Walking Toward Peace

Marion and I went to see the Peace Walk last week as they stopped at Jordan Lake State Park on the way to Washington DC.

It was cold, the kind of cold that settles into your bones. And still people gathered. Cars lined the road. Folks stood shoulder to shoulder, hands tucked into pockets. One woman had climbed into a tree to get a better view.

A tree.

Watching her, I thought of the gospel stories of crowds flocking to Jesus, straining to see him, desperate to hear a word of hope. And I found myself wondering: what were we all here for? 

The monks were quiet and unremarkable by worldly standards. Just men walking for peace. And yet the crowd kept growing. People didn’t come for spectacle. They came because something about these monks hinted at a different way of being in the world.

 I suspect, like me, they are tired of fear and division. I suspect they long for leadership that points toward unity, compassion, and loving kindness.

Not the fragile peace that comes from avoiding conflict, but the deep peace that can hold the weight of a fractured world.

Peace, in the Christian life, is first a gift from God. It is an inner peace given by the Holy Spirit. And it is that inner peace, cultivated in the heart, that slowly begins to reshape how we live with one another.

This is the peace Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he says—not those who seize power, but those whose lives reflect the reign of God are blessed, are close to God’s heart. In Matthew’s Gospel, the kingdom of God is not built by force, but revealed through humility, mercy, and love.

Standing there in the cold, surrounded by strangers who felt suddenly like companions, I sensed how hungry we are for this kind of hope. Not a quick fix, but a transformed way of living. Not louder voices, but quieter hearts attuned to God.

The crowds once gathered around Jesus for the same reason. They were longing for a peace the world could not give.