Peace Pilgrim

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose. A pilgrimage can be to a place - that's the best-known kind - but it can also be for a thing. Mine is for peace, and that's why I am a Peace Pilgrim.

My pilgrimage covers the entire peace picture: peace among nations, peace among groups, peace within our environment, peace among individuals, and the very, very important inner peace - which I talk about most often because that is where peace begins.

The situation in the world around us is just a reflection of the collective situation. In the final analysis, only as we become more peaceful people will we be finding ourselves living in a more peaceful world.

In the Middle Ages the pilgrims went out as the disciples were sent out - without money, without food, without adequate clothing - and I know that tradition. I have no money. I do not accept any money on my pilgrimage. I belong to no organization. There is no organization backing me. I own only what I wear and carry. There is nothing to tie me down. I am as free as a bird soaring in the sky.

I walk until given shelter, fast until given food. I don't ask - it's given without asking. Aren't people good? There is a spark of good in everybody, no matter how deeply it may be buried, it is there. It's waiting to govern your life gloriously. I call it the God-centred nature or the divine nature. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God within.

PEACE PILGRIM Her Life And Work In Her Own Words (1983)