Remembering Peace Pilgrim

Today I blogged on Peace Pilgrim over on Meditation Matters and it seems appropriate to do so here as well. If you don't know who Peace Pilgrim was, she was a deeply spiritual woman who undertook at twenty-eight year pilgrimage of walking for peace. Read this about her:

Peace Pilgrim walked more than 25,000 miles across this country spreading her message - "This is the way of Peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." Carrying in her tunic pockets her only possessions, she vowed, "I shall remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food." She talked with people on dusty roads and city streets, to church, college, civic groups, on TV and radio, discussing peace within and without.

Her pilgrimage covered the entire peace picture: peace among nations, groups, individuals, and the very important inner peace - because that is where peace begins.

She believed that world peace would come when enough people attain inner peace. Her life and work showed that one person with inner peace can make a significant contribution to world peace.

And here's something she said about an encounter she had on the road:

There are those who know and do not do. This is very sad. I remember one day as I walked along the highway a very nice car stopped and the man said to me, "How wonderful that you are following your calling!" I replied, "I certainly think that everyone should be doing what feels right to do." He then began telling me what he felt motivated toward, and it was a good thing that needed doing. I got quite enthusiastic about it and took for granted that he was doing it. I said, "That's wonderful! How are you getting on with it?" And he answered, "Oh, I'm not doing it. That kind of work doesn't pay anything." And I shall never forget how desperately unhappy that man was. But you see, in this materialistic age we have such a false criterion by which to measure success. We measure it in terms of dollars, in terms of material things. But happiness and inner peace do not lie in that direction. If you know but do not do, you are a very unhappy person indeed.

That is actually a very tragic story. What would happen if we all did what we really believed we were called to do? Possibly that golden age of peace for which Peace Pilgrim dedicated her life would come to pass.