What Peace Does...

The country has been captivated by the walking monks from Texas.  Millions of people have come to see them, followed them on social media and some watched from great distances to see this small band of Buddhist monks make a 2300 mile trek for peace.

At a time when our country is being torn apart with hate speech, constant childish rants, political backlash, fear mongering and a general apathy that defies logic or reason, these monks have shown us all what peace does.

Regardless of political affiliation, religious convictions, social status, people are coming in droves to watch Buddhist monks walk.  The monks sing, chant and talk but mostly they walk.  Turning their will and lives over to the journey, a pilgrimage for peace, to our Nation’s capital that feels like it has been under siege for quite some time now.  A place I once called home, feels like some other planet.  Instead of the capital being a place where sound reason and judgment prevail, it has become the epicenter of hate, bigotry, narcissism and terror.

As I watched the monks walk today, I just started crying.  I felt awash with emotion that seems to have no exact origin.  I just felt sad, bereft and, if I am honest, a little hopeless.  My first thought is what can they do for us all?  How can walking 2300 miles change anything?  But it has.  It matters not why they started, only that they started and now are rounding out their journey to DC.  This journey for peace has altered our country, our children, our citizens, with people’s benevolence, interest and perhaps rededication to living an existence that does its best not to harm others...and has left us all wondering, "what can we do for them?" Which feels like the best most hopeful transition I have felt in some time.

What peace does is it spreads and it speaks.  It creates a subtextual language of the heart that everyone can vibrate to, attune to and enjoy if they can find the willingness to set aside their pain, suffering, dis-ease and commitment to acts of selfishness, greed, hate and fear.  It seems to me the monks’ walk is showing us all how a simple idea, put into motion, changes things.  It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, it doesn’t have to have a great deal of planning or strategy, the world will accommodate a peace walk from one destination to another, we just have to have the courage of our convictions to begin.

In a time of great uncertainty and fear, monks walking for peace is so basic, so fundamental, so simple, and yet quite profound.  And it is resonating as they walk, a different vibrational energy is being promoted, supported and nurtured.  And so many of us are tuning in and paying attention to something that is not happening to us so much as it is happening for us.  And I for one am grateful for the vision, the commitment, for simple, pure encouragement to move from fear to peace.  It literally begins with the first step and then continues with each step thereafter...

Again, still...

No matter how often we might forget...what peace does, when shared, is it changes us, sometimes all we have to do is have the immense courage to step away from our usual habits and be willing to move toward something else...