Last week I dedicated a day of the walk to William Ury. A number of people asked me, “Who is William Ury?”
William Ury is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Negotiation Project. In October, 2010, he gave a speech where he mentioned Abraham’s Path, a path that follows the life of Abraham from southeast Turkey, through Syria, Jordan, and into Israel.
In this speech he articulates something about my walk more eloquently than I can. He wasn’t talking specifically about my walk, of course, but he may as well have been. In this video he starts talking about Abraham at 6:50…
A few months from now, I expect to be passing through Urfa in southeast Turkey and am looking forward to retracing some of Abraham’s footsteps. In fact, the 884 miles (1423 km) of walking I’m doing now, prior to arriving in Urfa, are just me shaking off what was before.
Way back when, when I started planning this trip, I thought momentarily about just flying to Urfa and starting there, but then I decided that no, I would walk there. I would walk there. For some reason it was that important.