Peace Pilgrim

“I met a Jewish woman who had been married and living with her parents in Germany under Hitler at the time of World War II. She was married when she was sixteen. Her first child was born when she was seventeen and the second when she was eighteen. She was nineteen when three things happened to her.  The first: her home was destroyed and her parents killed by an English bomb. I guess they thought they were liberating her. The second thing that happened: her husband was taken away by the Nazis, and she assumed he was dead because she never heard from him again. The third thing that happened: she was injured and her two small children were killed by an American bomb. When I saw her she still carried the effects of the injury. Again, we were ‘liberating’ her.

“In her injured condition she wandered round and round with the refugees. Sometimes extenuating circumstances make you take a spiritual leap. She began thinking, They have injured and even destroyed our bodies, but they have injured their own souls, and that is worse. She was able to feel compassion and pray for all connected with the situation, the killed and the killer. She was able to maintain such a good attitude that she was befriended by German people, who at the risk of their lives, got her to England where she was befriended by the English people, and eventually got to the United States.

“Now obviously this represents the most amazing victory of the spirit under the most difficult circumstances you could possibly imagine. It also illustrates something else. Who or what was that woman’s enemy? Was it the English who destroyed her home and killed her parents, or the Germans who killed her husband, or the Americans who injured her and killed her two small children? The answer is amazingly obvious: it was war that was her real enemy. It was the false belief that violence will accomplish something, that evil can be overcome by more evil. That was her real enemy, and it’s the real enemy of all mankind.”

from Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in her Own Words. 

All people can be peace workers. Whenever you bring harmony into any unpeaceful situation, you contribute to the total peace picture. Insofar as you have peace in your own life, you reflect it into your surroundings and into the world.”

“No one is truly free who is still attached to material things, or to places, or to people. We must be able to use things when we need them and then relinquish them without regret when they have outlived their usefulness.”

“We can all spend our lives going about doing good. Every time you meet a person, think of some encouraging thing to say – a kind word, a helpful suggestion, an expression of admiration. Every time you come into a situation, think of some good to bring – a thoughtful gift, a considerate attitude, a helping hand.”

from Peace Pilgrim's booklet “Steps Toward Inner Peace.”

“No one walks so safely as one who walks humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith. For such a person gets through to the good in others (and there is good in everyone), and therefore cannot be harmed. This works between individuals, it works between groups and it would work between nations if nations had the courage to try it.”