Bob's Blog

It’s 1:58 am, and the monks are all all asleep. The crowds have left the church parking lot, and a local police officer sits by himself at the entrance to our campus, guarding the saints. The sofa in the church parlor where I’m spending the night isn’t the most comfortable, and so I’m in my office, trying to process the last 12 hours.

Hundreds of people were here . . . With flowers, fruit, homemade signs, and an assortment of other gifts to offer the walkers from Texas. The monks were here to remind their followers that mindfulness is the source of our peace. And in a world as broken as ours, and in a nation as broken as ours, who doesn’t need to hear such a reminder – a call to the mindfulness that can bring wholeness and shalom to to this planet.

But my take-away has nothing at all to do with the monks. It has nothing at all to do with how far they have walked, or the crowds of people who have followed them. Because in the end, it’s really not about the peace they proclaim, it’s about the community that peace creates.

The three women in the picture above sat in our worship space, out of the cold, for five hours. Neha was a Hindi from India. Ghazal was a Muslim from Iran. And the third woman, whose name I’ve sadly forgotten, was a Roman Catholic from Venezuela. Each of them had a story – a powerful story of why they were here – and by the time the monks had arrived, these three women were friends: laughing and crying with one another about family left behind, nations they love now in turmoil, and most powerfully, the battle with breast cancer that one of them is fighting. Without even hearing the monks preach, they experienced “that peace that passes all understanding”; and for a few hours, on a cold winter day, the women experienced the incredible power of community.

You see, in the end, it’s not really about the peace. Because if the peace doesn’t change us . . . If the peace doesn’t transform our hearts and our minds . . . If the peace doesn’t bring us together as one human family, then what good is it?

It was a great day, no doubt! And I was honored to work with the saints at Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church to welcome these travelers to our campus. It was a privilege to serve them, and to extend hospitality to the monks, their handlers, and our neighbors. But what I will treasure most, is not the message of mindfulness or peace, but the community that was created . . . The community that I was privileged to experience, with the three strangers-now-friends, you see above.