Gerald Drewett asks "What is the purpose of our human lives?"

It’s a question we can only answer from our human experience and therefore our answer can only be incomplete.  The bigger picture of why life exists is beyond our comprehension.  But the question of human purpose is one I particularly ask myself as I approach my tenth decade, my nineties.  Am I ever entitled to live my life purely for my benefit?  To sit back and enjoy life while I wait for my end to come?  I don’t think anybody ever has that entitlement.  We are social animals; we live in community;  community gives to us and we need to give back.

 

Some of us may appear to have featured a lot in society’s history and perhaps feel satisfied;  others, looking back, may think they’ve done nothing.  But the standard to use is unconditional love and without one knowing, the roles of achievement may be totally reversed.  If one has been offering unconditional love, or some variant of it, in one’s small corner of life, the cosmic significance may be far greater than the contribution of someone who is always in the headlines.  

 

But what should I do, in any physical sense, in my nineties?  My legacy is The Peace Museum now flourishing at Salt’s Mill, Saltaire, Bradford, receiving thousands of visitors and doing essential educational work.

 

For the last forty years I’ve been running the Give Peace A Chance Trust which gave birth to The Peace Museum in 1998.   I no longer have any active involvement with the museum but perhaps in the last decade of my life I can attempt to give it some security by increasing The Trust’s financial support.

 

The Challenge

On each of the ninety days following my 90th birthday on 19th May 2026 I propose to walk at least 4000 steps, or 28,000 in the week, and annually after each birthday in the following nine years.  An Odyssey – a ten-year journey.  Of course, it needs God’s co-operation!  But he seems to have smiled on me so far.  I had a heart attack in 2004 but he wasn’t ready to take me in then!

 

Will you journey with me on my Odyssey?  But don’t ask me what will I do on my 100th birthday, because I have no idea what it’s like to be one-hundred.  As it is, I shall have to allow for declining abilities through my nineties, so I have built in a five-per cent annual cumulative decrease in the challenge as shown in the tables, but I will take at least two and a half million steps for peace and social harmony.

 

The Vehicle

Since 1992 whent he Trust convened the First International Conference of Peace Museums, Give Peace A Chance Trust has raised £350,000 to establish and maintain The Peace Museum and is currently supporting the museum with £30,000 a year.  Will you help me ensure the future of peace education through The Peace Museum by donating to Give Peace A Chance Trust at Big Give as I walk through my nineties?