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 One of the many things I love about practice is that it invites me to do PeaceStorming and Peace Walk 2009 In 2008, to usher in our Seventh Annual Golden Gate Bridge Walk, Living Compassion folks gathered in East Palo Alto at the Ecumenical Hunger Program (EHP) for our second-ever PeaceStorming event. Because we love working shoulder to shoulder with the community in Africa, lending our hands and hearts to the fulfillment of their dreams, that is our goal here in the US, as well. The work is one work. So we scheduled our 2008 PeaceStorming for the three days leading up to the Bridge Walk to emphasize that continuity, that connection. As an exclamation point upon “connection,” we also held a PeaceWalk from East Palo Alto to Crissy Field covering the same days. Participants chose, each day, whether to join the work crew at EHP or to walk that day’s segment of the 40 miles from Palo Alto to the Golden Gate Bridge. Participants contributed their reflections: “I participated in the PeaceStorming work at the Ecumenical Hunger Program. What was so satisfying was that it was so hands-on. Here is a place that daily makes available an incredible array of goods – from clothes to appliances to furniture – to people who would be hard pressed to afford them. It is a giant recycling operation: people who are past needing the items are able to give them second life by bringing them here, where they will almost certainly find a new home. “The transactions occur out of two over packed rooms. The front room holds mainly clothing, the rear one, appliances and furniture.”
The staff are too busy to beautify or organize the spaces. That’s where we came in. As in Africa, as in Los Angeles last year, we asked what was needed and the people there told us. For the three days, the front room was to be our project. That first day we swept debris, washed the walls, and taped the corners for painting.
The clothing distribution continued, even as we were moving the hangers and bins to the parking lot to clear the space.
Meanwhile, some of us set out from the Palo Alto Zen Center and began walking north. “Imagine getting up every morning knowing that you will be spending the entire day walking in peace; that you will be walking through neighborhoods you thought you knew but had only experienced in your car, looking at things in wonder that you never had any idea were there. Imagine stopping along the way to eat healthy, delicious food and do restorative yoga to help keep your body balanced. Imagine being in the company of other Sangha members who walk in peace and silence alongside you, reveling in the glorious beauty of a Northern California fall day. Now imagine that you get to do this for 10 miles each day for 3 days in a row.
”Folks would see us walking in our matching Peacestorming T-shirts and would offer encouragement and donations. We stopped into the office of a church along the way to use their facilities and found they were also supporting a project in Africa, to which we happily donated. There was an underlying, interweaving sense of synchronicity and reciprocity along the entire route (not to mention a conveniently-located Starbucks every mile or so--the first day we counted 10 in 10 miles!).”
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