Ruck the Way

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage

On the Trail This Episode
Long before any of us could speak, we were asking three questions: Is someone going to come? Do I matter? Am I safe? In this episode, Gabe and Chris open up attachment theory — the well-researched framework describing how the answers we received in our earliest years wired the way we connect, trust, withdraw, and love for the rest of the journey.
This isn’t pop psychology, and it isn’t finger-pointing at our parents. It’s understanding — the kind that makes forgiveness possible and healing real. Gabe and Chris walk through secure attachment and the three insecure styles (anxious, avoidant, and disorganized), get honest about which ones show up in their own stories, and explore why your attachment style shapes not only your marriage and your friendships, but the way you see and experience God Himself. The trail ends where hope lives: awareness, story work, empathetic witnesses, and the ultimate attuned Listener who sets His face toward us.
What’s in Your Rucksack
The three unconscious questions every infant asks — and how the answers get wired into your brain before you can speak
Why roughly half of us carry insecure attachment into adulthood — and why that number appears to be dropping
“Good enough parenting”: the surprisingly gracious research on attunement and repair that lowers the bar for every parent listening
Anxious, avoidant, disorganized: which patterns Gabe and Chris each recognize in their own stories — and why naming yours isn’t a life sentence
Why anxiously attached people so often marry avoidantly attached people — and the push-and-pull that follows
How your attachment style shapes the bosses you chase, the burdens you place on others, and the way you picture God
Mirror neurons, narrative therapy, and why healing that was broken in relationship can only be rebuilt in relationship

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction: Diving into Attachment Theory
03:17 - What is Attachment Theory? The Core Unconscious Questions 05:00 - Secure Attachment and the Power of "Good Enough" Parenting 17:58 - Anxious & Ambivalent Attachment: Fearing Abandonment and Seeking Reassurance
25:39 - Avoidant Attachment: Independence, Minimizing Needs, and Latchkey Roots
37:12 - Disorganized Attachment: Navigating Relational Harm & Trauma
41:31 - How Attachment Styles Shape Our View and Experience of God 44:22 - Practical Steps to Healing: Relational Narrative & Story Work 48:20 - Neuroplasticity, Mirror Neurons, and Inviting Christ into Memory Work
55:11 - Pilgrimage as an Attuned Space: Letting the Walk and Listening Do the Work

Keep Walking With Us
Walk with us in person: explore upcoming pilgrimages at rucktheway.com
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If this episode touched something in you, share it with a friend who needs to hear that healing is possible
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Let the walk do the work.

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage

On the Trail This Episode
What if pilgrimage isn't just a week of your life — what if it's the lens for all of it? Chris and Gabe pick up a thread from recent pilgrim Josh Nash, who finished the St. Cuthbert's Way and realized he could actually do life this way. From there, the guys take a hard look at the metaphors our culture hands us — the up-and-to-the-right graph, the ladder you'd better lean against the right wall — and hold them up against a truer, kinder picture: the walk. Meandering, surprising, sometimes drudgery, occasionally glorious, and never fully in your control.
Along the way they land on a phrase that might just end up on a t-shirt: the terrain gets a vote.

Transcript:

01:54 The framing question: what does "life as pilgrimage" do in you?
03:12 Josh Nash's slow reveal on the St. Cuthbert's Way — not a conference, not a worship night, but something that could guide the second half of a life
05:54 The metaphors we're handed instead: up-and-to-the-right, and the ladder leaning on the wrong wall
09:46 The drudgery is part of it: blisters, one foot in front of the other, and letting go of the "rapturous experience" expectation
10:54 Gabe on control: you can't control results — only inputs — and there's something very kind about that
15:01 Chris in midlife: pilgrimage as a pressure valve on "have I done enough?" — hills, valleys, and the road to Emmaus
17:37 "The terrain gets a vote" — you choose the journey, not what's around the bend
19:27 Pitching tents on the Mount of Transfiguration — and why Jesus leads them back down into the valley
21:25 The illusion of rest: the beautiful overlook has no inn, no pub, no nourishment
24:39 Laying rails: the destination is not the full purpose — what happens along the way matters as much as arriving
25:22 No self-made pilgrims: letting people in, being known, being seen

References & Resources
Josh Nash's pilgrim interview — recorded on the St. Cuthbert's Way pilgrimage; find it in the episode feed and on YouTube
St. Cuthbert's Way — the ~70-mile route to Holy Island (Lindisfarne) walked on the most recent Ruck the Way pilgrimage
The Mount of Transfiguration — Matthew 17:1–9; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:28–36
The Road to Emmaus — Luke 24:13–35


#pilgrimage #scotlandhistory #catholicfaith

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage
Jess' website: https://www.jesscantelon.com/

What happens when your childhood playground is the city of Jerusalem? In this episode of Ruck the Way, we sit down with entrepreneur, theologian, and fluent Hebrew speaker Jess Cantelon to explore how growing up as a Gentile kid in Israel fundamentally transformed his understanding of scripture. Moving beyond flat, Westernized depictions of faith, Jess unpacks the essential "Jewishness" of Jesus, examining how ancient rhythms, rabbinical debates, and the physical reality of the land illuminate Christ's true identity. We dive deep into the concept of pilgrimage as a literal and spiritual mechanism for repentance—turning away from secular routines to step incrementally closer to the presence of God. Finally, Jess invites us into a space of historical and cultural nuance regarding modern Israel, challenging believers to embrace complex truths over simple media narratives.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 – Welcome Jess Cantelon to the mobile office; life in Montreal.

00:01:45 – Growing up in Jerusalem: King of Kings community and Hebrew public school.

00:03:47 – Sensory memories of Israel: The smells of the Shuk and authentic hummus.

00:06:48 – How living in the Holy Land shapes an intuitive understanding of the Bible.

00:08:40 – Challenging liberal theological assumptions with geographic reality.

00:10:47 – Studying the land: Plants, soils, and the nomadic Bedouin cultures.

00:13:06 – Deconstructing a Westernized Jesus: Embracing His authentic Jewishness.

00:14:42 – Jesus as a Second Temple Rabbi participating in the podcasters’ debates of His day.

00:17:27 – The three pilgrimage feasts and the geography of repentance.

00:21:45 – Skateboarding and snowboarding when hell freezes over in the Valley of Gehenna.

00:24:03 – The drone shot perspective: Viewing Jerusalem settled like a crown.

00:29:44 – The modern melting pot: Demographics, language, and everyday life in Israel.

00:33:15 – The danger of simple stories and Western discomfort with historical nuance.

00:39:00 – Eyewitness accounts: Driving the northern border two weeks after October 7th.

00:44:52 – Understanding Jerusalem Syndrome and navigating internal Israeli politics.

00:47:11 – Divine faithfulness: Why God’s promises to the Jewish people matter to the Church.

00:49:58 – How leaders can guide communities through complicated global questions.

00:53:01 – Closing Benediction: Letting the walk do the work.

Know more about our cause: https://www.rucktheway.com/
Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay
Meet the founders: https://www.rucktheway.com/about

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage

Some pilgrimages begin with a plan. This one began with a change of plans.
Six men were meant to walk St Cuthbert's Way this season. In the end it was two. Chris and a pastor named Joshua Nash, alone on seventy miles of border country, walking into questions neither of them could have scripted.
What they found was the kind of thing the walk tends to give when you stop trying to manage it. A slow reveal. A golden year. A quiet word from God on a tidal island where people have prayed for almost fourteen hundred years.
This episode comes in two parts. First, Chris sits down with Gabe to reflect on the journey and on what it means to guide rather than lead. Then we take you out onto Holy Island itself, down into the prayer holes, for a conversation with Joshua about what the road did in him.

Timestamps:
00:32 Home from the borders. Chris survives another seventy miles. Recovery, the toll on the body, and why this one was different.
01:29 Cracking the blister code. Flat feet, the wrong wool, and the hard-won wisdom of caring for your feet.
03:04 Every pilgrimage is its own. Chris's fifth St Cuthbert's Way, and his first in June. A month he went into expecting little, and the healing greenness he found instead.
05:00 Meet Joshua Nash. A pastor in midlife. A sabbatical. Two pilgrims where there were meant to be six.
06:55 Receiving the context you did not choose. A new angle on the tagline. Letting the walk do the work means receiving the walk you are actually given.
09:21 Guiding, not leading. The vulnerability of walking alongside. Why the guide has to stay a pilgrim too.
12:20 What pilgrimage actually is. Melrose to Holy Island. Hills, valleys, ruins and abbeys across some of the most heart-achingly beautiful country in the world.
14:00 The five encounters. The land. Your fellow pilgrims. Your own story. The saints who walked before us. And finally, God.
16:14 Evenings at the inn. Boots off, feet up, the day relived around a table. One of the favorite hours.
18:46 A golden year. Chris on his own walk. A fiftieth anniversary, a jubilee, and three words he carried home.
20:42 Seen, encountered, released. What God kept highlighting, mile after mile.
21:40 Into the prayer holes. What these thin places are, and why heaven and earth feel close there.
24:29 On Holy Island with Joshua. The last day, the final ridge, the descent toward the sea.
26:31 A thin place. The prayer holes, Cuthbert's Island, and the saint who loved to get away and be alone with God.
28:20 Who Joshua is. Mercy Road Church outside Detroit. A three-month sabbatical. A desire to go deeper.
31:06 Expectations meet reality. Harder than he imagined. The things he did not anticipate outran the things he did.
33:30 The slow reveal. Pilgrimage is not an event you attend. It is a posture you carry into the rest of your life.
35:45 The sands as the whole journey. Crossing the pilgrim sands, the tar pits in the middle, and finding his footing again.
38:00 Setting the stone down. A bench, a burden laid down, and a word Joshua had rarely heard so clearly. I see you. I love you. I like you. I am proud of you.
40:05 His word to you. If you are facing big decisions or carrying uncertainty, do it. Not a vacation. A transformation.
42:34 Let the walk do the work.


Upbeat song credits:
Fireworks Reprise (Jay Denton)
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/jay-denton/fireworks-reprise
License code: 3NIGGUVUOD4RRPRN

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage
Amazon link to John’s author page:
US: https://www.amazon.com/stores/John-Hendrix/author/B002YTBY0A?
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B002YTBY0A


Some conversations feel like they happen on the trail, even when everyone is sitting still. This one did.
We sat down with John Hendrix, New York Times awarded author and illustrator, professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and the creator of The Mythmakers, a graphic novel about the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. What started as a talk about books became a conversation about friendship, fellowship, failure, and the strange grace of being made to create.
John reminds us that the Inklings did not know they were the Inklings. They were just friends writing stories for one another, and in doing so they reshaped literature almost by accident. He shows us why myth is not a lie but a truth beyond the facts, why every honest creative act has to pass through the pit of despair, and why the way we spend our days really is the way we spend our lives.
If something creative has gone dormant in you, this one might wake it back up. Chris said as much before we even stopped recording.
Let the walk do the work.

Timestamps
00:00 Meeting John. St. Louis roots, a day in Edinburgh, and the wider world of the Inklings
07:00 The Mythmakers and a friendship that came up in our episode on the F word, fellowship
08:30 Why everything John makes is art first, and the subject comes second
10:30 The superpower of the graphic novel, bending time and the "third thing" that belongs only to the reader
16:00 Writing a myth about the Inklings, and why the ending could not stop at their deaths
19:00 Friendship versus fellowship, a shared destination, and why male friendship gets harder as we age
23:30 What working with other people's stories teaches you about your own
28:30 Made to create. The calling that is not always your career
31:00 If everyone kept a sketchbook, the world would be a better place
34:00 Make more than you consume, and giving your work the best part of your day
37:00 Path-dependent creativity. You do not know the destination until you walk toward it
44:00 The Pit of Despair, and why this is a human phenomenon, not just an artist's one
48:00 A bad liturgy, and remembering that God does not need any of it. It is all a gift
51:00 Chris picks up his brushes again
53:30 Art is not art until it is shared. Make it, then send it to someone

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: https://www.rucktheway.com/pilgrimage

In this profound episode of the Ruck the Way Podcast, hosts Chris and Gabe dive deep into how we evaluate our personal growth and spiritual maturity. Drawing from Morgan Snyder's book, Becoming a King, they challenge the modern urge to measure progress by daily increments, which often breeds self-criticism, impatience, and discouragement. Gabe shares vulnerable insights from his personal health journey and the realization that short-term charts often obscure long-term transformation. Together, they explore the concept of "living in the moment, measuring in the decade," demonstrating how looking backward over a ten-year horizon reveals deep emotional and narrative healing that daily check-ins completely miss. Shifting from frantic performance to micro-steps of awareness, this conversation offers a spacious, compassionate framework for anyone navigating midlife transitions, identity development, and the long, slow road of becoming who God called them to be.

Know more about our cause: https://www.rucktheway.com/

Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay

Meet the founders: https://www.rucktheway.com/about

NOTE: This episode is best appreciated on YouTube
https://youtu.be/r4rpTLc2xkg

UPCOMING 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/
Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay
Meet the founders: 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 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 License code: H3SYP7298LFHTJNE

UPCOMING PILGRIMAGE: 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/

Subscribe to our Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@RucktheWay

Meet the founders: https://www.rucktheway.com/about

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
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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

UPCOMING 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.