TruthBook Religious News Blog

By Alice Gordon, Staff Writer, The Atlanta Progressive News
(April 25, 2009)

(APN) ATLANTA -- Atlantan, Audri Scott Williams, had a vision in April 2005. She and the Spirit of Truth Foundation wanted to spread the message of global peace. Armed with the vision and word of mouth, six people agreed to sell their wordly assets and start out on a march across six continents doing public service work. The march took three and a half years, and covered 17 countries and six continents.

What began at the King Center in Atlanta on October 21, 2005, ended on the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King in April 2009.

The group put their money together to start the march, including retirement saving and pensions. As they walked they were able to get contributions and often what was needed would appear, Williams said.

They would do community service wherever they went. "It was very much in our nature to always be mindful of being in service of a team as well as the community," Williams said. They helped Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans. They worked at food banks, ranches, and spoke at churches, schools, and other community organizations.

Much of their work was in keeping themselves centered believing peace begins within. First while advocating no religion there was a belief that the walkers had to be connected to something greater than themselves. They considered this "the energy that helped us to move forward," Williams said. They emphasized what they called detraumatization, being supportive of one another and able to communicate.

"Humor was very important in our group circle; every morning we laughed a lot... We also used it just to keep the energy at a certain level. Whenever we would get too heavy with things we would say, 'OK stop and drop. Get out of your head, get in your heart.' We had these little trigger sayings that we would use with each other."

The members of the group were asked to spend at least 20 minutes not just walking through, but becoming conscious of nature and things around them.

In the worldwide communities the group found they could only help by meeting people where they were at and understanding their boundaries and those of the community. "Really getting to know... what works and what doesn’t work. At the same time we have to know what is the time to shift those boundaries," Williams said.

The Trail of Dreams World Peace Walk was created to focus attention on peace and global transformation as the group moved around the planet. The group wanted to meet people and establish relationships. "We were not trying to be political or social; we were not trying to be anything other than moving people to people heart to heart. In order to get to that level to attract human relationships we had to find that within ourselves," Williams said.

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Labels: Alice Gordon, Atlanta, global peace, service, Trail of Dreams World Peace Walk