This pilgrimage will not be the first one for me. I walked alongside some wonderful people last year from Malvern to Telford, so when I give thought to the upcoming journey, I have certain expectations: I know that there will be a structure. Our days will be broken by carefully chosen readings to remind us of our reasons for undertaking a peace pilgrimage and there will be periods of silence each day as we walk, in which we can use our other senses to feel gratitude and solemn empathy for those across the world in extreme circumstances brought about by acts of war.

I find myself in conflicting states of mind. The way will be hard, there will be much mental energy required for bonding with a new travelling community, to meet and thank our hosts after a long day of physical exertion, to cope with planning my transport to and from the beginning and the end of the walk and deciding what best to pack, the effort to support my companions both practically and spiritually – can I cope with it? Am I up to it? So much we don’t know until we try. I can assess my own capabilities, I can train for the walking, I can be brutally honest with myself. I have choices.

I have choices.

So many don’t when they set out on their journeys. I imagine us maintaining a brisk pace along country lanes, bridleways and city streets, carrying our rucksacks with the day’s supplies and small comforts and I’m forced to reflect upon the distressing similarities and contrasts with the streams of refugees making slow and painful progress through stark terrain with what is left of their lives bundled in their arms and grieving the loss of all they held dear to them.

Our band of travellers will be met at the end of each day by willing and friendly hospitality, so we will have full stomachs and a warm, dry place in which to rest our heads. Many of our brothers and sisters across the globe are unwelcome and unfed wherever they go.

Passing fields of harvested wheat and green hedges, only slightly wilting from another parched summer, we contrast this scenario with those who lose their land to climate change worsened by war.

What will their journeys bring? Friendships forged, then torn apart viciously by gunfire, bombs and populations incited to misplaced hatred?

Let’s share the joys of living and walking together on this pilgrimage. Let’s plant the seeds of peace which begin to flourish with welcoming strangers, feeling gratitude, believing in our abilities and trusting others. I know I need to be there, to be amongst those who are thinking of the other travellers, the ones who have no choices. The pilgrims of necessity and victims of wars manufactured and exacerbated by the profiteers of the Arms Trade.