Saturday, August 08, 2009
A walk for peace
One man's spiritual journey from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., has landed him in Roanoke.
John W. Adkisson | The Roanoke Times
Dermot Butterly (left), 40, of Los Angeles, kisses his girlfriend, Shailee Mashruwala, while walking on Mountain Pass Road in Botetourt County. Butterly is walking across the U.S. to help children in India and spread a message of peace.
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People have told him that he looks like Jesus, like Moses and like Indiana Jones, the crusader.
Dermot Butterly, an Irish handyman, left Los Angeles in May 2008, marching east to Washington, D.C., wearing nothing but an unstitched cloth wrapped around his legs and knotted at the waist, a shawl over his shoulders and a fisherman's hat with the word "PEACE" on it.
This is the type of spiritual journey that leads a man on an almost straight line across deserts and mountains via country roads past Arizona, New Mexico, northern Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Roanoke. The type where some offer him food and shelter and others offer indifference. The type where hometown newspapers, including this one, write about the reasons behind a man's intrepid transcontinental walk.
"I'm just an average Joe who swings a hammer for a living," Butterly, 40, said during his stop in the Roanoke Valley on Tuesday. "So I thought, 'What can I do to inspire more peace in this world?'"
The Los Angeles-area transplant quit his job maintaining a house in Malibu, and began his trek to raise $30,000 through donations for a school in a village in Orissa, a state on India's east coast. He says young and adult students there will be trained for jobs.
He also set out to talk to people about peace, following the ascetic principals of Mahatma Gandhi, the 20th century prophet of nonviolence.
Along the way, he said he's talked to people in schools, in restaurants and on the street, asking these questions: Is war necessary? Do you have peace in your life? And, how can you create more peace so there's peace in the world?
"That's the way I sow the seeds of inspiration," he said.
In his travels, he has depended on the donations of people along the way for food and shelter.
He set out to teach -- but he has learned, too:
Lesson No. 1: It's in people's nature to want to help others. One of the many stories he has collected is that on a day when he had no money, a woman used her food stamps to buy him oranges and bread.
Lesson No. 2: Treat your body well. He says his biggest challenge has been blisters in his feet, and that he has gone through five pairs of running shoes. He says he has learned to walk three days, rest one day, and wear flip flops so his will feet will dry.
Lesson No. 3: Be approachable. Butterly said some people would cross the street when they saw him in a dhoti and a shawl, which was Gandhi's attire. Butterly switched to shorts and a T-shirt, and he says he sensed that made people more comfortable.
So far, he says, he has not accumulated any money for the school. ("I've got $50 to my name," he said Tuesday.) But that's OK.
"I've had so many miracles in this walk. I've been down to my last penny, and someone would give me $20," he said. "I trust that at the end of this walk, at some point, the money will come."
He says he plans to hold a peace vigil in front of the White House on Aug. 23. To donate for Butterly's cause: 20178 Rockport Way, Malibu CA 90265, or gandhipeace.com.
