Chi Sing & Walking Peace

Walk For Peace 2026

The Walk for Peace from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C culminates today in a beautiful display of peaceful intention in our nation’s capital.   I’ve been following these monks for months now.  Mile after mile.

It takes me back about fifteen years to Unity Church of Dallas.  I was playing a Sunday service there, and afterwards a Buddhist monk in a brown robe and buzz cut walked up to me and said, “Would you be the Gary Floyd who played at my Baptist youth camp when I was in junior high?”  I laughed.  “Yeah.  That’d probably be me.”

His name was Chi Sing.  Back at youth camp, his name was Norman.  Life does that.  Baptist youth camp kid to Buddhist monk.   I could immediately relate to that kind of transformation.

We became fast friends.  Chi Sing introduced me to his sangha at the Dallas Meditation Center.   That’s where I first learned about sitting meditation - how to sit on purpose.   But one of the most powerful things he gave me was walking meditation.

Left foot: I am…   Right foot: …home.

Left foot:  Here.     Right foot:  Now

As humans, it’s basically how we move our bodies from one place to another. We all walk if we are able. We do it everywhere.  Around a lake.  Through airports.  From the car to the grocery store.   In the middle of our own complicated lives.

Watching these monks walk across America, I’m reminded, they don’t do this lightly.  This isn’t a protest in the reactive sense.  It’s practice.

Step, breath, step, breath.  They’re not just walking to Washington.  They’re walking peace.

So here’s the question.  What would it look like for me, for us, to walk peace in our everyday lives.  Not as a cool idea, but as a practice.  Can we take what we’ve just witnessed with the monks - the quiet endurance, the steadiness, the refusal to rush - and embody it?

Peace isn’t dramatic.  It’s left foot. Right foot.  It’s remembering the ground beneath us is still holding.

Chi Sing - Norman - the kid from Baptist youth camp who became a Buddhist monk - reminds me that transformation isn’t always loud.  Sometimes it just keeps walking.  And maybe that’s the invitation. 

Walk in peace. Not when everything settles down. Now.

Left foot:  I am…

Right foot:  …home.

In loving memory of Chi Sing (Norman Eng). Walk in peace.