Peace Pilgrim: A complex profile in courage

This year I read the collected works of Peace Pilgrim, an activist who crisscrossed North America on foot for twenty-eight years, beginning in 1953. Dressed in a sturdy pair of shoes, pants, a button-up shirt and a tunic with pockets for her worldly possessions, Peace Pilgrim spent her golden years sleeping outdoors and relying fully on the kindness of strangers for her sustenance. Wherever she walked, she brought a message of peace to whomever would listen; with a distinctly spiritual but non-denominational ethos, Peace Pilgrim advocated for greater inner peace within individuals as well as peaceful relations on the world stage. Her remarkable example intrigued thousands of people, and her extraordinary lifestyle and personal sacrifices make for a fascinating, if complicated, profile in courage.

Any civic bridge-builder requires a heaping dose of courage in their quest to cultivate regenerative culture. For one, we currently reside in a paradigm that privileges extractive industry, a scarcity mindset, competitive individualism, and perpetual growth. For many, these self-destructive principles are common sense—or perhaps they signal a meritocratic social order that rewards hard work and innovation. Point being, the momentum behind our maladaptive cultural bias is strong and difficult to contend with.

Peace Pilgrim took up the mantle of pacifism at a time when the United States’ economy was benefiting enormously from conflict overseas, and when national pride in the Greatest Generation’s sacrifices to defeat the Nazis was still fresh. The specter of communism and leftist populism was rising in the East and Latin America, and the threat of nuclear annihilation loomed large.

Besides the widespread support for conflict, though, Peace Pilgrim countered perhaps the most powerful inertia of all: she conquered her own predilection for physical safety and comfort.

“I sleep equally well in a soft bed or on the grass beside the road. If I am given food and shelter, fine. If not, I’m just as happy. Many times I am given shelter by total strangers. When hospitality is not available there are always bus depots, railroad stations and all night truck stops.”

—excerpt from Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

To follow her calling, Peace Pilgrim put herself at the mercy of strangers. She nearly froze to death some nights. For the average person, it would require immense courage to live this lifestyle for even a short time. But if you believe her first-person accounts of the journey, Peace Pilgrim’s unshakable faith in her spiritual convictions and her vocation to walk for peace (she stopped counting the miles after 25,000) carried her beyond the capacity to suffer. If so, then we cannot rightly say that she was courageous in undertaking her pilgrimage, as courage requires at least the acknowledgement of danger, fear or difficulty.

So why think of Peace Pilgrim as a profile in courage? The reality behind her extraordinary resilience is that it was the result of intense training. She was not born with the ability to think beyond the rabble. Although “not called to the family pattern,” she had been married. She was divorced. Thoroughly a woman of the twentieth century, she was socialized in much the same way as her peers. And yet, there came a time when she chose to invite extreme discomfort into her life. She described her spiritual development as a process of Preparations, Purifications, and Relinquishments. It took time. It must have hurt. Surely, the uncertainty of what she felt called to do must have plagued her.

Those who remember Peace Pilgrim tend to honor her fearlessness and unflappable commitment. They admire her ability to talk to anyone, without judgment or fear of being judged, and to spread joy and hope wherever she went. But these qualities were not revealed, nor were they inborn: they were earned. Very few people will transcend suffering on any consistent basis. Very few people even try. Unfortunately for the world, I don’t think Peace Pilgrim’s legacy was her effectiveness in bringing about world peace. Her legacy lies in her becoming a symbol for uncommon resilience.

True courage is the ability to confront suffering directly, and to invite it inside and let it transform you. Courage cannot exist in the rarified aura of the enlightened. This is why I choose to admire the courage of Mildred Lisette Norman, the woman who became Peace Pilgrim.