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2006

January: "Standing up for justice at the border"

Feb-March: "Quakers in the Blogosphere"

April: "Honoring our Quaker elders...Shirley Ruth"

May: "How Friends are Caring for the Earth"

June: "Redeeming the Land...the Legacy of Jim Corbett"

July-Aug: "Christian Friends.."

Sept: Intermountain YM issue, with Joe Volk speaking about "The Force of Truth, the Power of Love"

2005

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It has long interested me that members of unprogrammed meetings of The Friends of Truth have, as a group, taken very little interest in the theology of their sect. Undoubtedly there are reasons for this. One possibility is that, in our haste to let our lives speak, we place action first, focusing on our immediate good works, and see less need to spend time considering a broader context for our action. Another possibility is that since Friends have no creeds they believe there is no need for them to have a more articulated understanding of their faith than what each individual member comes up with on his/her own. A third possibility is that we have simply failed to acquaint new members with our theology, leaving it up to them to discover it or not as may be the case. There may be other reasons for the dearth of theological dialogue in our meetings, but all of them together do not constitute an excuse.

Because we have let theology lapse as a common subject for discussion among us, we have lost some of the source of our vitality. We live in a culture designed to distract us from consideration of more than our immediate impulses. Theology is generally considered an arcane subject that deals with meaningless questions having no relevance to our lives. This is not so. We are famished for meaning in our lives and in our actions. What is essential for meaning is context. Context means placement, location, home, perspective from which our experience of the world makes sense. Context has to do with our relationship to what is and our understanding of who we are. Theology is nothing more (or less) than our effort to gain a better awareness of the profoundest context of our lives. How could that not be important?

Without this context our lives are set adrift on a sea governed by currents of desire or fear with no compass or destination. Without this context as firm ground under our feet we are in a "condition" that prevents us from answering that of God in everyone. We do need to let our lives speak, but we also need to be confident of what it is that we want that life to say. This power won’t be ours until we have made it ours by laboring together to test our understanding. A separate peace, in which I don’t question what you are thinking and you don’t ask me to account for my notions, won’t serve us. Our faith is personal but it is not private. We are required to grow in the measure of Truth that is given us and to do this we must get clear by sharing what we are given with those who are with us in the covenant of membership. We cannot speak to those outside our sect if we do not have some positive things to say. Saying the negatives, "Well, we don’t have pastors and we don’t have a program for our worship service and we don’t vote on business matters," may succeed in persuading others that we are quaint but does little to help the world understand our message. There are positive things to be said. I would like to risk saying some of them in hopes that Friends will revive a dialogue among us that will enable us to bring our message to a world that needs to hear it.

A theology is nothing if it is not a unified whole. Theologies don’t work as hodge-podge amalgams of clever ideas. A encompassing, coherent organization of our understanding is required. This is not to say that any particular statement of a theology is complete and finished. In fact, one of the aspects of Friends theology is that it expects us to grow in Truth. However, the changes that will come as we grow will not destroy the foundation, but rather will add strength to what we know. Friends theology is a solid unit and though we can talk of separate points we need to be cognizant that in doing so we are not claiming that these can stand alone apart from the rest. The separation is only to let us focus on one aspect at a time.

The first point of Friends theology is that Divine Love, Divine Power, and Divine Authority exist and are known to exist by direct personal experience. We have called this experience the Light Within or the Light of Christ within. We have also used many other names (‘Truth," "Seed," "God," "Word," "Power") to point to our experience. The proliferation of these names is evidence for the fact that the name is not the thing named. We may have a personal fondness for a name, but the fact remains that the name is only a pointer by which we point to our experience. The experience is primary. The name is secondary. Elizabeth Bathurst, a Friends theologian writing in 1679, had other names but she was clear about this matter.

In the rest of this essay I will generally use the name God to refer to this personal experience of a relationship with the divine. In doing this I risk some misunderstandings that I would like to clear up at once. I specifically reject all imaginings that have grown up around this name and all the games that ask pseudo-theological questions such as, "Can God be in two places at once?" or "Can God keep secrets from himself?" These are games invented by those who have no experience of God and who are confined to the presupposition that God can be the product of their efforts to understand. What I want to discuss is the impact on me of the experience I have had and that I can see (by the fruits of their actions) others having as well. Speculating about the attributes of the source of my experience is not profitable because I am inside a relationship and the relationship is what matters, not trapping the source of that relationship in the net of my intellect. When I get clever and try to describe God, I find myself alone with my cleverness. My relationship with God is not an understanding relationship. It is a "standing under" relationship. I can describe the relationship because I am in it and I know its effects, but describing God requires a presumption I lack. Friends theology is about a relationship based in experience.

A key qualification needs to be made about this experience within. This is not a self-experience or one generated by self-will. In fact, the experience illuminates the conscience in a way that reveals the vanity of self and the hopelessness of relying on self as a guide to give meaning to our lives. This is what the "Light" lights up. Instead of self, we are brought to something stronger and more enduring. Fox called it the "Seed" to show that there was something else that could be nurtured and brought up in us. This experience of the Seed may grow slowly in some and faster in others. Some may be suddenly convinced of their condition and the need for loyalty to the Seed. Others, and I am one, come to this convincement slowly over many years as the inadequacy of the powers of self are revealed. Divine Love and Grace comes to us when God finds us ready to receive it; not when we get a notion that it might be a nice thing.

This theology has two fundamental errors in it. The first is that it connects Christ solely with the person of Jesus. One might get the impression in following this erroneous theology that Christ was Jesus’ last name. The second is that it reduces the relationship between Christ and the individual to a voluntary contract. Historically, Friends have declined to be in any quid pro quo relationship with the Divine. We are the Friends of Christ and friends are bound by love, not by contract. The Christ put forward in Friends theology is much different and much more than the "contract" Jesus. In saying this I do not want to imply that Friends think Jesus’ life is without significance. The Christ of Friends was certainly manifested completely in Jesus, but early Friends could not leave Christ in that singular embodiment, however important that was to them. For Friends, Christ (by whatever name) is a reality that we can know personally and be in a relationship with now. This is why we do not consider the Bible to be the Word of God and why we do not believe that revelation is finished. Revelation is not finished because the Divine is not done with revealing to us an understanding of our relationship with God.

This we know by experience. Early Friends theologians made this point clearly. Elizabeth Bathurst maintained that "True Religion is of great Antiquity" and goes to some length to argue that Christ was known to Abel and Abraham. The Christ of Friends is here now and always. Fox spoke of Christ being before time was. The life of Jesus is a demonstration of the Word being made flesh. The Word, Christ, is always being made flesh and always dwells among us. Thus for Friends, Christ as Jesus is important in history, but Christ is not confined to the box of that historical manifestation. Christ is the in-breaking in time (including our time) of the eternal Word (Jn 1:1-2, Col. 1:15-20). And that Word is with us. Christ lives in us.

This brings us to a fourth point of Friends theology. The self we acquire in the process of our immersion in our culture, the ego we learn to defend and support in our daily lives is not our most fundamental reality. George Fox talked about the Seed of Christ that could be nurtured within us and lead us to give up service to self. I would assert that to early Friends "convincement" meant they had the beginnings of a release from service to self and had come into service to the Seed. These Friends got into a lot of debate with the Puritans over the concept of "perfection" based on Jesus’ command that his followers and friends should be perfect. Friends condemned the Puritan leaders for "arguing for sin," meaning for the idea that human beings were fated to wallow in the fears and lusts of self throughout life and only discover after death if they were a part of the elect or the dammed. This theology left Puritans uncertain about their fate. The anxiety caused by this uncertainty led Puritans to look for "signs" that could indicate whether they were elected to salvation after death. Many came to see their business prosperity as a sign of God’s favor. (Note: The wealthy of today still consider their wealth a manifestation of their superior virtue.) Fox and other Friends were not satisfied with this view and knew by experience that it was false. They knew they had changed into a new service – service to the Seed of Christ within. They knew they had shed service to self and the will of self that had held them in bondage. They knew that by staying close to the measure of Truth they had in the Seed they were in that state that Jesus had spoken of as perfection. This is why Fox could make the radical assertion that Friends were brought back to that state that Adam was in before the Fall. Friends have long felt that if you have been convinced by an experience of the Divine within you, you have a totally new meaning and context for your life. You are shaken (and quake) and your foundation in self is overthrown. Everything must change. Subscribing to a patch of belief wasn’t enough for us. We understand in our personal lives Jesus’ saying,

Some early Friends demonstrated this estrangement from their own past self by odd locutions. For example, James Naylor who, when asked who he was, responded, "One that the world calls James Naylor."

A relationship with God changes us or it is not a relationship with God. If you are holding on to the fears or the comforts or the pride of your old self, then you should question what sort of Quaker you are.

This brings us to a fifth point of Friends theology. God finds us—not the other way about. No act of self can bring us closer to the Divine. The foundation is a new relationship that happens when we let go so that the "still, small voice" can be heard and come to lead us. If God, the Christ within, is here now with us, the meaning of our lives depends on our being in a relationship with that reality. We have to discipline our lives by ceasing to follow where our egos lead us and let the Teacher within find us and become our guide. This is the meaning of Mt. 10:34, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" and Mt. 10:38, "and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." This new relationship has to sever us from our old allegiance to self and, when we begin to act from lives centered in the Divine, the fruits of our actions will show a difference.

Friends worship in the way they worship because they know by experience that God must find them. The form of our worship has to make it possible for the Seed within to come forth and lead us. The problem Friends found with the old forms of worship was that there was more form than worship. Those forms didn’t bring us out of the acts of self. Church goers sang and prayed and the pastor exhorted the congregation with the ideas he had collected that week. These forms treat God as though God is found "out there" and Friends knew that God finds us when we turn away from "out there" and self is part of the "out there." God is not an object of the perceptual processes I control so it is only by laying down those processes and being empty of my own will that God can find me and the relationship can happen. Hence the Friends program of worship is no program. God is worshiped in spirit by the laying down of our pride and ambition and coming to that which is eternal and eternally present. Worship is about being changed so that our lives are manifestations of love.

Friends worship is not meditation or quiet reflection on the week’s happenings or a chance to tell others of our angst over world events. Friends meetings can be used that way but that way misses the point. The point is to continually refresh a relationship with the reality of God. This is the relationship that brings us into a life that has meaning. Anything less is a mistake and an illusion. Fox called it a "deceit" to show that this illusion was false and a deception. For Friends, sin is whatever we do under the illusion that our ego-centered selves are sufficient for a meaningful life. We can only escape this illusion if we let go of it and give ourselves up (literally) to be found by God.

Others might wish to divide differently aspects of the theology of the Friends of Truth. We have a rich heritage to consider. But for me, the points I have set forth are the ones that I can attest from my experience as a Friend. I offer them in the hope that we can work to bring our understanding together and strengthen our witness in the world. p

What started as a "retirement project" has become John and Anne Rush’s peace mission for the last twenty years. At age 65, when most people think of retiring, John and Alice Rush decided to carry on the work of Mildred Norman—a woman better known as Peace Pilgrim. From 1953 until her death in 1981, Norman walked over 25,000 miles "on foot and on faith" throughout the US and Canada, promoting peace. She appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including Johnny Carson and Joe Pine, and spoke at hundreds of colleges, schools, and churches. And she never accepted a penny for her work.

Peace Pilgrim did not belong to any religious faith—her message is timeless and universal—but she has always had a close affinity with Quakerism. According to the Rushes, a card for the Wider Quaker Fellowship, dating back to the 1940s and signed by Rufus Jones, was recently found among Peace Pilgrim’s papers.

Much is known about Peace Pilgrim’s life since over half a million copies of her life story have been distributed upon request. But less is known about the Rushes, who have also been remarkably stalwart peacemakers.

Born near Depew, Oklahoma, in 1917, John came from a long line of Quakers. His great grandfather joined the Religious Society of Friends in North Carolina, freed his 108 slaves, and moved to Indiana. John attended Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, where he was graduated with a degree in economics and business in 1938. He did graduate work in statistics in Washington, DC, where he was first introduced to silent meeting Friends at Florida Avenue. Drafted in 1944, he became a CO and went to the Glendora Civilian Public Service camp in California.

There he met Ann McDonald (formerly Trueblood), a divorcee with two children, at a Whittier folk dance. They were married at Orange Grove Meeting in 1945. Born in Kansas City, Ann also came from Quaker stock; her father was Elton Trueblood’s first cousin. Trueblood’s ancestors were among the early settlers in Whittier. Ann was a nursery school teacher at Pacific Oaks School in Pasadena.

Looking for an alternative to the typical American lifestyle, the Rushes tried out intentional communities in Alabama and New Hampshire. In 1947, they settled in a little Quaker "colony" in Tracy, California, because of Bob and Ruth Boyd.

In 1952, the Rushes and three other families from Tracy Meeting—the Stevensons, the Pollards, and the Boyds— began looking for a new home. Materialism, television, and McCarthyism combined to cause them to want to "get clear out of the US," as John Stevenson put it (Western Quaker Reader, p. 139.)

They found their ideal place in a beautiful, rugged and remote part of British Columbia called Argenta 400 miles from the nearest big city.

It was in Argenta that the Rushes first met the Peace Pilgrim in 1957. (Peace Pilgrim walked in ten Canadian provinces as well as the United States, where she covered 25,000 miles by 1964 and then stopped counting.)

John’s attitude then was, "What you say is what the saints have said down through the ages." She answered, "I know there is nothing new in my message, just the practice of it."

As John and Ann heard her speak through the years, they were impressed with her profound message and eventually decided to spend the rest of their lives promoting her teachings.

"She’s the one person I’ve known who really achieved inner peace," John observed. "But she didn’t just settle for personal contentment. It inspired her to do something for world peace. She combined the two (inner and world peace) in a beautiful way."

When the Rushes moved from Argenta to Whittier in the 1960s to take care of Ann’s 80-year-old mother, they were also inspired to work for peace.

"I was asked why I left beautiful BC to come to smog-ridden Los Angeles," recalls John. "I used to say that we’d come back to the United States to be missionaries, to oppose the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War really brought us together. We had a lot of support from Whittier First Friends. We had silent vigils at the Bank of America and we did draft counseling."

In 1978 Peace Pilgrim spent almost two months with the Rushes in Whittier because they had arranged over 100 speaking engagements for her in the Los Angeles area.

"We kept telling her that she should write a book," John recalled. "She’d reply that ‘I have written enough for a book but it isn’t in book form.’ Then she’d say, ‘Live in the present. Do all the good you can each day. The future will unfold.’"

In 1981, John again wrote to Peace Pilgrim about writing a book, adding: ‘You won’t live forever.’

A few months later, Peace Pilgrim was killed in an automobile accident near Knox, Indiana, at age 73.

While Peace Pilgrim was alive, Ann tried to write an article about her but came to the conclusion that no one could tell her story as well as she could.

They became acquainted with her sister Helene Young, who had started a foundation for her in New Jersey, where she was born.

In 1981, after Peace Pilgrim had made "glorious transition," Richard Polese invited those who knew Peace Pilgtrim to his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to share their experiences with Peace Pilgrim. About 25 came, some with tapes, letters, and newsletters. (Some of this material was archived at Swarthmore College.) After the meeting, five stayed on to compiled Peace Pilgrim’s life story in her own words. Her name and many details of her life were not included because Peace Pilgrim wanted people to focus on the message, not the messenger.

A donor provided $2,500 for the first run of 5,000 books. Letters were sent to the 6,000 or so on Peace Pilgrim’s mailing list, offering the book for free. Within four months all the books were distributed freely. Enough donations were received for a second run of 5000. From then on, donations and new editions have continued until half a million copies of her autobiography have been given away, along with over a million and a half copies of the booklet, "Steps to Inner Peace." Her work has been translated into 26 languages. It has always been distributed freely, since this is what Norman would have wanted.

On November 19, 2000, a statue of Peace Pilgrim created by Costa Rican sculptor Fernando Calvo was dedicated at the United Nations University of Peace in Colon, Costa Rica. The life size statue joins busts of other world peace makers such as Gandhi and Tolstoy on the grounds of the University. The keynote address at the dedication ceremony was given by Rodrigo Carrazo, former President of Costa Rica.

An academic seminar, "Personal Stories about the Influence of Peace Pilgrim on our Lives and Development of further Resources for Peace," featured several speakers who knew Peace and others who had been strongly influenced by her life and message.

Among those speakers were Ann and John Rush, founders of the Peace Pilgrim Center in Hemet, California. This organization, run entirely by volunteers, is dedicated to the publication and dissemination of the words and work of Peace Pilgrim.

The following account of Peace Pilgrim’s life includes personal details—such as information about her marriage and divorce—omitted from her spiritual autobiography.

The Rushes feel that it is important for people to know that Peace Pilgrim went through many of the personal struggles that many of us go through.

"What I did, any of us could do," was one of Peace Pilgrim’s favorite sayings.

If so, is it possible that we are all called to live extraordinary lives?

In the summer of 1952, Mildred Norman, traveling alone, hiked the entire length of the 2050 mile-long Appalachian Trail. She was the first woman to accomplish this feat. It turned out to be a practice run.

"Oh, it was a very enjoyable experience and a very educational experience and a very inspirational experience," she remarked in a radio interview in Philadelphia that fall. (Friends of Peace Pilgrim Newsletter, 1988, p. 6.). She went on to announce another walk she had in mind. She was going to do what she called "some optimistic hiking" from Los Angeles to New York and on to Washington, DC, starting January 1, 1953. she would talk to anyone and everyone who would listen to her about peace—peace in the world and peace within.

"I think that those of us who have found the way to peace should be shouting it from the housetops," she beamed. This idea had been born in a vision that had come to her at the end of the Appalachian Trail, and it was to be her life mission: a pilgrimage for peace.

...it was the proper time for a pilgrim to step forth. The war in Korea was raging and the McCarthy era was at its height....There was a great fear at that time and it was safest to be apathetic. Yes, it was most certainly a time for a pilgrim to step forward, because a pilgrim’s job is to rouse people from apathy and make them think. (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p. 24)

She carried with her three peace petitions: one requesting immediate peace in Korea, one pleading for the establishment of a national Peace Department, and the third, directed to the U.N., seeking freedom for the world from the burden of armaments and, in its stead, the furthering of world prosperity. Signatures for these petitions that she and others collected were presented to the White House and the U.N. upon her arrival on the East Coast eleven months later.

She didn’t stop there. She kept on walking, criss-crossing the United States six times, walking for the rest of her life. She wore navy blue slacks and shirt, tennis shoes and a self-designed navy blue tunic with pockets all around the bottom in which she carried her only possessions: a comb, a folding toothbrush, a pen and her small blue leaflets to pass out on the way. On the front of the tunic were the letters, PEACE PILGRIM, and on the back was: WALKING COAST TO COAST FOR PEACE, and later, 25,000 MILES ON FOOT FOR PEACE. This was her outfit for the rest of her life, with new clothes being bought for her and new letters sewn on by friends as the old wore out.

She moved north in the summer and south in the winter to take advantage of the weather. After the first 25,000 miles she stopped counting. She carried no money, nor would she accept any. Contrary to the tradition of the Buddhist monk with his begging bowl, she did not ask for anything. She went without food until it was offered to her or she found it in the wild. She slept wherever she could, such as a bus station or a corn field, if no one offered her a place to sleep. "I seldom miss more than four meals in a row," she told her many audiences. To all who would listen she talked about the vital need for peace and the practical things that anyone could do to work for peace—peace in the world and peace within, which she recognized as interwoven.

Living in this way was no mere caprice. Peace Pilgrim explained, "I was determined to live at the need level, that is, I didn’t want more than I need when so many have less than they need" (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p. 30). She traveled "on foot and on faith," determined to be an activist for peace. Early on, she left even her name behind when her sister’s family began to be bothered by the F.B.I., who suspected this peace walker was a communist. She wanted to spare them harassment.

In these days of glasnost and Berlin Wall mementos, walking for peace may seem courageous and dedicated but not totally extraordinary. However, the background to Mildred’s pilgrimage was McCarthyism and the Korean War. Hers was a groundbreaking, pioneering effort which bespoke moral courage to the nth degree. How did this total commitment come to be? Who was this Mildred Norman and how did she become Peace Pilgrim?

As a pilgrim, she would tell very little of her life as Mildred—not her name, age, or where she lived. When asked, "Why not?" by a college student, she answered, "I would much rather they remember the important things instead of the very unimportant thing." (Peace Pilgrim, California State University talk, 1974) Her focus was on her mission to further the cause of peace, and to inspire those who "want to do more growing."

Five of us who were her friends took on the joyful task of compiling her ideas and experiences into a book called Peace Pilgrim, her life and work in her own words (1982). We felt this was the most important thing we could do to help bring peace to a violent world.

My husband, John, and I knew little of Mildred’s early life, although we knew her as Peace Pilgrim for twenty-four years. We first met her in the backwoods of British Columbia where we had moved with four other Quaker families to raise our children away from the militarism and materialism (and TV) of our country. We Quaker pacifists were in the same nation-wide peace movement as Peace Pilgrim. I loved talking to her in Argenta, BC. I felt very close to her and was thrilled to find someone so dedicated to peace. I tried to convince her to stay a few days. After all, she was a free pilgrim without strict schedules, or so I thought. I was disappointed to learn she had tightly scheduled herself on her trek across Canada and could only stay a day and a night. We drove her to the ferry and stopped at Kaslo, where to our delight she had an ice cream cone with us. (We recently learned she ate an ice cream sundae every day at work—before her pilgrimage, of course.) One of our daughters, who loved her especially, remembered her saying that she never carried a penny, so to play a trick on her tucked a penny in her tunic pocket. Our family had a great time with her on that trip; she was such fun to be with.

As time went on, she would stay with us in different parts of the country where we happened to live—the last time for most of two months because we had over 100 speaking engagements for her in the Los Angeles area. This was a year and a half before her death. She told me more about her early life than she ever had before. Other friends of Peace Pilgrim have expressed surprise at her telling about her life before the pilgrimage on her last visit with them. We wonder why she told those things and if she was aware she was about to leave.

Our family was very peace oriented. That’s our history. First of all, our people came to this country on my father’s side to get away from militarism in Germany. They were musicians and they were peace loving people. They were not the type of people who wanted to be involved in military operations. This has gone all through our family. (Young Interview, 1985, p. 11)

Another memory of Helene’s was "discussions at home. They had discussions all day long. My three aunties were always discussing issues of the day." (Young interview, 1985, p. 11)

There is evidence that Mildred was bright. She remembered learning to read at age four or five before starting school. She had a fantastic memory and could recite long poems at age three (Whittier Transcript, 1979, p.41). She taught herself to play the piano over the course of one summer, and at age 16 was a senior in high school with the highest grade average in her class. But she did not consider herself a scholar or a reader. She saw herself always as a "doer" (p. 44),

As Peace Pilgrim, she was to say: "Of course I love everyone I meet. How could I fail to? Within everyone is the spark of God. I am not concerned with racial or ethnic background or the color of one’s skin; all people look to me like shining lights!" (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p.50)

But Eugene remembers her earlier days:

Mildred felt that some of these people [the neighbors] would lower the social standard of the family. There was on incident where some of the neighbor boys...would pick up whatever they could get their hands on. On one occasion they took Mildred’s watch. In order not to be caught with it they did a very foolish thing of burying it in the soil. And so of course, when the watch came back, it wouldn’t run. And, of course, there was a big fuss about that. Mildred made some remark about, What do you expect from this trash? (Young Interview, 1985, p. 7)

He also remembers:

She was always a dare devil when she was younger. She often went down to the local swimming hole, about a block from home, where she swam like a fish. She dived into the water, doing the jack knife, somersault or the swan dive. She would dive off the Moluka River bridge even though people warned her that she shouldn’t be diving into the river because she might hit some floating debris. She was not afraid to do things that other people were a little timid about. She was always on the daring side (p. 7).

Eugene also remarked after Peace’s transition:

To those of us who knew Mildred in her youth and young maidenhood, the ascension to the role of Peace Pilgrim is all the more astounding. While Mildred’s background was intellectual and moral, there was little evidence of the altruistic, self-sacrificing traits so prominent in the personality of Peace Pilgrim. In order for her to become Peace Pilgrim, it was necessary for her to undergo a complete revision. This goes far to explain why so many of her family and former friends actually rejected her. She was no longer the Mildred they knew and therefore beyond their comprehension! (E. Young, personal communication 1988)

Mildred grew up in a loving and creative family. They did not belong to any church, and she received no formal religious training as a child. She was first inside a church at age 16 to attend a wedding. She made up her own mind about things and carried out her own investigations. When she came across the Golden Rule in a text, comparing this idea in many religions, she was struck by its truth. She translated it into immediate practicality "If you want to have friends, you must be friendly," and later, "if you want to make peace, you must be peaceful" (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p.3).

As a senior she carried out another investigation, asking, "What is God? What is God?" She asked everyone she thought might know but was satisfied with none of the answers. Instead, she went for a long walk with her dog and found her own answer: "We human beings just lump together everything in the universe which is beyond the capacity of all of us, and to all of those things together some of us give the name ‘God’" (p. 2). She said, "That is when I discovered I could get my spiritual answers from the inside" (Whittier Transcript, 1979, p. 31).

"In high school my most vivid recollection of Mildred was her role on the debating team," continues Eugene. "She put all she had into it and took it all very seriously. Even then she was an impressive speaker" (E. Young personal interview, 1988).

After graduation from high school she had no trouble finding a job. She spent her money on clothes, matching shoes and hats, a luxurious, very soft bed her sister envied, and a flashy car. Helene remembers, "She used makeup when she was in her dating days. She spent quite a bit of time before the mirror before she went out, putting on all sorts of makeup, which was foreign to our people. We were plain folk who didn’t go in for that sort of thing" (Young Interview, 1985, p.5). She had a busy social life and wrote plays for the Grange, for which she was director, costume designer, lighting manager and producer. Her life was happy and fulfilled.

With that kind of a very happy family life and fulfilled social life, it is not easy to understand how Peace could have made the choice of the husband she did. "Physical attraction only," according to her sister. Peace and her father and one of her aunts were very close and had many interests in common. They were keenly disappointed in her choice. Her husband in those Depression years had a very hard time making a living. He wrote bad checks (taking advantage of her father’s good name). This must have been a great trauma to this closely knit family that was widely known and highly respected in the little town of Egg Harbor City. Imagine how Mildred must have felt to bring such disgrace to their good name!

Mildred and her husband had severe quarrels. Eugene remembers:

Many times they had arguments about one thing or another. Mostly it was about his trying to make an impossible start in the trucking business. He would come and make some announcement of what he had done, and she would exclaim, "Oh, you imbecile!" (Young Interview, 1985, p.8)

It was at this time, 1936, that her father was killed in a car accident. Because of financial difficulties, the family had to leave the home she had grown up in. They all moved together, including the aunts, into a large apartment with Mildred and her husband. Their mother, shocked by her husband’s death, developed a brain tumor. After an operation, she went to live with her sister and brother in Atlantic City.

Helene remembers, "Mildred was having trouble with her husband. There wasn’t much meaning in her life. She was seeking something meaningful" (Young Interview, 1985, p. 9). It was a time of crisis for her.

It was apparently in 1938, unhappy and questioning her way of life, that Mildred had what she always referred to as "her spiritual experience." In her own words:

I became increasingly uncomfortable about having so much while my brothers and sisters were starving. Finally, I had to find another way. The turning point came when, in desperation and out of a very deep seeking for a meaningful way of life, I walked all one night through the woods. I came to a moonlit glade and prayed I felt a complete willingness, without any reservations, to give my life—to dedicate my life—to service. "Please use me!" I prayed to God. And a great peace came over me. (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p.7)

This was a turning point indeed. Peace said, "I tell you it’s a point of no return. After that, you can never go back to completely self-centered living" (p. 7). She began to "live to give instead of living to get" (p. 7). She spent the next fifteen years preparing—she did not know for what—getting rid of unnecessary possessions and meaningless activities. Although she moved to Philadelphia with her husband in 1939, where he had a job opportunity, their marriage ultimately dissolved. When he went into the army in World War II, Mildred did not follow him. She began working with senior citizens and those with emotional problems.

At the same time, she was doing volunteer work for peace organizations, such as Scott Nearing’s World Events newsletter and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, for whom she was a Washington, DC legislative lobbyist for peace. A friend who knew her then reports that she was living on ten dollars a week and had reduced her wardrobe to two dresses (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p. 201). She was radically simplifying her life.

During this 15year period the struggle continued between what she called the lower self and the higher self—the self-centered nature and the God-centered nature.

Through trial and error Peace worked out her steps to inner peace, walking daily in receptive silence amid the beauties of nature and putting into practice the inspirations that came to her. After she had attained inner peace she was on fire to share it with everyone she met. This was the main reason for her pilgrimage, and she often said she could not have become a pilgrim without having first gained inner peace.

On her pilgrimage she shared her steps whenever and wherever she spoke. A friend asked her to share them in a radio talk in Los Angeles in 1966. He transcribed her talk and made a little booklet, Steps Toward Inner Peace, which was sent to Peace’s hostesses. Today they are distributed widely around the world by Friends of Peace Pilgrim, along with the Peace Pilgrim book….

Peace Pilgrim’s own relinquishments finally led to her first experience of true inner peace:

...I was out walking in the early morning. All of a sudden I felt very uplifted, more uplifted than I had ever been. I remember I knew timelessness and spacelessness and lightness. I did not seem to be walking on the earth. There were no people, or even animals around, but every flower, every bush, every tree seemed to wear a halo. There was a light emanation around everything and flecks of gold fell like slanted rain through the air.… The most important part was not the phenomena: the important part of it was the realization of the oneness of all creation (p. 21).

This experience was a bench mark to which she could return again and again, until it became a plateau from which she sometimes descended.

When asked, "When you began your struggles, did it seem rather hopeless to you—very difficult—that you would never attain this maturity?" she replied:

You see, I didn’t really know what was happening to me except that my life was improving... After all, I was used to the valleys. I had been in them constantly before. I said, "Now there are some hilltops! Isn’t this wonderful! Life is improving!" (Whittier Transcript, 1979, p.10).

She continued:

And then, of course, I got on the plateaus where I was most of the time and only slipped out of harmony occasionally. And I really believe I missed harmony most at that time....Then finally I did succeed in leaving the self-centered life.… I had slipped out of harmony and I thought if I could just remain in harmony I could be of greater usefulness [emphasis added]. And when I woke up in the morning I was back again on the mountaintop and I knew I would never need to descend again into the valley (pp. 10-11).

The realization was total, never to be lost again.

At the time of this experience of complete inner peace she saw her vision of the pilgrimage, like a map spread out before her. The route across the country was visible and even some of the major cities along the route were marked out. She knew clearly then what her work in the world was to be.

Peace Pilgrim "walked her talk." She walked in complete fearlessness, calmly facing arrest for vagrancy, sneering interviewers, violence, misunderstanding, all kinds of weather, drunks and psychotics, even near death in an Arizona snowstorm. She walked with boundless energy, in complete health, with sparkle and verve. Those who met her were impressed by her intelligence, serenity, wit, and genuine loving nature. Homes and hearts opened to her, and as many testified later, lives were changed.

Today, ten years after her "glorious transition (as she called death), interest in Peace Pilgrim is stronger than ever. Over 600,000 of her booklets, Steps Toward Inner Peace, are in print in English. It has been translated by native volunteers into 13 languages and keeps showing up—in African villages, in the shadow of the pyramids, in Thailand, at a Bedouin hostel, in Central America, in an Ashramic Library in the Himalayas, in an English class in China. Friends of Peace Pilgrim, formed to perpetuate her work, continually distributes Steps, the Peace Pilgrim book and newsletters, to an ever increasing demand. Stories and testimonials continue to pour in from those who met her and from those moved by the words she left behind:

It was wonderful knowing Peace Pilgrim for twenty-four years as she walked back and forth across this country. We could always think, "Oh, she’s out there somewhere spreading her message of peace and love, inspiring people everywhere.’’ Then it was unbearable to think she wasn’t anymore. I buried myself in answering her mail and collecting her writings for a book in her own words. After a Peace Pilgrim Memorial Retreat in Santa Fe, five of us compiled the Peace Pilgrim book and we have now filled requests for over 200,000.

John and I are spending the rest of our lives filling requests for these books and the Steps booklets. We have also filled requests for thousands of audio and video tapes around the world. We feel her message, which is also Jesus’ message, is our best hope for world peace.

There are so many good memories of her. I remember her speaking at the Church of Religious Science in Whittier. She was 70 (we learned after her death, because she never would tell her age) and at her peak. She refused a microphone though the church was packed, including the balcony. When she moved her leg to change her stance, there was a youthful lilt to it. As she used her arms to illustrate a point she radiated youthful energy. The minister told me later that he had long years of experience and when he expected the audience to become restless, there was total absorption. He wrote to his fellow ministers across the country: "She made the greatest single impression on me and my life" (p. 193).

A friend of ours heard her and said she spoke Bahai teachings. A college girl said she was sure Peace was a Christian Scientist because what she spoke was Christian Science. At least two young men, after hearing her in college classes, said she spoke what Eastern religions teach. This is a typical reaction she received whether she was speaking in a Jewish synagogue, a Moslem temple or a Christian Church. It is the reaction we receive from many who read her books they write that her message is the same as their religion teaches.

I remember her speaking once at a Friends Meeting—a small outdoor gathering of adults and children of all ages sitting on the rocky edge of a beach. Afterwards, John said to her, "What you say is what the saints have said down through the ages." She answered, "I know there is nothing new in my message, just the practice of it."

That practice was extraordinary. Peace Pilgrim was an extraordinary human being. Her legacy is clear and practical and compelling. She left us this wisdom:

We must walk according to the highest light we have, encountering lovingly those who are out of harmony, and trying to inspire them to a better way. Whenever you bring harmony into any unpeaceful situation, you contribute to the cause of peace. When you do something for world peace, peace among groups, peace among individuals, or your own inner peace, you improve the total peace picture (Peace Pilgrim, 1982, p. l09).