Peace Moves Slowly

Over the past few weeks, I have been following the journey of monks walking from Texas to Washington, D.C., offering their steps as a living prayer for peace.

What struck me is not only the distance they were covering, but the way they honored the journey itself. They walked with intention, they paused with intention, they spoke with intention. Their purpose was steady, even when their pace was not. There was no sense that stopping diminished the work. The pauses were part of it.

During this same time, my own body required me to stop. Illness arrived without invitation, interrupting plans and momentum. I didn’t choose the pause; it chose me. And in that forced stillness, I found myself watching them more closely.

They were not walking to prove endurance. They were walking to embody peace. And embodiment, I’m realizing, has its own timing.

Purpose does not disappear when we stop moving. Sometimes, it gives it space so that it becomes clearer.

Their journey reminds me that peace is not something we rush toward. It is something we practice — in how we move, how we rest, and how we listen when the body asks us to slow down.

I am learning that staying faithful to the work does not always look like forward motion. Sometimes it looks like honoring the pause without guilt, trusting that the journey continues even when we are still.

Peace, it seems, moves slowly. And sometimes it teaches us by asking us to stop.