Walking Into the New Year With Peace
Why a quiet walk across America is becoming a collective call to practice peace
The Digital Drumbeat by DemCast is fueled by defiance and determination. Subscribe—free or paid—and stand with the writers, organizers, and dreamers keeping democracy alive.
Author’s Note
DemCast and I are sharing this as we head into a new year because it feels like an offering, not a sermon. You don’t have to be religious or spiritual to connect with what’s happening here. This walk isn’t about belief. It’s about how we treat one another when no one’s keeping score.
We will be sharing videos and moments from the monks’ journey as they continue walking, and you’re welcome to pass them along. Think of them as small pauses in the day — reminders of what patience, kindness, and shared humanity can look like in real life.
In a loud and divided moment, this walk offers something quietly radical: people choosing presence over performance and care over contempt, one careful step at a time.
The Walk for Peace began with a simple, radical question: what would happen if a small group of Buddhist monks crossed an entire country on foot, carrying nothing but presence, prayer, and a willingness to suffer just enough to remind the rest of us what peace feels like?
This year, about twenty monks set out from the Huong Dao temple in Fort Worth, Texas, beginning a 2,300-mile pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. that will take roughly 120 days and carry them through ten states. As the monks moved steadily forward, their arrival in Georgia drew quiet attention not because of spectacle, but because of stillness. They walk in sandals. They often eat one meal a day. They sleep wherever kindness allows. They rely entirely on strangers.
Wherever they pass, people respond in the same way. In LaGrange, Georgia, hundreds gathered at a local church after word spread that the monks had arrived. A community organizer described the visit as “inspiring hope” in a divided time. The monks didn’t argue. They didn’t persuade. They walked, bowed, and listened. That was enough.
In Peachtree City, residents, business owners, and city leaders turned out on a gray morning to greet a quiet line of orange robes moving slowly down an ordinary road. A city doesn’t always get to choose its symbols. In that moment, the symbol wasn’t a flag or a slogan. It was patience, made visible.
The impact shows up most clearly in small, intimate encounters. One widely shared video shows a venerable monk kneeling to hug and bless a little boy by the roadside, a moment the child’s family described as unforgettable. Another clip captures the steady rhythm of the walk itself, robes moving forward as people pause and watch, something that feels like a living meditation. Those who spend time alongside the monks often describe leaving calmer and more grounded, calling the experience “soul-touching” and deeply human, as reflected in one such account. And if you’ve seen the long, silent line advancing down the road, you understand why that image continues to travel, quietly stopping people mid-scroll.
Community leaders hosting the walk have been clear about its purpose. Messages shared along the route insist the pilgrimage “is not political. It is not divisive. It is a walk for peace, for healing, for unity, and for hope,” a sentiment echoed as towns across Georgia opened churches, sidewalks, and streets to welcome the monks, as seen in this moment of arrival. The organizers themselves describe each step as a living prayer meant to awaken the peace already inside the people they meet, a message they continue to share through videos from the road.
Watching from afar, many people sound surprised by their own emotions. Some admit they are crying as they watch the monks walk from Texas toward D.C., saying the crowds lining the roads prove people do not want hate, reflections shared among supporters in posts like these. Others keep sharing clips and reactions as the journey unfolds, part of a growing stream of responses now filling feeds and timelines, including this broader collection.
The monks are not asking us to walk 2,300 miles. They are asking something harder: to put one peaceful step in front of another in our own lives. To choose kindness when indifference feels easier. To treat our commutes, our feeds, and our neighborhoods the way they treat the open road, as places to practice compassion.
As the New Year begins, their message feels less symbolic and more practical. Peace is not a destination. It’s a daily practice. Their pilgrimage will end in Washington, but the Walk for Peace continues every time we decide, in the midst of chaos, to let our next step be a living prayer for the world.
And as they keep walking, we will keep sharing the videos and moments from their journey, not as a religious message, but as a shared human experience we can learn from, pass along, and carry into the year ahead.
May 2026 be a year of people choosing peace and human kindness. It is a choice we make daily. (Sometimes repeated all day long).
May peace replace divisions.