In my 13+ years living as a Peace Pilgrim it has become apparent that bold Wisdom can only be effectively communicated using commensurately bold means. More simply stated: because folks tend to turn away from &/or naysay life’s more uncomfortable Truths, the same must be proclaimed in a manner that cannot easily be ignored.

To that end I decided to tread this latest Peace Pilgrimage quite boldly indeed — establishing a dramatic set of five “rules” that made The Walk appear to be exceedingly difficult (even “dangerous”) to lay eyes. And those “rules” were as follows: 01) I was not allowed to accept rides (i.e. I had to walk the whole way — other than crossing the Atlantic Ocean, of course), 02) I was not allowed to accept or use any money from start to finish, 03) I was not allowed to carry any type of portable shelter (i.e. no tent, no sleeping bag, no raincoat, and no umbrella), 04) I was not allowed to ask for food ever — no matter how hungry I was or how long I had gone between meals, and 05) I was not allowed to carry personal identification of any kind.

As far as this final “rule” went, I adhered to it for two reasons: first, to keep the focus on my message instead of myself, and second, to make it clear to all those watching from near or far that there was no “safety net” in place during this daring adventure — that I would indeed suffer greatly if I was wrong about the innate nature of my fellow humans and they didn’t reach out to care for me along the way; that there was no way to “rescue me” with a plane ticket were I to somehow become too weak to carry on. And to make this final “rule” truly concrete, I did the only thing that could be done before setting forth — I put all of my personal identification (my driver’s license, my health insurance card, and my passport) into a metal pail the morning of my departure, I poured a healthy dose of isopropanol over them, and then set them on fire and burned them to a crisp …

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt