#26: We are glad to meet all of you! | Ruck The Way Launch

#26: We are glad to meet all of you! | Ruck The Way Launch

NOTE: This episode is best appreciated on YouTube https://youtu.be/r4rpTLc2xkg [https://youtu.be/r4rpTLc2xkg] UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage [https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage] In this special official launch event recorded live at the Cove Trail in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ruck the Way founders Gabe and Chris introduce a gathering of pilgrims to the transformative power of a "walk with a purpose." Gabe shares how his background as an army infantry soldier seamlessly merged with the ancient Christian practice of pilgrimage, leading to the birth of this unique ministry. Chris explains the fascinating neuroscience behind how walking heals the brain and soul through left-right movement. Together, they guide the group through a mini-pilgrimage tracking the journey from a desolate, dried-up cove to a flowing stream of living water. The episode culminates in a powerful symbolic ritual where participants place "burden stones" onto a flat rock to build a traditional cairn, choosing to release their heavy loads to God. Know more about our cause: https://www.rucktheway.com/ [https://www.rucktheway.com/] Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay [https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay] Meet the founders: https://www.rucktheway.com/about [https://www.rucktheway.com/about] Upbeat Song credit information: Near You (Kite Flight) Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/kite-flight/near-you [https://uppbeat.io/t/kite-flight/near-you] License code: RMGGMTRY6LO2UFNU Road to the Sun (Vens Adams) Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/vens-adams/road-to-the-sun [https://uppbeat.io/t/vens-adams/road-to-the-sun] License code: H3SYP7298LFHTJNE

#25: The Three Mile an Hour Life: Embracing the Pace of Eternity

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage [https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage] https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage At what pace are you living your life? We hit the trails together for the first time in a year to unpack the profound concept of "the three mile an hour life." We dive into the internal and external forces that pressure modern men to sprint life, confronting the underlying currents of shame, comparison, and the fear of running out of time before retirement. From practical daily boundaries like keeping phones out of the bedroom to the intentional practice of benevolent detachment, this conversation serves as an invitation to realign your daily rhythm with the sustainable, relationally rich pace modeled by Jesus. Learn more about us: https://www.rucktheway.com/ [https://www.rucktheway.com/] Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay [https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay] Meet the founders: https://www.rucktheway.com/about [https://www.rucktheway.com/about]

#24: The F Word: Why Friendship Is So Hard for Men

Walk With Us This whole conversation is the why behind Ruck the Way. We started this because we believe friendship doesn't grow at desk-speed or scroll-speed—it grows at three miles an hour, on a trail, with a pack on your back and someone walking beside you. Join a Pilgrimage: New dates dropping soon. → rucktheway.com/pilgrimage [http://rucktheway.com/pilgrimage] Subscribe to the Podcast: Wherever you listen, hit follow so you don't miss what's next. → rucktheway.com/podcast [http://rucktheway.com/podcast] Get the Newsletter: Slower than a feed. Better for your soul. → rucktheway.com/newsletter-signup [http://rucktheway.com/newsletter-signup] Support the Mission: Ruck the Way is a project of East Mountain Greenville. All gifts are tax-deductible. → Give Now Reach Out: Got a story, a question, or someone we should have on the show? → rucktheway.com/contact [http://rucktheway.com/contact] Friendship sounds like it should be the easy part of being human. It's not. In this conversation, Gabe and Chris pull up a chair next to one of the most painful, elusive, and unspoken realities men carry in their rucksacks: the longing for real friendship—and the disappointment when it doesn't come, or when it fades, or when it breaks. From the Facebookization of "friend" to the cutting-room-floor lives we hide behind curated highlight reels, from the gated country-club neighborhoods of Charlotte to the caste-stratified high schools of the UK, the guys name why building real friendship as a grown man is so much harder than it should be. They borrow from C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (whose own legendary friendship broke down in their later years), they lean on Lewis's The Four Loves, and they pull from John Hendrix's beautiful graphic novel The Mythmakers to show that even the giants of the faith struggled with this. Then they get practical. Three rails to run on if you're lonely, longing, or just stuck: side-by-side, vulnerability, and invitation. This isn't a how-to. It's gardening. You can't force a tomato to grow—but you can cultivate the soil. If you've ever sat with the quiet ache of I don't really have any friends right now, this one's for you. You're not alone. And there's nothing wrong with you. Mentioned in This Episode The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix — the graphic novel Chris references throughout The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis — especially the chapter on philia, brotherly love The Inklings, the Eagle and Child pub (a.k.a. "the Bird and Baby") in Oxford The Lord of the Rings & Lewis's secret 1961 Nobel Prize nomination of Tolkien

#23: The Cost of Not Telling the Truth with Lorenzo Monge

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage [https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage] Some people show up in your life with a story so layered you can't quite hold all of it at once. Lorenzo Monge is one of those people. He's been a pastor, a church planter, a youth worker, a clothing designer, a musician, a bodyguard. Today he's a military chaplain serving the French armed forces in French Guiana — the slice of France that sits on the northern edge of South America, surrounded by the Amazon. The week before this conversation, he crossed the equator on a Navy ship with a thousand soldiers, got sunburned in patterns that look like ugly frames around his eyes, and came home to sit down with two friends who have walked a lot of road with him over the years. Chris met Lorenzo twenty years ago in Charlotte. He and his family then moved to France and spent ten years planting a church alongside Lorenzo and his wife Marie-Lise — a friendship built so completely in English that even after Chris became fluent in French, the two of them never switched. Gabe and Lorenzo share a different thread: both men have lived the strange seam between ministry and military, just in opposite directions. This conversation lives in that seam — what God does in the space between who you were and who you are becoming. What follows is a conversation about pain you can't outrun. About the news Lorenzo received at age 48 that rearranged his understanding of his own life, one month before he deployed to the desert for four months. About what it costs men — in churches, in marriages, in uniforms — to refuse the truth. And about why the chaplain who serves Special Forces operators isn't afraid to tell a hardened soldier, eyes locked in, exactly who he's been. If you've been carrying something heavy and pretending you aren't, this one is for you. Lace up. Come walk with us. Walked Through in This Episode Scriptures, ideas, and references that came up along the way: John 16:33 — "In this world you will have trouble." The promise from Jesus that Lorenzo says nobody puts on their wall, and the one that may matter most. John 17 — "In the world but not of it." The frame Lorenzo uses for chaplaincy: standing in the same danger as the men he serves, but a step outside the chain of command. Luke 17:10 — "We are unworthy servants." Lorenzo's quiet reminder of what a pastor actually is: someone who washes dirty feet. The seam metaphor — Gabe's frame for transition: the space in your story where one stretch of fabric becomes another. The space of becoming. The November 2015 Paris attacks — The moment that turned Lorenzo from pastor to chaplain. Worth remembering as you listen.

#22: On Rest — Vacation, Holiday, and the Holy Day We Keep Forgetting | Ruck The Way Podcast

Coming up — Mini Pilgrimage in Charlotte Saturday, May 16 · 9:00 AM · McDowell Nature Preserve A taste of what Ruck the Way is all about — walking, community, and a moment set apart. Chris is flying in from Scotland. The kilt has been promised. Bring your kids. Bring your dog. Bring a friend. This is also our official US launch event for Ruck the Way as a nonprofit. Food, fellowship, and a real mini pilgrimage experience. RSVP and details: www.rucktheway.com [http://www.rucktheway.com] One small step If this episode found you tired and you don't know where to start, here's the invitation Gabe and Chris leave us with: Pick one thing. Cut work off at six. Block a Sunday on the calendar. Plan two weeks off — actually plan it. Or just sit with the questions: What do I believe will happen if I rest? Is that really true? Grace, kindness, curiosity. That's the pace. Gabe and Chris sit down (well, Gabe sits, Chris is in Scotland, and the dog is wandering the studio) for an honest conversation about something neither of them claims to have figured out: rest. This one is less a "how-to" and more a "we're-in-this-with-you." Two friends, three cups of coffee, one wandering dog, and a long look at why rest is so hard — and so necessary — in a culture wired for constant output. What we get into Why "vacation" (from the Latin vacare, to be unoccupied) is defined by what it isn't — and why that might be part of the problem "Holiday" as holy day — a time set apart, not just emptied out What the French and the Scots understand about rest that most Americans don't The uncomfortable origin of retirement at 65 (spoiler: it wasn't about your flourishing) Sabbath as something baked into creation — not a suggestion, but a rhythm The Shemitah, the Babylonian exile, and what happens when we refuse to let things rest Why we don't work toward rest — we work out of it The deep difference between absence-of-work and reconnection-with-life Honest confessions about boundaries, the church on Sundays, and why two weeks off matters more than one Small steps for people who feel like rest is impossibly far away A few lines worth sitting with "We're meant to enter into work out of rest — not work our way into it." "Perfect is the enemy of good in this case. Take a step." "Let the walk do the work." Mentioned in this episode The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan — the book Gabe references on entering work out of rest rather than collapsing into it The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel (1951) — the modern classic on Sabbath as a "cathedral in time," and the source of the story Gabe shares about Heschel's daughter remembering Friday night Shabbat meals and her father floating in the pool The liturgical season of Ordinary Time — green, unhurried, often overlooked The Jewish practice of the Shemitah — every seventh year, the land rests