I’m not sure when I became aware that the “Walk for Peace” was coming through South Carolina—hell, that it was slated to come through my county. But somehow it seemed fated. I mean things happen in Laurens County. We were in the zone of totality for the 2017 eclipse, so why not Buddhist monks in saffron robes?
In fact, the idea thrilled me. I followed the live maps and trudged through glitchy links shared by small town papers. It lit a flame inside me. A gesture so odd and quixotic, but also audacious—traveling through small towns down back roads, flyover country. And maybe that’s what made it irresistible. No one comes to see us. Yet they were. So who were these men? How dared they offer us reason to hope?
Then on Jan. 3rd, the unimaginable happened—bombs bursting in air over Venezuela and the country I once loved entered loudly, proudly, and fully into its super-villain era. I just couldn’t look, but then this also happened on Jan. 3.
The monks announced they were called to crisscross South Carolina instead of heading directly north to Charlotte. Their route, to the state capital of Columbia, would pass within 30 miles of me, through the very town from which my great-grandmother escaped from slavery. And God only knows what that means, but it gave me, a focus.
The monks crossed the Savannah River the day our American Gestapo assassinated that poor young mother in Minneapolis. I poured my feelings into the maps. They’d stopped in McCormick—I had cousins in McCormick. I was sure they were headed to Saluda, but I figured they’d get there around midafternoon. Boy was I wrong.
They made 30 miles before noon. For real. As I was stepping into my 12 o’clock class, they were hosting a livestream from the steps of the Saluda County Courthouse. (I later learned the crowd was around 1,000 people—Saluda only has 3,000 folks. )
Anyway, I followed them. I didn’t have any hope of catching them in Saluda, but I knew the route they were taking… so I followed them until I found them about 10 miles east of town.
They’d pulled off the road into someone’s private yard for a rest break. Traffic slowed, and then as if by agreement, all the cars on both sides of the road started pulling onto the shoulder. People sat in their vehicles and simply looked… many others streamed out across the road and sat quietly in the grass. I sat holding my rosary beads and praying softly to myself. And though the tears streamed and streamed, for a moment, I could just … breathe.
On Saturday, they arrived in the state capital and I haven’t seen a crowd that big… well you’d’ve thought USC was in some national tournament or something. Nothing has ever gotten people out of their houses like that. It looked like a No Kings protest in Atlanta times two. It looked like the SoFi stadium made all the Beyonce concertgoers stand in a line 10 deep for miles leading from Lexington to the Congaree River and then spit the whole floor section out around the Statehouse grounds.
It looked like none of those things… It looked like this
An organization called Be The Ones partnered with the Walk for Peace to provide escorts and assistance along the route. Small towns and the big city of Columbia streamed the action. So I could watch the Venerable Bhikku Pannakara, Aloka, and the rest of the monks as they walked the streets of Lexington and dramatically crossed the river into the heart of a capitol grounds glutted with monuments to unjust wars.
But again, the crowds came from nowhere…
The times are dangerous—no one more keenly aware of it than the denizens of TrumpAmerica. Can it be then that the veneer of support is just that? Miles wide and an inch deep? How else to explain the great hunger that moved so many of us to follow the monks walking for peace.
