. “They were the ones who said, we need chairs, we need refreshments, like drinks. Bring whatever homemade stuff you can, and bring out fruit, vegetables, and so on. And some chairs. And a shade umbrella. They gave me a whole list

of things they wanted to see out there!” Within a little while he started going out to the trail with chairs and drinks and “it just evolved,” he says. He moved from a parking lot to a more inviting spot he now uses atop Iron Mountain, a few feet inside of Tennessee.

Brother Tom knew that some of the Trail Angels had experienced problems with local law enforcement in North Carolina so he made sure to collaborate with the local police in Tennessee, offering them coffee, encouraging them to sit down and talk with international hikers, educating them about the benefits of the trail for their community. It worked. Says Brother Tom, “Everything just kind of fell into place.”

Now five years into his ministry, he found that hikers will stop and take a rest to enjoy the things the early hikers suggested. So he picks up fresh fruit, bakes homemade treats, brings a decanter of hot coffee and boxes of cold-water bottles. He brings them to the Iron Mountain trailhead at the start of each hiking day, sets up his shady respite spot, and talks with any hikers who will stay. And some do.

“Presence means being out there, being kind to them and being available. When they want to talk, they talk,” Brother Tom explains. He offers an example from a deeply emotional conversation he had recently with a hiker. “He started talking about the death of his son and how that impacted him. I said, ‘I can identify with you, sir. I lost my mother and dad last year. It’s really tough, but you know where he’s at.

“You never know what you’re going to stumble across,” Brother Tom says, “you just throw out little things, touch upon this, touch upon that.”

He mentions having talked to people who feel cast off by the Church, people who are going through a divorce, are dealing with a family member with cancer, almost any human problem out there. “I had one kid who I asked, ‘Why did you plan a hike for this year?’ He told me ‘Because next year I’ll be in a wheelchair.’” The man was experiencing the onset of Multiple Sclerosis and knew he may one day soon be unable to walk.

“Another man said, ‘I’m not going to make the entire trek this year.’ ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because I’m dying of cancer,’ he said.”

Brother Tom has many stories to share. “Mother Teresa would say something like, ‘My sisters are the enfleshment of Jesus Christ. If these people never meet Jesus, they’ll meet him through my Sisters.’” To Brother Tom, that’s a ministry of presence.

Today it is raining, as it has been all this week. He makes small talk with a few hikers who stop by, some from the West Coast, some from the east, a few from Georgia. All of them are glad for a cup of coffee and a piece of Tom’s banana bread or another snack before they head back into the woods, up the trail towards Virginia and beyond, towards Maine.

He’ll pack things back onto his truck by noon today— “business is slow,” he might say, with a note of frustration. “It’s been raining all week.” Next week, though, when the weather’s better, more hikers will break camp and head this way, and he will be there to meet them.

Brother Tom knows that he’s about evangelization, even though he rarely talks in those terms. The snack bread he bakes so carefully, his comfortable place of hospitality and encounter, respite along the journey; all comprise, in a sense, a eucharistic encounter. He’s bringing the presence of Jesus to hikers along the Appalachian trail, a step closer to the Church.