It’s a captivating image, a young man carrying a 12-foot high and 6-foot wide, 110-pound cross up Fifth Avenue in New York City, pausing just in front of Hallmark’s Gotham office.
As he makes his way, he’s handing out Bible tracts.
His name was Arthur Owen Blessitt (his real name) and he held the distinction, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, of taking the “longest walk” of anyone in recorded history.
Arthur Blessit died earlier this month at the age of 84.
A Southern Baptist street preacher and pastor, Arthur began walking from his church in Hollywood, California across America on Christmas Day in 1969. He didn’t stop walking for two years, arriving in New York City in 1970.
Pastor Blessitt wasn’t walking for the publicity, wasn’t trying to glorify his own ego or garner notoriety to land a book and movie contract.
Simply put, he began walking because he heard (not audibly) God tell him to “Go!” – and so that’s what he did.
Only Arthur Blessitt didn’t stop walking when he reached New York. All told, Arthur covered 43,340 miles across all seven continents. He was arrested 24 times. Weather never deterred him. He carried the cross when it was 20 degrees below zero in Nova Scotia and 135 degrees in Yemen and Iraq. Arthur even carried the cross up Bronzal Pass on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border (18,200 feet) and down into Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico (850 feet below sea level).
But Arthur didn’t just carry the cross on his many journeys. Instead, he talked about the cross and the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice on it.
“The most important thing you will ever do is whatever Jesus tells you to do next,” he often said.
Coming of age in the late 1960s, Blessitt resisted the drug culture and instead mocked it by talk up the benefits of having Christ in your life.
“If you want to get high, you don’t have to drop acid,” he wrote. “Just pray and you go all the way to Heaven. You don’t have to pop pills to get loaded. Just drop a little Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.”
On his numerous worldwide treks, Arthur crossed paths with everyone from Dr. Billy Graham to Yasir Arafat and Bob Dylan, to name just a few celebrity encounters.
But once again, Blessitt didn’t see it as a time to glad hand or gawk, but instead, leverage any and every encounter to tell people about Jesus.
“I’ve climbed to the top of the long winding road,” he wrote. “Looked beyond and saw the Glory. The sweat and tears, the joys and the pains. All seem to blend in the amazing love of Jesus.
He continued:
“The cross is my road companion and we grow old together walking in the Shadow of the Presence of God. The cross needs some repairs with chips gone and bangs from the roads. My body has endured the longest walk in history and cries out for eternal rest. But we press on together with a smile.”
In classic Arthur Blessitt fashion, his obituary was written in the first person. Here is how it begins:
Arthur asked that rather than a memorial service, “The greatest thing you could do would be to go out and lead one more soul to be saved. The second thing would be that you would support this ministry of the cross in sharing the message of Jesus with the world.”
Well done, Arthur Owen Blessitt.
Image from AP.
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