Brother Senji and the Peace Walk

“Sometimes I ask myself why I do this. Does it make any difference? There are so many guns and bombs, so much violence. We are a ripple, a tiny ripple, but a ripple goes on and on. For twenty-five years I have been making this walk for peace to remind people that violence must stop. We stand up and say this, every year. We stand with all those affected by violence: Black people in America, Native Americans, homeless people. We stand for peace, we walk for peace.” --Brother Senji Kanaeda.

In this photograph, Brother Senji is holding a photograph made by the American photographer Joe O’Donnell in Japan soon after the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seventy years ago. The child in the photograph is delivering his dead baby brother to a mass cremation of the dead. Senji explained that O’Donnell’s photographs inspire him to keep walking for peace, making the ripple he can make, because those of us who are alive and can stand and walk need to stand up for peace.

Today was the twenty-fifth annual Peace Walk led by Senji and Brother Gilberto Perez (see Extras). Blippers in the northwest USA may join the monks in walking for peace, as I did today. It was very moving to be part of that ripple.

I had a wonderful week-long celebration of my 70th birthday which I will back-blip when I can get time for that and catch up as well as I can. Every year, the anniversary of the horror that was the atom bomb occurs ten days after my birthday. The Peace Walk led by Nipponzan Myohoji monks always coincides with that anniversary and is a memorial, a tribute, and a ripple for peace. It matters to me to be part of that.