Latest / The Rhett Palmer Show / Finding God on the Journey: A Spiritual Hike Through the Italian Dolomites

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Finding God on the Journey: A Spiritual Hike Through the Italian Dolomites · The Rhett Palmer Show

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello the world.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell all the world about Jesus.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: My friend Pastor John Robbins is in the studio.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still up in Vermont at this point.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you're joining us.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Pastor John Robbins has just returned from Italy.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Italiano.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now you went with a host of other pastors to go for a hike.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us all about it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Would you Pastor John Robbins?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, John Robbins Church.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's the name of your church?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's Church on Flame Vine Lane in Vero, 999 Flame Vine.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Flame Vine.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Services at uh 10 or 10:30 on Sundays.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's 8 and 10 a.m.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's great to be back home in beautiful, sunny Vero Beach, Florida.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the Dolomites, which is the Italian Alps, on a hiking trip with nine other guys.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they weren't all pastors.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they were it was a group of Catholic men, two Catholic priests, and uh then seven lay people, and then myself.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of the lone Protestant in the group.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we have a picture up there with you standing on a mountainside with a group.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's the entire group.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's uh, so it's interesting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can see the crucifix in the background, that's at 9,000 feet.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the tree line is usually at like seven or seventy, five hundred feet above sea level.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is another 1,500 uh feet above that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not unusual that on the peaks there would be a crucifix, uh, just a sign of the you know, the Christian roots of Europe, uh, that basically everywhere you go, there's there's a cross on top of the peaks of these various mountains.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we know sadly that uh much of Europe has is not really uh strong committed uh to going to church and following Jesus and everything else, but you can kind you get a real sense of the the Christian past, the Christian roots of that part of the world.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they go in and possess the land, the Lord says.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're hoping that things will change.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew the when this new lady is elected uh prime minister or president, whatever they elect there, that uh they're gonna they're gonna have to clean up, clean up the mess.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very excited about that because uh uh Italy has certainly influenced the world.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh Rome, of course, was antichrist, and then the love of love of the Christians that came and uh and kept uh ministering love and uh kindness uh converted uh the way they went from 10,000 followers of Jesus to 3 million in just a few short years, uh when Jesus had just left the earth, you know.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was under Constantine actually.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think he came a little bit later.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it was in the fourth century, 325, 326.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's the Council of Nicaea.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, uh it was a huge shift that took place in Rome under Constantine.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me ask you this.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Was it uh I had a major surgery on my lung when I was younger, and so I only have a third missing.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So when I went to uh to the high high places, I have a hard time breathing.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're 9,000 above feet above sea level, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Living in Vero Beach, Florida, you are at sea level most days.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Was it was it was it uh an exercise to breathe?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: The the hikes overall were some of the hardest uh physical challenges that I've ever had.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I'm 65 years old, uh, so I'm not in my 20s anymore.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: There were there were three guys in their 20s on the trip, and uh probably two guys in their 50s, one guy who was 45, and then there were three of us who went to college together who were 65, and I can tell you, and then we were carrying 25 pound packs on our back.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can uh see in one of the photographs, you can see the backpack that I'm carrying.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh, but 25 pounds doesn't sound like a lot, but of course, if you're scaling uh fairly significant you know inclines uh above above the tree line, you get uh winded very quickly.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, it was really challenging.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there were a bunch of times when I thought, uh, I don't know if I can go.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I need to stop and take a rest, but because you're with nine other guys, you don't want to be the guy who says, uh, we gotta stop.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's amazing actually how how far the human body and the human will, what you can do, uh, you know, when you're when you're under that kind of pressure, so to speak.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: What why did you have 25 pounds in your uh in your backpack?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: What were you carrying?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're in the dolomites, it's not necessarily everybody's doing this, but you're basically hiking from hut to hut.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're spending the they're called refugios.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And refugio, I'm pretty sure is Italian for place of refuge.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought the whole thing was fascinating because of course Jesus is our place of refuge.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh anyway, the these huts are called refugios, and they would they will uh provide breakfast and dinner.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you have basically in your 25-pound pack, you've got you know, snacks for the hike, you've got water for the day, and uh you've got enough changes of clothes for, you know, essentially, you know, seven or eight days on the trail.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Although you're, you know, there were a couple of points along the way when we were uh washing, you know, underwear or undershirts, um, because you you can't carry all the clothes that you're gonna need.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you do a little bit of wash along the way.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, ten days with these other men of faith, yeah, you I'm sure you uh made some lifelong friends uh and learned some lessons along the way.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like um so I'm not Catholic.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm Anglican.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the history of the Anglican Church is uh when when the Anglican Church made the break from the Catholic Church, uh it was in the whatever in the 15th, 16th century, uh it was the softest break in essence from the Roman Catholic Church.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like you had the Anabaptists who made a really strong break.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted nothing to do with the Catholics.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the Presbyterians that were strong reformers and uh justification by faith, uh by faith alone, scripture alone, all the sola, sola fide, sola scriptura, sola grazia, the five solas was were really uh part of the the Protestant Reformation.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Anglicans probably made this the softest move away from the Roman Catholic Church, basically retained a lot of the Roman Catholic traditions um and yet adopted a lot of the strong Protestant uh Reformation uh principles, such as uh putting the Bible as the primary authority and primary foundation of our faith.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So for me as a Protestant Anglican to spend you know eight or nine days with uh my Catholic brothers, it was a great learning experience for me to kind of get an inside view of Catholicism in a way that I had uh never had before.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You as a Protestant, you hear a lot about the Catholic Church.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I would say that probably a lot that we learn in our Protestant churches, and I would say, and so I was in a uh Baptist church for seven years before I came back to the Anglican or Episcopal Church.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um and while I was in my Baptist church for those seven years, I was it was a great church, great preaching, strong Bible teaching, preaching, uh strong Christian community.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we were in many ways fed almost a constant uh stream of anti-Roman Catholic uh rhetoric.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I went through that too myself, yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was almost like every teaching in the church was prefaced by we're not like the Catholics who worship Mary and who worship the saints and uh who don't know the Bible.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that that was, although there may have been even a smidgen of truth to what was being said at those times, it oftentimes did, I would say, you know, at least a measure of injustice and sometimes a grave injustice uh to what Catholics really believe.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, well, you know, I understand that personally.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I was fed the same thing.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't believe in praying to saints.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because now that so many people have brought that up that now they say, well, you ask, I might ask you as a as a friend, as a just as a man, not as a pastor, would you pray for me?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: They say they're asking this now.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to take that because I know the Bible and Jesus said the dead are aware of nothing.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but at the same time, I'm not going to deny the fact that I did not know Jesus till I was 29, a week prior to my conversion, for the first time ever in my life, even though my grandmother was Catholic, my mother, I was not Catholic.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Mary, perhaps I'm not worthy of your son.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Would you introduce me?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, whether she heard it and acted, or he heard it and acted a week within about a week, I was born again in my living room.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna deny that, but personally I believe that we have one propitiation between God and man, and that bridge is Jesus Christ and the blood, death, and the resurrection, right?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think and I one of the things I mean, I I learned uh on the trip, um, I love my Catholic brothers, um, but in in many ways, um many of the Protestant principles that many of us who are in Protestant churches have come to live by the foundation and the authority of the Bible, um having a personal relationship with Jesus.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these things, uh we we love the church, and yet um kind of the traditions of the church, as beautiful as they are, they don't uh they don't necessarily quote unquote define our faith.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We our faith is uh really defined by the Bible.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's defined the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit uh is another thing, which is obviously as what I would consider to meet myself to be either a charismatic or even almost a Pentecostal Christian, these kinds of personal relationship with Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, uh these are kind of uh ideas that you don't necessarily hear from our Catholic brothers, which have become very, very important to me personally.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, as a matter of fact, while I'm in uh Vermont, I attend a Catholic church and um it was started by the lady who was in the movie uh Gone Not Gone with the Wind.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sound of Music.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Mrs.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Mrs.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Von Trapp, who was a nun, and came here and they they built their hotel and everything here.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: They escaped the Nazis because she said this reminded us of the of the Alps or whatever.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but she helped build this little, it's a very modest little church, but um I love the worship.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's very um sober, gentle, and uh uh non-performance.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's just a and I like that, you know.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but anyway, uh you know, you you need to learn with all of us.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: We need to learn to chew on the meat, spit out the bones.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a personal relationship.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, curse David said, cursed is the man that makes man his trust, blessed is the man that maketh the Lord his trust.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we're to I believe we're called to love, whether you're Catholic, Protestant, even the even the Anglicans who just separated themselves from the Episcopalians because of some beliefs they have.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nonetheless, we should all love each other, and I guess God'll sort it all out in the end.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think um so I I'm trying to be uh gracious and spiritually generous, you know, towards all people.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I know that as an Anglican Christian, I don't have all the answers.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I need to learn, uh I need to be humble and learn uh from everyone.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a couple things that I learned on the trip, you know, or that I was reminded of because um, of course, we had two Catholic priests on the on the hikes with us through those eight or nine days, and uh we would start every single day with mass.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a beauty say, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, let the whole earth stand in awe of him.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a beauty to the holiness of the Catholic Mass and starting every single day at like you know 6 or 6 30 a.m., uh there's a beautiful rhythm of life that uh I think all Christians can benefit from.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: How do you start your day?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Are you still are you starting every single day uh reading the scriptures?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are you starting every single day praying and looking to God, looking to the Lord who created the heavens and the earth uh for uh wisdom and discernment as you move through your day?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a great way uh to live.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I remember when I was younger, I was judgmental of Catholics when I would go with my grandmother, my mother, and thought that they were just uh singing to the Lord in a perfunctory manner.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as it turns out, I was projecting me onto that crowd.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now I go in with my hopefully at times broken and contrite heart on bended knee, and I realize a lot of the beautiful people there are really worshiping Jesus.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, there are.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: There is there's the wheat, and there's the uh what is the other stuff?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: The wheat and the um the wheat and the chaff.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that, but that's not you can discern that, but anyway, a lot of the people really are there, and it's not for me to judge God's servants.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, they're not my servants, so uh, but I do like the um the severity of the um quietness and the reverence.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not, you know, I've been in the Pentecostal churches and the charismatic courts and all this just for years, and I'm not saying it does say in the scriptures we're supposed to jump up and down and blah blah blah.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: There is a time for that, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also a time for respectful reverence and to bring our broken and contrite hearts to the Lord, right?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think what you're saying is the Catholics do uh they they recognize the holiness, the transcendence of God, that He is uh He is high and mighty, seated up on His throne, and uh there is an absolute sense of awe you know before Him, which I think as Protestant Christians we tend to emphasize more uh that um Jesus is my friend and He's my brother, and uh He's he's kind of Jesus is my buddy And those are those are good concepts too, uh, but we really need both.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: We need Jesus is my buddy, uh He's the one who sticks closer to us than a brother, and yet there are times when we need to fall down, bow down, and worship uh before the awe in awe before our Lord and our Maker.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think about that fellow that was, remember, he was praying and that he kept his head bowed down, and this other man who said, I give my tithes and my offerings, and you know, I make sacrifices to the Lord.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Who is this fellow here with his head bowed down?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, the guy with his head bowed down, who was broken and contrit and didn't say anything, is the one that went off the mountain justified rather than the other, the other guy who was arrogant and thought he was somehow spiritual or religious, you know, but to be very careful of the haughtiness of man because God disdains the smell of the fragrance, the stench of pride in his nostrils.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm reminded that uh I was preaching through um Romans 9, 10, what 10, 11, and 12, 9, 10, 11, 12, uh, I think 13 and 14 recently, you know, it was an emphasis there on antisemitism.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, anti-Semitism is on the rise, you know, not only in our country, but all over the world.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in those passages, uh the apostle Paul uh does a great job of recognizing God's plan for the Jewish people.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the one of the phrases that comes up in those chapters in Romans, it it comes up again and again where Paul says, Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but consider yourselves with a sober judgment.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I think it's a it's a great lesson for all of us as Christians.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh none of us has all the answers.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus, and we can all learn from each other.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have the benefit now of almost I'll be 73 in uh soon.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um it may sound maybe maybe I'm uh a little slower than the next guy, but uh, the lessons I've been learning is I remember what Paul said, esteem others greater than self.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I went into a shop recently.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: The lady was rather belligerent behind the cash register, and she charged me double for those pickles, and I said, No, they're on sale.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I don't think so.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But she went over there and I started to follow her, and she curtly said, I can go by myself.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was, but I kept what I did was I said, I have nothing to protect.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I'm not less than her, but I'm certainly not anymore.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's my job to be so I kept my gentle spirit and I kept being nice to her, and she came back to the cast register, and finally she had no choice.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: She melted and became kind and nice because I would not return uh you know that that caustic personality for it, and it really felt very empowering to um to not return that.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and she succumbed to it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: People will if you just give them love, you know.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the trip, though.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're up there, and uh here you are an Anglican, and uh a little bit of difference.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I guess they rebelled against the Catholic Church, uh, and uh and uh and and the Anglican church right now, of course, is experiencing a uh a new birth of the uh I guess you'd call it charismatic.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: They believe in all the gifts of the spirit.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you do.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You even have a healing service at your church at 999 Flame Vine at 11 o'clock on Thursdays, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll have anywhere upwards of 25 people uh attending, and people have actually I know somebody who went and uh was prayed for her back and uh was had a miracle and was actually healed there, and uh so there's a lot going on.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So so um I I like the fact you were talking about the mornings.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us more about what it was like up there.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you were at 9,000 feet, was that the height most of the time?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think we we were kind of uh so the tree line is at 7,500 feet, and I I would say about half the time we were.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Above the tree line, above 7,500 feet of altitude.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then about half the time we were below it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we're constantly going uh up into the peaks and the ridgelines and then coming down again.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um each day we would hike, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of eight miles.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: On the surface of it, eight miles does not sound like uh all that much.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what I realized, Rhett, um, being a flatlander from Florida, I I walk, it's not unusual for me to walk four to four to five miles a day.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking, uh, you know, eight miles a day is not gonna be that big of a deal.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can tell you is not all miles are treated the same.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And eight miles when you're you're rising somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 feet of elevation and then coming down the mountain, it's rocks and roots.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then tax and then and then carrying a 25-pound pack on your back, it's totally different.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was one of the most physically demanding things I've ever done in my whole life.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things was interesting as I'm walking along because this is basically the St.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's uh leadership was super kind to me.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they they gave me this trip, they underwrote the trip for me as a sabbatical, as a time of rest.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so the whole time though, I'm so I'm with these, the rest of these Catholic guys and two Catholic priests.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: So in a way, it's a pilgrimage, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm there, I'm on the trail, it's physically demanding, but the whole time, uh you know, part of the time you're you're in conversation with the your fellow hikers on the trail.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're so focused on just putting one foot in front of the other that you you really and you're you're out of breath because um you're at high altitude or you're climbing at such a rapid rate, you really can't carry on a conversation.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the conversation's taking place in your mind or in your heart.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was fascinating, like the the passage that kept coming to mind for me was Psalm 121.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Psalm 121 is one of the most beloved Psalms in all the Bible, and it begins in this way I will lift my eyes to the hills from where does my help come from?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says, He will not let your foot be moved.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in some translations, I'm almost certain it says, He will not let your foot slip.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yea, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, as I'm climbing up on these kind of radical inclines, and you're doing these switchbacks, and maybe just to your right or just to your left, you're gonna have a crevasse that goes down into a valley floor that might be 500 or even more feet down to the canyon uh below.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Lord, don't let my foot slip in this moment.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're walking at times on ground, which is almost like loose rocks.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: The dolomites are limestone cliffs.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if you want to pull up that uh one of those images again, but you can you can see by looking at the photograph that uh that the mountains are almost they're almost white uh because of the limestone and and it chips away fairly easily.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: So where is this in Italy?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Where what north, south, east, west, in the northern part of Italy.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so anyway, the mountains are absolutely stunning.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the uh the landscapes, the vistas are you know probably the most beautiful vistas uh that I've ever seen in my life.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yet there are times when you really can't even, you know, they say stop and smell the roses.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: You you can't really, you gotta stay so focused on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping a sure footing uh that there were times when I couldn't even stop to kind of enjoy the view uh because I needed to stay so focused on keeping my feet uh, you know, solid underneath me.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that happened to me recently.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was attending a uh service at a church up in Vermont, and it was in the basement, and I had to go down all cement steps to a cement floor.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was all excited.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I had my cup of coffee, my Green Mountain coffee, and it was at night.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had these glasses, which are just for reading.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I kept them on, and I missed the last step, and I went down very hard.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Coffee's everywhere.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some men got up, they helped me clean it up.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: My friend John uh and and and and and my my uh my wrists were horribly achy suddenly.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh no, what have I done?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I have a little secret.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: I raised them up to the Lord and I said, Lord, would you heal me?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the pain went away.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I have a friend, she's up here just a few weeks ago, fell down walking backwards out of her car, broke her wrist, have already been in for emergency surgery, and is going to have the plate removed when she comes down to Florida in a few weeks.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta be careful every step.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm staying at a place where the house we have rented has steps.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I go, pay attention because when you get a little older too, but it can happen when you're young too, is watch the steps.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I can understand how you had to stay focused uh, you know, on your where you're walking, because you've got rocks, you've got you've got uh roots, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, so you and and I'm 65 now.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not I'm not in my 20s anymore.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as you say, I mean you're a youngster.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: My vision, my vision is not as good as it once was.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you definitely have to stay focused.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, if I put my foot on this rock, is this rock, you know, uh, is it a loose rock?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a you know a stable rock?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh the whole thing is uh it's it's fascinating.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so anyway, it was it was very cool.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: How did you find out?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: How does a an Anglican who's a charismatic or believing in this?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you'd categorize yourself of, but I know you believe in all the gifts of the spirit.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, how does how did you end up with a group of a couple of Catholic priests and another, what, nine men who were Catholics?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: How did this happen?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because uh John Sherman, who was the leader of the hike who organized it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he John Sherman had three of his sons.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Those were the three guys in their 20s, were John Sherman's sons.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: John Sherman and I both went to the University of Richmond together.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was a third classmate, Rick Stockel, uh, who also went to Richmond.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: We all graduated in 1983 from the University of Richmond.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and so uh John Sherman and I have stayed in close contact uh over the years.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh John Sherman uh works in development.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was uh for years he worked for an organization called Catholic Vote, which is a uh conservative Catholic organization to help Catholics uh vote according to church teaching.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh which sadly many many Catholics don't necessarily consider church teaching when they go into the voting booth.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was Catholic vote.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: He worked for Catholic vote for years, and then he he's more recently uh been in been head of development for something called the Cardinal Newman Society, which is uh raises money for conservative Catholic education.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm I'm glad that exists because you know, in every church you will find the chaff, you'll find the wheat, and only God knows that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, unless the spirit leads them, I mean, prior to me having the holiness of God enter me at the age of 29, the Holy Spirit, I did not think that abortion was a bad thing.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh well, that's a woman's choice, her body, so to speak.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it was only by the Spirit of God that it was revealed to me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord said, I knew you before you were in your mother's womb.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, out of convenience, we should not be taking the lives of our children.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so people who anybody who has participated in that, you do you do need to sincerely repent of that, be sorrowful for it, but remember this God can also wash you white as snow, and there's a new beginning if you are truly sorrowful for what anything you've done.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: That goes for the men that have approved of their babies being aborted, too.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: With uh, you know, so uh yeah, but you know, you never know.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I always tell people uh when I'm on the radio, I say, look, if you're not sure you've been born again, you have you're not, and that's that, because you will know that you know that you know.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Jesus said that he admonished us to say, make sure you are born above.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're to be born once of the flesh, your mother.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're to be born, you must be born of the spirit, and it's like a light switch.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now it was very dramatic for me.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Other people, you know, they said, Oh, well, I've known the Lord since I was three years of age.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I believe him, and and they have the spirit of God.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: It may not be, they may not even know it's a born-again experience, but they have been converted and they absolutely believe Jesus died on the cross for their sins and rose from the dead.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you never know.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it and we're not to judge, we're just to love, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's uh, you know, John Sherman and I have stayed in contact, we've had great conversations over the years about our respective faiths, uh, his, which is in the Catholic tradition, mine, which is obviously in the Anglican tradition, and uh, and so we are uh brothers in every way.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I was I felt very honored uh to be invited to be a part of the group.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you know, let this be let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I find uh there's lots of good people in all the churches, and there's some questionable individuals in all churches.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we're I you know it's not for us to judge, which but I think it's a great experience.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to do that.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I now you're a pastor, and you have a congregation, you have a service on Sundays at 8 a.m.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: and then 10 a.m.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: at 999 Flame Vine.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, and you also have your healing service on Thursday, and you have people, uh your congregants like me who might call you or they have a problem, or somebody's getting a divorce, or they're going through a health situation.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it must have been refreshing for you not to have.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did your cell phone work on the up on that mountain?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Surprisingly, the the service, the internet, um, worked remarkably well.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, is that good or bad?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: There were times um where my cell phone went on SOS mode or whatever, but that was relatively rare.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just about all the time I had service.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um But was it good to be away from you know, to be on sabbatical and hopefully you didn't answer the phone when you're up there?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's interesting.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did get texts from home, uh you know, with some regularity.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And to some extent, that's that was good.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's good for me to be aware.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were some folks who uh lost very dear people close to them, and and so for me to get that message so that I could be aware and pray on the trail for people who are grieving or whatever, I mean, it was was really good.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was not a distraction for me.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I may have said this already, but uh, you know, this is supposed to be a sabbatical for me, a time of rest.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so it's very counterintuitive to think that you're gonna uh beat your body like that, which is really how it felt, like such a physical challenge.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something about that for me that is uh that good adrenaline that comes from being out in God's creation and uh hiking, uh breaking a sweat, uh that is for some reason very restful and resetting for me.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a good time, it was a good sabbatical.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now, were these uh these Catholic priests, or two of them, the other were were men that were uh attend uh different Catholic churches, were they from the USA mostly, or were there Italian uh individuals there?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were all American.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, okay, and yet the two priests were based in Rome.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me ask you this: the Italians, I've been to Italy once, and I must say I I I thought when I was a youngster that it would be a vacation.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: I never expected what I got when I got there.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was a wonderful experience.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the Italians, of course, know that we were made to pluck and eat.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: You you know, you take a near a corn, and within the first 36 hours you eat it, but after 36 hours, it loses 70% of its vitamin C content.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: We were made to pluck and eat the fish that go fishing for that day.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if anybody that likes fish, you know, if you get fresh fish, I was just up in Maine and we had halibut that had been swimming you know a few hours earlier and now and now placed on and grilled for us.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my word, it melts in your mouth.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, did you find that the uh you had breakfast and uh dinner was included at these, they weren't really hostile hostels, what do you call them?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: They were so they're called refugios, but I think so it's a very simple uh they call them huts, also.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um I don't have a photograph to show you, but uh you know, it just looks like a kind of a classic alpine, uh almost like a log cabin kind of a thing where and it probably they serve breakfast and lunch, and they probably have rooms where you can sleep.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there were a couple of nights where the whole group, 10 guys, are all sleeping in the same room, which is uh kind of an interesting experience.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you do about those?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do about the guys that snore?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah, and uh so and it's interesting, like you'd think that oh, you're gonna sleep really, really well, but of course you're hiking all day, your muscles are achy.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, being 65 years old, a guy, I have to get up in the middle of the night a couple of times uh to use the restroom.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so I was always asking for a bed that was kind of near the door so I wouldn't disturb everybody else.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And were most of the men younger than you?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there were three guys who are 65, and then everybody else is either in their 50s or 40s or in their 20s, yeah, which is difficult when you get a little old like this.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 72, I'll be 73 soon.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you you see the difference.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you go, boy, you know, like I'll be I was hiking recently, and this young lady goes, and I'm going, wow, I wish I could walk like that again, you know.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: What did you have in that knapsack?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have a sleeping bag?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: We did not bring sleeping bags at every refugio or hut, there was uh basically there were clean sheets, there was a blanket.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm trying to remember what they call them.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's basically a comforter, um, which to for me, for my liking, it was too hot.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I it was um so we were I was kept telling the guys, hey, we need to open up the windows so it's nice and cool in here.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the the weather was beautiful.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was temperate, it probably got down to you know mid 40s or low 50s at night, and then it was probably 65 or you know, at the most 70.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's perfect weather in Italy, yeah.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was sunny, like you can see in those photographs.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was sunny just about every day.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had one day that was uh kind of cloudy, overcast, and I probably hiked for maybe uh half an hour, one day in a light rain.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that was that was it.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: The weather was really, really good.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so uh how now tell me about the food because the Italians are famous for real, I mean, every meal, anything I got in Italy, it may have been smaller portions, but you can taste the love that's in the food.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you you were given breakfast and dinner at these uh uh refuge places of refuge every night, right?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And how was the food?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Breakfast, kind of a classic breakfast that you would have um, you know, the best I can describe is like shaved meat, shaved slices of meat, you know, whether it's ham, uh beef, um not chicken, but so ham or beef, um, and then you had cheese, and it's just sitting out on a wooden board, and you would take the take uh some of each, then you'd have bread.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um the bread in Europe I think is generally better than the bread that we have in the US.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um Well, the Olympians were told not to eat our bread or food when they came here.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's how, because they have more regulations in Europe, and hopefully that'll be straightened out soon.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you say the bread did taste a lot better, huh?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can't say that it tasted better.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know if it was, you know, these refugios are so much somewhat remote.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if they're getting fresh bread every day or whatever.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was good bread, tasted good, and uh, but I do know that their regulations like they did they don't allow uh glyciphate or I don't know if I'm pronouncing that glyph glycipate to be sprayed on the the wheat uh in Europe.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that their bread, their wheat is just better than ours.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like my body was, I don't know if it was because of all the hiking and the calories I was burning, but uh, you know, of course the bread and the meat and everything else tastes really, really good.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: How about dinners?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: How about dinners?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then dinners, um, because you're in a you're in this uh refugio, it's it's usually limited, like a limited menu.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: You'll have like two or three things that you can choose from.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh invariably you'll have a pasta dish with uh kind of a classic like a marinara or a meat sauce.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I got that, you know, most every night.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um invariably you'd have that plus another thing, like some sort of a meat dish, like uh I don't think we had pork that much.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: But uh we had oh yeah, we had lamb chops one night, which were fantastic.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um basically sheep are everywhere.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh even in the almost in the highest places where there was grass of any kind, uh there were flocks of sheep you could tell had been grazing there at one point or another.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I know that they eat a lot of lamb.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um about pasta products here in Italy.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: How were the pasta products?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, did they serve you pasta products?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was pasta every night of one kind or another.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me most of the night it was most nights it was penne pasta and uh salad to some extent, although you know, looking back on it, yeah, do we have some like cooked vegetables?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not as much, you know, some salad, but uh primarily pasta and meat, um, you know, stews of one kind or another.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um trying to remember goulash.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had goulash one night.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, you're almost like on the German, so there's like a very strong German influence in a lot of the foods.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we did drink uh, you know, we were drinking beer.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times every one of these refugios is sell is you know serving beer, wine wine, and uh Italian wine.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: When I did drink, Italian wine was you know the best.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really good.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, I don't I don't drink a whole lot, but you know, I would have I would have a beer or a glass of wine just about every night, and it was great.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're you're trying so you're at high altitude and you're you're sweating out so much fluid.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so one of the great challenges when you're on hikes like this is um can you can you drink enough so that you don't get dehydrated?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh stay hydrated, yeah.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so thankfully I I never got dehydrated on the trip.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I got I was thirsty all the time, but I never got you know seriously dehydrated.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Was the uh fresh water drinkable?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it was up on the mountaintops, right?
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that there was only one time that I remember going to a tap, and there was a sign over the tap saying, uh, this water is not drinkable.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was only for washing.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, but most of the time, you know, you can drink right out of the tap.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Although it was interesting, like a lot of times people would say, Yeah, you can drink out of the tap, but there's like I'm trying to remember exactly what they were saying about it.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there was so much mineral content in the water that it was actually better to drink bottled water when you could, if that makes sense.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask you something else.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to remember what I was gonna ask you now.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oh, were most of the people who served you at these uh refuges, these refugees?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: Refugio.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's refuge uh at night.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Were they uh did they speak English or were they mostly limited to Italia, Italian?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or almost everyone spoke English.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were very friendly to Americans, uh, which is not always the case uh in certain parts of Europe, uh, and especially given kind of the political dynamics in the world today.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were very friendly to Americans, a good number of Americans on the trail.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um interestingly, a lot of people have their dogs on the trail.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm like thinking, and and there were Rhett, there were a lot of people.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm 65 years old.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are there were quite a few people who I could tell they were older than I am who were out on the trail.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if they were doing like day hikes, I don't know if they were doing uh like the hut to hut hikes that we were doing.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, wow, I I was like really surprised because I knew how hard those hikes were.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And to see people who were even older than me or people with dogs out on the trail, I thought, my goodness.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, sometimes you're 9,000 feet up.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: But in case somebody's just tuned in, we're talking with Pastor John Robbins from the Anglican Church here in Vero Beach, Florida, and it's over on 999 Flame Vine.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, you went up, uh he went up into the mountains called the Dolomites, which I've never heard of till this point, and you uh were going with uh how how many men totally traveled and for how many days and nights?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there were 10 of us, and uh we I left Vero uh or I flew out of Orlando on um 9-11 of all days, and uh came home on the 20th of September.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it was about nine days total, but uh, I think seven or eight days on the trail specifically.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a guy like me who's in his 70s, should I want to do this, uh, maybe I could take shorter daily hikes.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, how much training would you recommend uh that the average guy like me should go through prior to going on an adventure like this?
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a great question, and I think that you could tailor the experience to your ability or fitness level.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would absolutely not recommend what we did unless you were in top shape.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I like I said, I walk four to five miles a day in Florida, and uh, but even for me, I mean, I'm in I'm in good shape, uh, play tennis regularly.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for me, it was basically challenging me at the uttermost of my physical capacity.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And yet you walk four and five miles a day in Vero.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: In Vero, but it's hugely different to hike up those inclines with a 25-pound pack backpack.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's entirely different at that altitude.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, but um, if Rhett Palmer and Barbara wanted to go to the Dolomites, you could kind of go and hang out in one area and just make kind of simple day hikes and and go as far uh as you wanted to go or as far as you felt like you could go before returning uh to the refugio.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: If that's now did any, did any of your uh did any of the 10 men anybody have a bad ankle or any kind of a mishap or a fall?
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every guy on the trip had one thing or another.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not a bad fall, but uh we had guys with bad knees uh that did not necessarily, when they went on the trip, it was like, yeah, I've got I have kind of a, you know, kind of an issue with my right knee.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, when you put joints under that kind of pressure, you know, whatever weakness is gonna come out.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, a lot of the guys, uh, you know, like I said, it was it was super challenging.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you had a little bit of a bulky knee, you were gonna feel it on that trip.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, let's I remember years ago I hurt my knee.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was interviewing Tommy Lee Jones, the actor, and I knelt down to keep the microphone on him as he was leaning down to sign an autograph, and I felt a pop in my leg.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to go and get a uh it's a black thing that has Velcro on and a hole around the knee.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually, I don't know what they call that, but it actually helped.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Were you able to were you anywhere near civilization where one of the men could get a brace or go go down into a little village or something and purchase uh Advil, for instance, which reduces uh inflammation?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean it that was that was something that came up.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was interesting.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like one of the guys right after returning from uh the trip had a kidney stone.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh all of us were thinking to ourselves, my goodness, if that had happened, like some of the areas where you're hiking are very remote.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so you're hiking from hut to hut.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: So like when you get to a hut, um, there's oftentimes a road that, you know, once you got to the hut, you know, you could call, you know, you could call for help and a car could probably come to the hut and drive you to somewhere where you could get help.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, let's say between the huts, like I said, it was an eight-mile hike, let's say, and some places were high up in the peaks.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if if you've ever had a kidney stone, it literally stops you dead in your tracks.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you cannot move.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had a I had a kidney stone about 10 years ago, and I literally had to lie down on a sidewalk, and uh, you know, the EMTs had to come and and scoop me up off the pavement and take me to the hospital.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if that had happened while we were out on the trail, I don't know what we would have done.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you call a helicopter in or whatever?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there were definitely helicopter pads at uh just about each one of the refugios.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly that was something that, you know, either it happened or that they were prepared for.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: There were guys, I think there were guys who had stomach issues.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And looking back on it, I'm almost wondering, you know, when you're at altitude, you know, it's not unusual to have stomach issues to have, you know, altitude uh sickness of one kind or another.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a feeling that some of those guys who are having stomach issues at high altitude, it was probably altitude related.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, uh, I don't know if you've seen it yet.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: The movie was called The Way with Martin Sheen, and it plays a father who walks the Camino di Santiago pilgrimage uh route in Spain that's known as a spiritual chair trek.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he was a he was a doctor in the movie and uh didn't have much time for his son, but his son went went uh took took the hike on the Camino de San Diego and actually fell and was killed.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: So he left his practice and went on this hike, and it was life-changing the way.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, have you seen that movie yet?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have not seen it, but I heard a lot about the Camino.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the Camino, I my daughter-in-law uh made the Camino uh trek some years ago, uh, before she married our son, and uh spoken very, very highly of it as a very famous pilgrimage hike, and uh and so that that hike came up in conversation on the trip, you know, quite a few times.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, we're almost out of time, Pastor John Robbins.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's just gotten back from the Dolomites in Italy, where he went with 10 other men, and it was a sabbatical for him.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um most of them happen to be Catholic.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: John, of course, is a uh Anglican pastor at St.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's in Vero Beach, Florida, a 999 Flame Vine.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you have your services on Thursdays at 11 for a healing service and Sundays at 8 a.m., 10 a.m.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh, Pastor John Robbins, I'd like to know, um, is there anything you came today, any story or recollection that you wanted to make sure you told that perhaps I didn't uh tickle your memory uh or ask the right question?
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: What do you take, what's the takeaway from all of this?
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's a great question.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the things that was uh so revealing for me is um, I mean, I keep talking about how challenging these hikes were.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that uh really struck me along the way is uh number one, the power of the human will uh to continue on, uh even in the midst of great hardship.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were tons of times on the trail when I thought, you know, I don't know if I can even take one more step.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, uh and so in my heart and my mind, I'm like, Lord, please help me just take one more step.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if there there may be people who are listening to this podcast today who are you're almost wondering, Lord, can I really go one more step in my life?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the the powerful things is you know, with the Lord through him, we can do all things who gives us strength.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the other takeaway that I t I took from it was because you're in a group of nine other uh people, and in this case nine other guys, you don't want to be the one who's gonna say, please let's stop now so I can take a rest.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it not only spoke to me about the power of the human will to keep moving, to keep putting one foot in front of the other with God's strength and by His His will, it also spoke to the power of community, Christian community, that we desperately need each other.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're together, we can achieve much more than any of us all by ourselves can achieve.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I was by myself, I probably would have said, okay, I'm done here.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have laid down my pack and you know, and and uh not gone nearly as far as I did, but I was able to, you know, finish the trek because of these other guys.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, listen, uh yeah, it's it's good for brethren to dwell together.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Pastor John Robbins, and uh and I'm glad you enjoyed your hike up in the uh what is what are they called?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Dolomites Dolomites, the Italian Alps.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh God bless you, and thanks for coming on our broadcast today.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Rhett.