The call

Christmastime. I’m on my parents’ living room floor counting the new additions to what’s become a rather embarrassing collection of Calvin Klein cologne. It’s Christmastime. And Jon Meier is in Macomb, Ill., counting the blisters on his feet. Before the end of 2002, there are already 12.

He’s been in the news before, snagging some ink in newspapers — including a spread on the cover of The Des Moines Register’s Life section — for a run-in with the police for his involvement in a peace demonstration. And he’s getting a lot more media attention now.

But the name Jon Meier may not be ring a bell, which is probably the ways Jon prefers things to be. Perhaps you’ve heard of the ISU student who’s walking across the country in the name of peace?

The inspiration came during church. It was in the middle of sermon, actually, one of his peers told me. “He just sort of … very suddenly knew he had to do it,” said Omar Tesdell, one of the founders of Ames’ Time For Peace, a group that formed the evening of the Sept. 11 attacks.

So Omar’s may be a name you recognize as well, though the kid tries to hide it. He will blush if a conversation drifts to how he was on the evening news, or that he’s had any hand in any of the peace efforts in the Ames area, or his column that runs in this newspaper. Of Meier’s walk, he says, “It’s a spiritual thing, not a political or media act.”

Omar’s been coordinating media efforts while Jon’s made the trek from his home in Spring Valley, Minn., to D.C. That, by the way, is farther than 1,000 miles.

I spoke to Jon a few nights ago after he’d made a stop in West Virginia. We talked about what’s in his backpack — which bears the word “Peace” in large type —ÿand how his blisters are treating him (he is already on his third pair of shoes). Then there’s the big question — the one about God’s calling, the one I sense a lot of people my age can’t particularly understand. But Jon is not glorifying his reasons for making this walk; he says many have similar callings every day.

“I have a hard time explaining this calling to people because it seems like everyone has their presupposed [definition for] what it means to be called by God,” he says.

“I feel that God communicates with us through our intuition, so other people who don’t believe in God may have had the same experience, but they just call it a calling from their intuition.”

Support system

Nick Wethington’s house plant died in the name of peace.

He thinks it may have, anyhow. He won’t be sure until Jon gets back to Ames. Jon said he’d water the plant for Nick, and he intended to. But when Jon left for his weeks-long walk to D.C., he had to set Nick’s plant under a leaky faucet.

But Nick — another founding member of Time For Peace, who was arrested with Jon during the Des Moines demonstration (it galvanized the friendship, Nick says) —ÿdoesn’t question Jon’s actions.

Nick, who also writes for the Daily, was with me in my parents’ home in Omaha when Omar called to share the news the evening Jon felt the call from God.

A support system formed immediately. Jon was sitting next to one of his professors, Dr. Mary Sawyer, who told Jon she would contact his professors about Jon missing the first week of classes. He called his father, asked him to start packing a bag for his departure the next morning.

“He was supportive right away. My mom was too,” Jon says. “She was a little leery of letting of me go, especially for Christmas, but she was extremely supportive. They came and walked with me for two days.”

Jon is also relying upon the kindness of strangers: those with the Collegiate United Methodist church have coordinated where Jon will stop each night. For a few nights, Jon was put up in hotels (one of his first nights, he stayed with two professional clowns), but now he’s spending most nights in the homes of strangers who support what Jon is doing.

“I don’t know where I’m going to stay until basically the night before,” he says.

A church group in New York wants to join Jon. And among those who will greet him in D.C. are busloads of Iowans.

“He’s going to try to make it all the way to D.C. and he’s got a seat on the bus on the way back,” Omar says. “I’ve had a lot of Iowa State alumni express their support either financially or offer to put him up for a night.”

His blisters

It can be difficult sending messages to society, yet Jon’s doing it solely by walking. It’s come at the cost of some blisters and a close call with a passing car that nearly nicked Jon with its side mirror. There was the hotel he visited that featured 20 —ÿhe counted — American flags in his room (but zero vegetarian meals at the adjoining bar).

When we speak, the connection is at first horrible. “I’m in a valley,” Jon explains. Valleys, of course, mean mountains. And mountains probably mean more blisters. “It’s definitely getting easier to walk,” Jon says. Then, remembering where he is: “It was getting easier … but now I’m in the mountains.”

Nick and Omar know he’ll make it to D.C. Jon does, too, though he says travel at the eleventh hour may involve an automobile or two.

“The weather’s getting worse and the hills are getting steeper. If I have to get rides, I’ll just get ten-mile rides here and there from people I’m staying with. And if it comes to it, I may hitchhike,” he says.

Jon spends many of his hours on the road reflecting. He thinks about Gandhi; he takes some phone calls from local newspapers. He doesn’t consider himself in any sort of spotlight. To Jon, he’s just walking, content to know he’s at least generating discussions.

Hearing about this the evening it all began, there’s been time to consider what cause would inspire me to do what Jon’s doing. I know, at 21, that I am too selfish to do much more than applaud, too lazy to walk across Ames, much less America.

It’s Christmastime. Nick wonders whether his plant is now green or brown. Omar’s cheeks turn red. I count gifts on my parents’ living room floor.

Jon Meier counts his blisters.

Cavan Reagan

is a senior in journalism

and mass communication from Bellevue, Neb.

He is the editor in chief

of the Daily.