Whoever you are and wherever you come from, we are all part of the same earth. That is solid ground for connectedness that does not detract from our differences. With this in mind, we choose three core values: freedom, respect and solidarity. Or to put it more elegantly: authenticity, diversity and sustainability. 

Authenticity

Authenticity. A beautiful word that means something different to everyone. That might be the beauty of it. It means ‘individuality’. To what extent there is room for that individuality in reality is typically a question for a pilgrimage route. The answer is different for everyone and knowing what the answer is – that sounds suspiciously like wisdom.

Diversity

The Walk of Wisdom is not so much about scientific facts, but about personal philosophies. To classic life questions such as how should I live? Or who am I? no one can claim the truth. That is why we choose diversity as our second core value. This is a logical continuation of the first core value: if you think it is important to be yourself, you give others that space as well.

Durability

The world is becoming more and more one village due to the communication and transport revolutions. Familiar connections disappear and old answers to classic life questions are seen in a new light. It seems as if we have to reinvent ourselves and the question arises: who are we in that bigger picture and do we support all these developments? Can we influence it? 

As Walk of Wisdom , we don’t answer. What we do is bring together people who are working on these questions and by choosing sustainability as a core value, we focus on everyone who is trying to make a positive contribution. Sustainability means that you want to take future generations and nature into account. How? Well, go and walk a few kilometers on that.

Pilgrimage is a search

Ultimately, pilgrimage is about searching for the core of your existence. We want to place that search in the bigger picture of life on earth. The starting point is the above values, but the outcome of the search – that is up to the pilgrims themselves. 

We want to help create a search ritual where people with similar values search for what a constantly changing world means for their deepest individuality. We hope that they will come up with answers that are meaningful to themselves and the increasingly ‘shrinking’ world. 

Photos:  nieuwwij.nl and vryage.blogspot.nl and student church nijmegen