Eye - 18 April 2013

From a pilgrimage to encounters

Steps toward peace

For six months each year, a Friend from the Netherlands walks ‘for and toward inner peace’.  Lucas de Groot walks, from April until November, with a cart, a harp and a tent. His pilgrimage takes him through Britain, Germany, Switzerland and Holland.

On 1 April he set off from York and is currently journeying around Pendle Hill, Ulverston, Lancaster, Birmingham, Bath, Glastonbury, Winchester and Kent – ‘not straight but mostly where God will bring me’.

Along the way he plans to make contact with Quaker Meetings, ‘to inspire and get inspired… for exchange, worship and, perhaps, shelter’.

Lucas was inspired by Peace Pilgrim (aka Mildred Norman Ryder) ‘the US woman who left home in 1953 with only a toothbrush and comb, to walk for peace. She kept on walking till she died in a car accident in 1981. She had so much trust and love in God and humanity that she was saying: “I walk until I get shelter and I fast until I get food”… Her booklet Steps Toward Inner Peace is available all over the world in eight languages. In Holland I published it last year.’

Sprinting in solidarity

A Quaker campaigner will be running in the Kiev Marathon in Ukraine later this month.

Clare Dimyon, director of PRIDE Solidarity, was awarded an MBE for ‘services to promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in central and eastern Europe’.

She will be lacing up her racing shoes and taking to the streets of Kiev on 27 April as ‘a gesture of pride and solidarity and love and support for the whole Ukrainian people, and especially Ukrainian LGBT+ people, as their country goes through her current period of turbulence in her progress towards democracy, which we in the UK can take for granted.’

Clare adds: ‘Already people are asking me to take messages, cards and other forms of support to place at the memorial at the Maidan and, if anyone wanted to sponsor me, I could get money to Ukrainian LGBT (some of whom may need to flee events in the East) and bereaved families of those 100 men killed in the Maidan’ central square during protests earlier this year.

UN encounters

At the March meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Nicholas McGeorge represented the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC).

Nicholas shared some unexpected encounters with Eye: ‘When people looked at my official name badge they asked what FWCC means. Hearing the word Quaker, one NGO representative said, “I am glad that the Quakers are here. It has made me feel better already”.

‘Later, I was having a coffee at the refreshment stall outside the conference room. I was joined by another man. I asked him “Where are you from?”

“Tanzania, where are you from?”

“I represent the Quakers.”

“Who are the Quakers?”

‘I give my 140 character Twitter response.

“Oh, you are pacifists. You cannot be Christian then.”

‘I mentioned Quakers meet together in silence in a circle. He laughed and handed me his business card. He is a UN staff member. “Keep in touch” he said.’

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