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What is the Heathen Pilgrim?

The Heathen Pilgrim is me, Matt Krause, walking across Turkey from Efes to Sanliurfa, and then heading south through Syria and Jordan to Jerusalem.

I am preparing for the trip now (physical training, logistics, etc), and plan to begin the walk in late Fall, 2012.

That’s about 1500 miles of walking. Why am I doing it?

Because walking is a great way to get to know the land and the people who live there.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims basically come from the same monotheistic, Abrahamic stock, but they like to think they are more different than they really are. They fight like cats and dogs, like cousins embroiled in a nasty blood feud.

We humans love to draw borders around our lands and around our gods. Our fascination with our differences is deeply embedded in our nature. That fascination is probably even encoded in our genes somewhere. I know we will never get around it.

But at the same time, it is completely ridiculous, the way we demonize each other.

Our human need to demonize is so strong, and the cartoon caricatures we create so distorted, that I don’t know how to unwind them intellectually. So I will unwind them by walking.

Who is the Heathen Pilgrim?

The Heathen Pilgrim is me, Matt Krause. I started my adult life in Seattle, getting stuff made in China. I like hiking in the mountains and kayaking on rivers and lakes. I lived for 6 years in Istanbul, Turkey. I am not a religious person. I guess I am Christian, but to paraphrase AJ Jacobs, I am Christian like the Olive Garden is Italian.

I do, however, love to walk, and I love to write, and I think it’s completely understandable, yet completely ridiculous, that we humans focus on the 5% that makes us different from each other, when what we should be focusing on is the 95% that makes us the same.

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A 1300-mile walk across Turkey, from the Aegean coast to Iran (read more...)
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Recent articles
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