Many of us wish for world peace but very few of us believe it can happen, and even fewer can muster the courage to propagate the process. 1950s America; the Korean war is in progress and a woman by the name of Mildred Norman, is so appalled by human conflict she vows to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food." Armed with nothing but the clothes on her back and a positive message; she walks across America for the next 28 years, spreading her unifying message and earning the title "Peace Pilgrim".
"A pilgrimage can be either to a place or for a thing, and mine is for a thing. Mine is for peace." When I first learned of her story, I thought it was enheartening but slightly crazy. Overtime however, her story has made me realise: not only is it normal; it's absolutely necessary for the mavericks of the world to march forth and blaze a trail! There is power in nonconformity. Especially when it liberates the oppressed or empowers the cowardly.
In his essays on Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” As a young girl, Mildred was a bright, quirkily dressed individualist who never suffered fools gladly or succumbed to peer pressure. She believed in the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. And she lived that way:
"You don’t have to be good at arithmetic, to figure out that if the nations of the world were to stop manufacturing weapons —of mass destruction; they could provide for every human being who lives in this world; the basis for a very good life."
-Peace Pilgrim
What can you do to help this world become a better place?
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