Stonewalk

From Boston to New York
Pushing for peace
Terri Miles, Editor August 25, 2004

ORANGE Ї They came from all walks of life: a social worker, a college student, a Buddhist, a mother. They all share one common goal - world peace.

If you ask them what they do [as a livelihood] they might say, "I push a stone."

The Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows Stonewalk stopped in Orange last Wednesday. It's members entrusted their wagon and message with the Orange Volunteer Fire Department for one night while they took a break from their 39-day journey from Boston to New York.

The wagon is patterned after a caisson with rich mahogany stained wood and brass accents and finishing.

The rear is decorated with a flower arrangement as one might see at a funeral and small flags from around the world similar to the United Nations.

A long 2-inch round wooden pole is equipped with eight or nine wooden handles that the walkers use to push and pull the caisson along its route. For comfort, each walker has a metal carrier affixed to the pole near the handle for a bottle of water.

The group's leader is Dan Jones, a Social Worker from the Bronx, New York who lost his brother-in-law, Billy Kelly in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Jones described the stone's background and significance for the Stonewalk.

"This stone was made at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA in the mid-90s after students visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, DC and learned that 80-percent of the casualties of war are civilians," Jones said. "They thought there should be a monument in honor of [the civilians].

"In 1999, the folks from the Peace Abbey did the first Stonewalk, with an identical stone, [this stone stayed in the ground at the Abbey] from Sherborn to Arlington, VA to try to get it into Arlington National Cemetery within sight of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," he said. "They belong together."

The stone was rejected at Arlington and stayed for a while at Georgetown.

"That one went far, marchers brought it from Dublin to Belfast, Ireland to recognize all the victims who died there and then from Liverpool to Coventry, recognizing the people that died in nightly bombings there," Jones said. "The people of Coventry asked for it to stay in the bombed out shell of the Coventry Cathedral where it now stands, emblematic of the civilian toll there."

Peaceful Tomorrows

The idea of Peaceful Tomorrows began in 2001, after the terrorist attacks.

"Some of us got together on a walk from Washington, DC to New York after Thanksgiving and into December," Jones said. "That's when my wife, Colleen and I met others who'd lost loved ones and we decided that we didn't want to see other people suffer. We didn't want to see families not being able to protect their children."

The group officially formed in February 2002, getting their name from a Martin Luther King quotation, "Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."

The people at the Peace Abbey invited the new group to use their facility as a retreat in the summer of 2002.

"That's when we saw a documentary about their Stonewalk and it was really compelling," Jones said. "It spoke to my heart right away, that in 1999,before the terrorist attacks here, that they recognized the terrible loss people suffer from being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Two years later, Jones' and the other members' relatives died as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It was very prophetic, the purpose of that walk was exactly what our organization's purposes are," Jones said. "We don't want to see other people suffer as we've suffered. That's when the seeds for our Stonewalk were planted."

The stone belongs to the Peace Abbey, but lent it to Peaceful Tomorrows for its Sept. 11 anniversary walk.

If everything goes as planned, the walkers will be at Fordham University tomorrow. On Saturday, they will make their way to St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem.

They are being careful not to get the Stonewalk in the middle of any negative protest where people would get the wrong impression about the group or their mission.

Who are you?

Jones said as a social worker in the New York school system, he is lucky to have the time to dedicate to the walk.

He joined the group in Boston on July 28 and plans complete the walk in New York.

"It's fortunate that I have the whole summer, because I would hate to leave this now," he said.

Jun is an older Buddhist nun, often mistaken for an old man because of her shaved head. She is the caretaker of the Grafton Buddhist Peace Pagoda and often takes part in peace walks across the country.

During the Stonewalk she kept a steady beat on a hand drum that was made by Alaskan Indians. Its tightly stretched animal skin surface is adorned with oriental symbols.

"It's very light and easy to carry," Jun said. "I hit it with a bamboo stick."

Next to her walks a young Japanese man named Kenichi Kato.

A quiet, kind man, Kato is noticed for walking the entire route barefoot. During the breaks, every 5 to 10 miles, he checks the blisters on his feet, then shares his homemade rice rolls and miso with his fellow walkers.

Another noticeable participant is Adele Welte, of Flushing, New York. An older woman, Adele lost her son, Timothy, 34, a New York firefighter, at the World Trade Center.

"I deal with my loss by trying to build some sort of a legacy to his memory," she said. "I joined Peaceful Tomorrows to counter the use of the World Trade Center and Sept. 11 as an excuse to kill innocent civilians."

She often can be seen at the head of the line, pulling the caisson uphill.

Welcoming hills

The loaded caisson, including the stone weighs more than a ton and the peace walkers have to work hard to get it up and over hills. But, instead of a burden, they embrace the hills - it gives them a stronger sense of purpose.

Getting over the hump on Route 1 between West Haven and Orange posed such a challenge.

"I was glad to see that hill," Jones said. "You don't want to have an easy walk. We work together to get the job done."

Welte added, "When we struggle up a hill, it shows that nothing is easy in this world."

Jones said people applaud the procession, and many join in, taking a handle to pull the caisson or pushing the rear platform.

For these peaceful activists the journey is one of healing and remembrance.