Bertram's Blog

A friend and I recently discussed the Walk for Peace and what we thought would happen now that it’s finished and the monks back home. She thinks it will have a lasting effect and will make a big difference to the world.

Me? Not so much. People tend to get caught up in the spirit of the moment, especially big moments, and they hold on to that feeling of peace or commitment or awe or whatever for a while, but then life happens. And keeps happening. And the feeling that they thought would last forever dissipates and eventually gets put away, only to be remembered long afterward as a curiosity. For sure, some people’s lives were changed. Some people will follow through with the daily affirmation that was handed out during the walk: “Today will be my peaceful day.” Some will practice mindfulness as the monks urged, doing only one thing at a time. Some will even set their phones down for a while and just live in the offline moment.

Those things are important. After all, that was the monks’ message and their hope — that people would find inner peace. But will it change the world in the long run? Interestingly, the monks didn’t set out to change the world. They merely set out mindfully on a walking meditation with no announcement, no big production, no online presence. Just twenty monks walking. (Nineteen human and one canine.) That was it. They thought a few people would pause for a moment to watch and perhaps be moved to find their own inner peace, but they had no expectations beyond placing one foot in front of the other.

And yet people found them. Because of the interest, monks who stayed behind set up a map, websites, social sites, made and uploaded videos. The news of the walk spread, and hundreds of thousands of people stopped their lives to stand by the road and watch the monks walk by. Millions all around the world participated vicariously through videos and live streaming. During those months, there was a vast outpouring of kindness, compassion, harmony, love, and hope. All that energy would have to go somewhere since energy can’t be destroyed, so maybe there was enough power generated to move the world.

I keep thinking about a certain episode in The Wheel of Time books. The weather in their world has gone out of whack due to the Dark One’s effort to destroy the world and even humanity. But a couple of the girl heroes (“witches” some call them) have managed to find the ancient, long-lost bowl the sea faring people once used to control the weather, and these heroes as well as the sea people — Windfinders — get together to change the weather back to the way it’s supposed to be, pouring into the bowl huge amounts of the power only they can wield.

Afterward, they collapsed from exhaustion, but there was no immediate discernible difference in the weather. One of the heroes asks belligerently, “All of that, for what? Did we do anything or not?”

‘The Windfinder struggled to her feet. “Do you think Weaving the Winds is like throwing the helm over on a darter?” she demanded contemptuously. “I just moved the rudder on a skimmer with a beam as broad as the world! He will take time to turn, time to know he is supposed to turn. That he must turn. But when he does, not the Father of Storms himself will be able to stand in his way.”’

Is it possible my friend is right and the walk for peace will have this sort of effect? Is it possible peace will ripple through the world, changing things in ways we can’t even imagine? Maybe in ways we can’t discern but are still subtly effective? Despite my rather cynical view of people, I would like to think the walk for peace will make a difference.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.