Update July 2011: Margaret and her fellow walkers have completed the walk but donations are still welcome.

Read a reflection on the Walk for Peace at http://www.quaker.org.uk/walk-for-peace

My walk for peace from London to York

In 1772, John Woolman travelled on foot from one Quaker meeting in England to another, walking about 500 miles in total, sharing his vision of a world governed by compassion and justice.  In the twentieth century, Gandhi’s heroic faithfulness to a similar vision led to enormous political consequences.  In 2012, about 100,000 of the marginalised people of India will converge on Delhi to express their faith that justice can be achieved by peaceful means.  Other groups based on these principles are developing all over South Asia, and in many other parts of the world.

By following Woolman’s route as closely as possible, without using any wheeled transport, I’m attempting to focus attention on how we can become part of this movement.  Sharing some of our relative wealth to enable the voices of the poor to be heard is one obvious way.  At a deeper level, I hope that, in a world that in many ways seems to be ruled by greed and cruelty, together we can learn more of the principle which Woolman knew so well, which ‘incites to exercise goodness toward every living creature’.

Margaret Johnston