BY KIM ALLAN JOHNSON

HAD NEVER HIKED AFTER SUNSET BEFORE. Normally I strolled in daytime along the winding paths of New England’s rolling hills, oblivious to danger, at ease within the enticing smells and pleasing sights of nature. Pungent whiffs of pine sap. Flickering yellow sunlight filtered through dancing birch leaves. Velvet moss clutching a venerable boulder in its lime-green embrace. High-rise trees and knee-high saplings. As I walked the sun-splashed woods, my anxious heart always quieted and opened easily to God.

I couldn’t imagine, however, experiencing Him among the terrors of the night. The mere thought of traipsing through the forest in the dark stirred up only frightening childhood images of ankle-grabbing goblins and monster-infested caves.

Then one day my wife remarked, “Hey, Kim, this ad from the nature center sounds really interesting.” She held up the local newspaper and read: “Group walk in the woods by moonlight. Join us for an informative, after-sunset hike.” I haven’t usually been known to lunge into new experiences, but going “over the hill” last year at age 50 made me reexamine my puny comfort zone. I felt a strange longing to drink in more of life before relatives shipped me off to a nursing home. “OK,” I replied, flinging fear aside. “Why not?” I got directions by phone and registered for the evening tour.

As we neared our destination, misgivings crept back in like cockroaches after the lights go out. Mentally I recited Psalm 18:11: “He made darkness his secret place.” God would be out there in the woods somewhere, I hoped.

True to my melancholy obsession with punctuality, we arrived about 45 minutes early at the off-white, droopy, clapboarded headquarters building. Out front, waist-high sprinklers hosed select portions of a neatly laid-out span of wildflowers. As we entered the small lobby a bubbly young woman named Marsha greeted us with the half smile and frenetic manner of someone pulling together last-minute loose ends. She doubled as both our money-taker and guide.

Eventually we were joined by a Cadillac-driving CPA and his soft-spoken wife, plus a single mother and her teenage daughter. Shrouded in the deep grays of waning twilight, our little safari huddled, then headed across a gravel parking lot to the mouth of a nearby trail. “Just follow the ribbon of beach sand that covers the path ahead,” our leader encouraged. “Your eyes will adjust to the darkness better than you imagine.”

Fifty uncertain yards later she casually mentioned the one thing I dreaded most: “By the way, this area’s loaded with poison ivy.” Immediately I pulled my hands inside the arms of my windbreaker and shifted my feet to the center of the sand.

Oh, great! I thought. I’m gonna itch for a month! The image of a gallon of pink calamine lotion flashed through my mind.

“Sshh,” the guide whispered. “Look over there . . . at the top of that big tree.” We halted and squinted in the direction of her outstretched arm at some heavily leafed branches outlined by a faintly lit pastel sky. “Sometimes,” she said, “if you’re lucky, you can spot bats swooping down to catch bugs.”

“Eeek!” the teenager shrieked, pressing both hands over her mouth. Long pause. Intense squinting.

“There’s one . . . Did you see it?” someone exclaimed too loudly. I missed it completely, yet kept staring as instructed. After several tense batless minutes, we had to shuffle on.

Along the way, our nature-relishing CPA asked intriguing questions: “Why do so many bats inhabit this particular spot?” “How old do you think that large oak tree might be?” Unfortu-nately, our guide didn’t appear to know much more about this neck of the woods than we did. An insecure giggle prefaced her vague answers.

I felt my attitude heading south. Why had I let my wife drag me into this thing? Poison ivy. No bats. Minimal information. I could be back home munching chocolate-chip cookies and watching the ball game. To make matters worse, because of the overcast, our moonlit tour had no moon. I began to wonder if God had somehow skipped the tour.

Thankfully, as we crested a minor rise, our prospects brightened. “Everyone take a piece of cardboard and a crayon,” Marsha offered. “Examine your crayon carefully and try to tell what color it is. Then write that color down on the cardboard. We’ll check them later.”

“Hey,” I grinned, “this is kinda clever.”

I saw the outline of the crayon clearly enough, but even though I held it only millimeters from my eyeball, in the darkness I could not for the life of me figure out its color. Fascinating, I thought. Pleasant memories surfaced of bygone science fair projects my daughter and I devised on the relationship between color and sunlight. Everyone in the group chuckled and chatted. The inner voice of the Spirit tried to woo me from disgruntlement to expectant reflection. “Kim, be open to this aspect of creation too. Relax. Let Me come to you in My own way.”

Further on, the guide told us, “Sit here and be very quiet. I’m going to play a tape of owl calls. We’ll see if there are any real owls out here tonight that will reply.” I sat there, like the others, skeptical yet captivated. She slipped a portable recorder out of her knapsack, moved a small flashlight across the array of buttons, then hit “play.”

“YEEEP-SHWAAAK-HOOO” pierced the quiet, followed by a string of other taped whoops and warbles. There was a primeval quality about the experience, attempting to connect in some elemental way with another species. As the calls pervaded the forest, followed by periods of deep silence, I strained to listen more intently than I had to anything in years. Inwardly I smiled at the utter deliciousness of the experiment, made even more arresting by the eeriness of our night setting. Suddenly my perspective shifted from observer to the observed. What was out there?

I thought I heard something in the distance, to the right. I turned in the direction of the sound. The tape beckoned once again. Nothing. Then, remarkably, the unmistakable answer, cloning the tape, closer than before. I froze. The recorder. The owl. The recorder. The owl . . . no, two owls! Two! Excited whispers, “Did you hear them?” Stereo. Antiphonal. Back and forth. Nine, 10 times. Then no more responses, as if these feathered friends had finally figured out our little charade: “Hey, Jack, it’s just a bunch of stupid hikers with a recorder and a fakey tape. Let’s scram.”

We lingered in the moment. I thought, Lord, thank You for this surprise. There’s more of Your wonder out here than I thought.

Fifteen minutes farther along the undulating trail we halted again. The guide swung her knapsack down from her shoulder to the ground. “Because we can’t see very well at night, we have to rely on the rest of our senses,” she observed. “Here’s something that can significantly enhance your sense of hearing. I have a pair of paper cups for each of you. A section is cut out on the side to fit over each ear. Be sure to point the open end of the cup forward in the direction you are walking.”

A party atmosphere instantly took over. I fingered the cup, then my ear, trying to fit one over the other. Too tight, but workable. Obviously one-size-fits-all. Outfitted, I gazed around at the other team members sporting their low-budget hearing aids like Mickey Mouse wannabes. The effect on my hearing was definitely noticeable, as if someone had turned up the volume. We marched on proudly with our cups forward, absorbing the subtle symphony of the night. It felt natural to breathe words of worship: “Lord, I’m grateful that each moment Your listening ear is turned so fully in my direction, gathering in my deepest thoughts and feelings, especially at the dark times of life.”

Too soon we emerged from the woods onto an overgrown access road that meandered back to home base. I expressed my genuine appreciation for our leader’s ingenuity and said my goodbyes.

The night trek into God’s second book had affected me in subtle yet important ways. Heightened awareness. An increased willingness to reach out and grow. An expanded sense of God’s presence. I could now take the psalmist’s words and apply them to the newly familiar realm of night: “O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (Ps. 104:24).

Walking in the woods after dark threatened dangers, but it also provided memorable opportunities. I faced the unknown and came away unscathed. It’s been weeks now, and I don’t even itch.

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Kim Allan Johnson is the associate treasurer of the Northern New England Conference and the author of two books.