This past June 1, the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation (based in Bethesda, Md.) held its seventh annual Slow Walk for Peace. This year’s event was dedicated to the world’s refugees. "Often people around the world are forced to flee their homes and homeland to escape persecution, war or starvation," Shalem noted on its website (www.shalem.org). "At times, these refugees walk many miles through difficult terrain in search of a new place that is safe to call home. ... We will walk in solidarity with these people who long for peace – and a resting place."

The slow walk is a form of meditation, Shalem explains, noting the work and practice of Thich Nhat Hanh. "The practice of walking meditation," this Vietnamese Zen Master says, "opens your eyes to the wonders and the suffering of the universe. If you are not aware of what is going on around you, where do you expect to encounter ultimate reality?"

I’m not sure my hyped-up, multi-tasking, deadline-oriented self is capable of slow walking yet, but I know that even at an ordinary pace a person takes in the world at a level of consciousness impossible at faster speeds. At a walk, a driven mind can downshift enough to match speed with the soul it left behind. At a walk, it is possible to notice the details of life – dogs who spend neglected lives at the ends of chains, styrofoam coffee cups and beer cans clustered abundantly in roadside ditches, lilacs in bloom, drooping party balloons hanging from a mailbox, a street squatter’s digs, white sheets flapping in the sun.

I’m not categorically against traveling at faster speeds, but working on this issue I’ve become aware of what a radical act walking in this culture can be. Walking requires no special equipment, no ticket, no roads, no fuel beyond one’s daily bread. Moreover, it contributes nothing to global warming and seldom results in roadkill or roadrage.

If there are obvious advantages to vehicles that proceed at a faster rate, there are certainly significant costs – economic, environmental, social and psychic – associated with their use. This issue is about weighing those costs. Most often, speed is primarily about consumption, privilege and profit. Can our individual and collective choices about transportation be instead primarily about justice and peace? Plenty of people are praying hard over the requirements of an affirmative response and taking action.

And yes, some are beginning by taking the world in at a walk.

"When you practice walking meditation in the morning, your movements will become smooth and your mind will become alert," Thich Naht Hanh notes in The Long Road to Joy. "You will be more aware of what you are doing all day long. In making decisions, you will find that you are more calm and clear, with more insight and compassion. With each peaceful step you take, all beings, near and far, will benefit."

May it be so.

Julie A. Wortman is Witness editor/publisher.