For many years, Nilsson wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago, a network of pilgrimage routes, but between family life and work, he never found the time. When a peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan fell through, Nilsson suddenly found himself with an open opportunity.“I already prepared my family and friends to be gone for nine months,” he said. “I said to myself, if I’m ever going to do this, I have to do it now.”The timing of Nilsson’s trip also coincided with the historic return of his order to Jerusalem after 700 years abroad.“I decided to make a part of this pilgrimage a celebration of this great milestone in the order’s history,” he said. “I wanted to show people around the world about the good work that the order of St. Lazarus is doing globally.”The order’s work ranges in scope and location. It was originally established in Crusader times as a hospital outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem to treat soldiers suffering from leprosy. Today, it has set up medical missions in South Africa and partnered with an orphanage in the Congo for children whose parents died of AIDS, in addition to helping revolutionize disaster rescue services in Central Europe with missions that have gone to Haiti, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania.Since the order’s return, it has partnered with the municipality to make the Old City more accessible to the elderly and the handicapped and to also cut down on pollution with environmentally friendly motorized buggies.But for Nilsson, the return of the order was only a part of his decision.“Originally, I set out to give the journey multiple layers, like the discussion about peace and against xenophobia,” he said. “I thought about this mission of peace and [for me] Jerusalem is the symbol.”The seriousness of xenophobia for Nilsson is taken from his own personal experience of political involvement in Sweden, watching the rise of fascist parties in his home country’s parliament and throughout Europe.“You can see extreme right-wing winds blowing all over the place and we don’t want 1933 again,” he said. “I wanted to show the world that there is no need for a fear of strangers, [it is] just a picture we have because we don’t have the knowledge of different cultures. Exposing myself to the imaginary dangers of meeting strangers, [I wanted to] get people to talk about this and get people to change.”And meet strangers he did, as he arranged most of his accommodation through the popular backpacking website CouchSurfing.com, a community that offers up free board for passing travelers. He also decided his route somewhat based on the website, staying in contact with his partner of five years, Rebecca Agronius, in Sweden, to coordinate where he would stay.“We were working together on [couchsurfing.com],” Nilsson said. “Finding the way was more or less determined [by] where we could get accommodation, so the whole journey [was] like a zig-zag between towns.”Nilsson opted to skip out on traveling through any Arab countries, despite believing he may have missed out on the experience.“That was a promise to my daughter,” he said. “No Alps and no war zones.”“It has been a tremendous journey,” he added. “Going through the North European winter was quite a challenge but it is doable. You find the most amazing places when you are walking without a regular map.”As a personal challenge, Nilsson traveled alone.“I chose to do it alone because I wanted to have my dialogue with God and myself, by myself,” he said. “When you’re [in] nature on your own, exposing yourself to the elements, it gives a certain humility and mindset. And that has been very important for me.”Nilsson spoke at the green conference in Jerusalem just one day after finishing his journey, and had little time to reflect on the singular moments that stood out. He said he couldn’t choose one experience over another as the most impressive part of his journey, but he had succeeded in fighting a feeling of uncertainty of getting to Jerusalem.“The moment when I entered the Jaffa Gate – I actually did it, I can say I did it – that was a personal victory,” he said.For Rutishauser, his journey was two years in the making, deliberately planning his route to take him and his companions straight into the heart of conflict – to visit areas affected by war and to pray and discuss a message of peace.According to Rutishauser, the ancient pilgrimage route used by Jews, Christians and Muslims on their way to Jerusalem could be used today as a launching pad for the discussion and study of peace and interreligious tolerance.The Jesuit reverend wrote a mission statement before the trip, as it was part of a larger dialogue based in academics, religion, cross cultural understanding and tolerance. He wrote that the decision to walk to Jerusalem was because the city is “uniquely meaningful to each of the three monotheistic world religions,” and at the same time, is a symbol of coexistence and conflict.“It was this utopia and this contradiction that prompted us to undertake a journey of reconciliation,” he wrote. The group chose to walk through the Balkans so they could witness firsthand the devastation left from the Serbian-Kosovo war in the 1990s and the impact it left in the hearts of the people today.“We could feel and see in Serbia that the whole society is in a sort of depression, so many unemployed, alcoholics and people without hope,” Rutishauser wrote in an email to The Christian Edition. “All late consequences of a country defeated in a war. As pilgrims, we could lend our ear, we got a close view and while walking had these people in our prayers.”At night, the group mostly found accommodation with locals, and it was through their hosts that they were able to get an honest portrait of the country.“In all [of] these places, we spoke to people and they gave us places to sleep,” he said. “The hospitality was great and we talked about their experiences of the war, the psychological consequences and the discrepancy between the daily life and the media level.”From the remnants of a past war to the devastation of a current one, the group entered Syria about eight months into its uprising in November 2011.“We crossed Syria and we didn’t really know if we could,” he said. “But finally we did it with some frightening experiences.”When the group entered they could not divulge that they were heading to Israel. When asked by the Syrian secret service, they pretended to be heading to Amman, Jordan. The secret service stayed with the group as they trekked and one day, out of nowhere, the police said they knew the group was heading to Jerusalem.“It was very dangerous,” Rutishauser wrote. “They wanted to use us for propaganda… to show that all [was] under control.” He said it became difficult for them to find places to sleep, people were afraid to take them in. At times the secret service forced them to stay in remote hotels. The group walked for two weeks trying to reach the capital. “South of Damascus it was too dangerous, so we had to take a taxi for a distance of 70 km.”But the goal of both journeys was not just about the people Rutishauser and Nilsson encountered along the way, but the thousands of people they could reach through the Internet, as both men kept blogs of their journeys and spoke of the importance of modern technology in reaching a wider audience.“There was a huge blog community growing every day,” Rutishauser said. “People could send us their petitions [for us to have] in our prayers while walking. We had 350,000 clicks at the end of seven months.”But in Syria, he said, they weren’t able to blog, and only updated the website when they reached Jordan. Yet everyday they still managed to post a few short texts and post the route they were traveling.In December 2011, the group entered Jerusalem on the eve of Shabbat. They had planned a peace conference for the end of their journey and engaged the city to take part.“We tried to bring together the people responsible for the holy sites in Jerusalem and Israel and to discuss with them how [we can] create pilgrimages, not only [comfortable in one’s] own religious tradition, but at the same time to open to other traditions,” he said.For Nilsson, technology was both a blessing and a burden. From the beginning he maintained the blog TowardsJerusalem.org, but frustration hit when the Wi-Fi on his cellphone broke in Greece.“For my personal pilgrimage, everything was fine, I could throw my iPhone in the river,” said Nilsson. “But losing the ability to upload photos to the blog... was really frustrating. I worked so hard for so many months and then I couldn’t do that properly.”A discussion after Nilsson and Rutishauser’s presentations, led by Hana Bendcowsky – a tour guide and program director at the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations – highlighted the impact technology has on pilgrimage journeys.“I think thanks to technology,” she said, “it’s not just the people you meet along the way, it’s the people that read about your experience along the way and you get to a much wider audience. It’s absolutely amazing and it’s a new challenge for us to use it in the right way, in the proper way.”Social networking also illuminated the relationship between Nilsson and his 15-year-old daughter.“According to what she’s writing on Facebook, I’m the ‘coolest dude in the world.’”
At the end of Nilsson’s journey, he said he was most looking forward to returning to his daughter and continuing a dialogue with his higher power.“My walking is done but the journey continues,” he said. “Now I’m at the point where I need to rest and go back home to my family and reflect.”