Bill Belew

Everyone’s got themselves in a hurry.
In the movie “Shawshank Redemption”, at age 73 and after 50 years in prison Brooks is let out on parole in 1955.

He writes a letter to his friends still kin prison and tells them, “Everyone’s got themselves in a hurry.”

Used to the slow pace of prison life, Brooks could not adjust to a faster pace outside the prison walls.

See the movie if you haven’t to learn what happened.

For the past 2 months I got used to a 3 mph pace. I only had to be where I wanted to be and when I wanted to be there. And the way was never crowded.
This morning I had to be at the train station by a designated time.

Once in the train I had to climb over people’s stuff, ask a 9-yo to please move so I could have the seat next to him, (his grandmother finally explained to him to stand up and let me in), check and recheck times and places for transferring to/from my destinations, all the while listening to multiple conversations as the train eventually hit 50 mph. It was more exhausting than walking 20 miles!

My ending will not be the same as Brook’s. I do realize, however, that everyone has gotten themselves into a hurry.

It’s not realistic, nor do I want to live at 3 mph. But, I can say that it sure was fun while it lasted.

Jake was absolutely remarkable yesterday.
Story time.
I walked the 17+ miles from San Quirico to Radicofani in abt 6.5 hrs. I am not fast. But neither am I slow.

Jake could not leave San Q till 630 pm, because he stayed behind for biz reasons.
I asked the hostel in Radicofani to allow me to let him in at 11 or so.

The hostel in Radicofani adamantly refused to accept new guests after 7:30.
I pleaded with them to let Jake in later.

They finally agreed on 9:45 at the absolute latest. I relayed the time to Jake.
Jake said matter of factly, “I’ll make it.”

He needed to carry his back pack, spingen, et al, abt 15lb total and make the 27km trip, including the brutal climb at the end in 3 hr 15 min in the dark!

There are 80+ climbs on the VF app, rated by difficulty. This section is ranked most difficult – very challenging. I walked it earlier in the day. It was in my top 3 of difficulty.
The hostel refused to believe it was possible.

The 2 Czech kids, 30 and 29, cringed at the attempt. Sneered? Laughed out loud. They had just completed it as well. Coming in after me.

Jake stuffed his speakers and everything else in his backpack and took off running. The road was barren, isolated and there was no water or food along the way.

No support. I tracked him on WhatsApp.
The turn into town was not clear, and finding our hostel was tricky, so I walked the half mile or so to meet him.

When he got close enough I began to call out his name to encourage him.
We met. Hugged briefly. I might have choked up but I’m not saying I did. I grabbed his backpack and carried it for him for the final stretch.

He pulled up to the hostel door at 9:42 pm. Just over 3 hrs of running.
Incredible stamina, imo. Jaw dropping effort in all respects. He did what no one in the know could believe was possible.

We had dinner, cold, ready for him. He gobbled it up.
For him, just another day. He didn’t ask for nor accept praise. He smiled, took a shower, and fell into a deep sleep.

Oh. He turned 51 a couple of days ago.
Jake, simply put, does not complain. He did, however, manage a whisper to me, “That bag got pretty heavy.”

Reverse culture shock.
I reckoned that I would need to transition back to a ‘normal’ routine after the walk.
‘Normal’, however, is a moving target.

After spending nearly 25 years in the Navy, then Far East Asia, mostly Japan, I had to transition back to the US. The ‘issues’ that come up whe transitioning have a name. It’s called ‘reverse culture shock.’ Who knew? Right?

In no particular order I thought to share some of the shock I experience with anyone who is still here … as the shocks come to me.

I’ve begun to measure distances in how long it will take me to walk them. I am staying at a BnB far up a hill. The owner has graciously offered to drive me to town and bring me back whenever I like. He’s a full-time soccer coach in his other life. However, when I look at the map I see it’s only abt 3.5 miles to town. “I can walk that.” is the first thing that comes to mine.

I couldn’t find the bus stop to get me near his place when I arrived in town a couple of days ago. So, I walked up the hill to his place. He was completely taken aback, as was the woman who sold me a Powerade near the top. “You did what?! You walked here?!”

I think what I might be trying to say here is that I’ve fallen into a pit that lies within. It’s hard for me to ask for help, even it makes sense that I do. If I can do it myself, why shouldn’t I?

The answer is – because it’s okay to let other people show me kindness. I like to be kind to others. “Let them be kiind to me, too!” I tell myself. But, it’s hard. Really hard for me. Being completely honest here.

I booked a cruise! Desperate to have a place to sleep that I didn’t have to find and food prepared for me that, again, I didn’t have to find, my wife found a 7-day cruise to Greece and Turkey. Cool, eh? After I got to the port city I learned I had been booted from the ship because of a technical error and my room given to someone else! No cruise. Hello BnB. And no plans on what to do in the coming days … yet.

I think that I could probably walk to the coast and take a ferry to Greece if I wanted to. I really could.
What I may be trying to say is that when this (getting booted) kind of thing happens I become even more prone to want to be self-sufficient, to get back on the trail where I can control things … mostly. Or at least when things go wrong I blame only myself … or Jake.

On one hand, I want to experience the kindness of others, but on the other hand, I can’t depend on others.

Where’s the map?
What to do? I don’t know the answer … yet.

Personality Flaw #2
I am often guilty of not having thought things through.
It would have made all kinds of sense for me to practice a long walk, say 100 miles, before committing myself to nearly 1,200 miles of walking. My farthest practice walk was 22 miles. I’ve done more than that multiple times on this pilgrimage.

I am absolutely sure that had I done a 100-mile practice run, er, walk, there’s no way in creation I would have committed to 1,200. No way. No how.

I am guilty of once I have started something, I will keep going till I break it (flaw #1) or finish what I started. I think that if something is worth starting, then it’s worth finishing. Of course, there are times when a project should be abandoned. It doesn’t make sense to continue. But, I am not able to determine when that is. So. I keep going.

I heard a story that had a tremendous impact on me about a missionary couple. The couple was retiring after 40 years of service. There was a large gathering of Christians taking turns sharing memories. Finally, it was the couple’s turn.

However, before they could speak, an old crooked man from the country they served made his way up front.

“Let me tell you something you don’t know,” he began. “When you came here 40 years ago, we didn’t want you to stay. The first year after you planted your crops, we poisoned them so they would fail. But, you didn’t leave.

“The following year, we decided to burn down your house. Still, you didn’t leave. The third year, you had a young child. We poisoned your child thinking that surely you would leave then. But, you didn’t. It was then we realized that there was something different about you, something special and we’d better learn what it is. And we were glad you stuck it out.” And then he sat down.

How soon people will give up. How soon people will even blame God for their own unwillingness to endure. “Surely, God doesn’t want us here, or for us to continue.” When sticking it out would have made all the difference.

If God wants you to start something, it is with certainty that God wants you to finish. So, I think.
You’d think that with less than 100 miles to go and 1,000 in the bank that I’d be more confident about finishing.

I have aches and pains and other things going on that I don’t mention. But, this I can say. I will either finish this walk or break something trying…and then finish it anyway.
Maybe I’d better rethink that last sentence.
Nah. I don’t think I will.

The Tunnel
I’ve posted about the Swim, and the Ravine. Then, there’s the Tunnel.
At some point when I was preparing for this trek I was in a popular FB group devoted to the VF. One of the often asked questions was some form of ‘How long does it take to finish the entire trek?’

I became curious. I looked in to various routes: the official, the historical, the direct.
I opted for the most direct route that also followed closely the historical route. We always stay in some location on the historical route. I think.

Consequently, we’ve opted to cut distances by swimming, or climbing down, then up.
We came to a one way tunnel for cars. The sign clearly said ‘No bicycles.’ Nothing abt pedestrians. So….

We knew cars could only go one way at a time, and there would be a lag from the time the last car went one way and the other cars started coming.

If we timed it well, and ran fast enough we’d make it. Maybe. The tunnel was only a couple of miles, give or take. And we could save some distance and time. Maybe.

We saw a truck come through pulling a boat. If we had been in the tunnel at the same time, it would have been all over except cleaning up the mess.

There were indents in the walls in the tunnel for who knows why. They were spaced every couple of hundred meters. And they were big enough to hide in and avoid being squished. If we got to them in time.

I am writing this. We made it. Duh. But, of all the short cuts we created, this one we would NOT do again. In addition to being squished, we had the real threat of someone calling the police. Ppl like to squeal on others. Who knows why?

All this corner cutting created a problem I didn’t see coming.
Not only the corner cutting, we are also going faster than I planned. We are not trying to go fast or far. It happens.

We’re going to get done earlier than planned. Much earlier. I will have 2 extra weeks to spend in Rome. What to do with this time is something I am thinking on now.
If you had 2 extra weeks in Rome, what would you do?

In this reflective piece by Bill Belew, the author shares a candid account of his personality flaw of pushing things to their limits, often to the point of breaking.

He recounts a particularly challenging day where he experimented with an early start to beat the heat, only to continue walking through brutal conditions.

Despite the physical and mental challenges, including extreme heat, blisters, and back pain, Belew perseveres through a 60 km (37.2 miles) walk.

The day is marked by disappointment, drudgery, and the struggle to find accommodation. Yet, amidst the hardship, Belew finds a sense of resilience and determination to keep going, even as he acknowledges the need for someone to intervene before he pushes himself too far.

Personality Flaw
I have a personality flaw.

Each day I like to post pictures of pretty thises and thats. And maybe I’ll post a picture of a funny sign. I might tell a story with a happy ending. But not all days are sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

One personality flaw, I have many, is that I push things beyond their limits. I stretch things till they break. You know, to see what is possible. And then when it breaks, I get mad.

Today would be a day that I pushed myself till I broke.

We experimented with getting to bed early, then taking off before dawn, and getting a bunch of miles in before it gets hot. We did good. We were walking at 5am. But. When it got hot, we failed to stop. We kept going

Today was brutal. If you think I’m complaining, you can stop reading now. I’m hoping you will let me share that a lot of my time is a slog. Drudgery. Boredom. Pain. And even feeling sorry for myself a bit. No pity, please.

We really looked forward to Lucca. It was such a letdown. We saw an old medieval wall and another church that was closed. That was the highlight of our day.

We eventually walked a new best – 60 km, 37.2 miles. There was another 37, too. It was 37C. That’s 98.6 F! We were melting.

You’d think that after 900+ miles the blisters would be history. Nope! Two hot spots on my right foot shot pain up my leg every time I stepped. More than 30,000 times my right foot told me, “It hurts, doesn’t it? What did you expect you old coot?”

We walked for 12 hours. There were times I wobbled, times I folded over double because my back hurt so bad. And we still had, 4, 3, 2 hours of non-stop walking to go.

Our evening stay fell through. And then it didn’t. Then it did. While walking I was also trying also to find a place to stay.

“Think happy thoughts!” Good googie moogie. I couldn’t even think.
I was certain that today would be a day that I broke myself. But. I didn’t. I survived. I’ll try again tomorrow to walk myself into the ground…literally.

Will someone please stop me before I do?

Jesus interacted with Peter’s mother-in-law, not only healing here but restoring her dignity and giving her purpose back. No, Jesus wasn’t being demeaning by allowing her to serve them again.

He himself was a servant. No doubt, Peter’s mother-in-law was delighted to be able to show them hospitality. Jesus not only healed her body, he made it possible to get back to doing what she did best.

Jesus cast out demons and here he sent sickness on its way as well. Jesus was engaged in a cosmic battle and he was winning on all fronts. All that went wrong with creation, Jesus aimed to make right again.

When Jesus prayed.

Jesus was God. Fully man and fully God. In that Jesus was God, when he prayed, who was he talking to?

I liken this to me being one person. However, I am a father. I have three children. I am also a son. I have a father, and a mother. (Had). I am also a writer. Peck, peck, peck.

Suppose my father called me (if he were still alive) and said he wanted me to take him to the doctor. At the same time, suppose my daughter called me and asked me to pick her up from school. To complicate things more, I have a deadline to get a writing project done.

How to balance these three demands on my time is a conundrum I need to solve. So, I sit and think about it till I figure it out

That is what I think Jesus is doing when he prays. He is the Creator of the universe, but he has imposed limitations on himself when he became fully man. Yet, he is also a rabbi to his followers. How to balance all those demands is something he needed to ponder regularly. So, he went off into isolation to figure out what to do next. He talked to himself. He prayed.

Jesus is not just another teacher or healer but is engaging in a cosmic battle that completely transforms how we understand His mission.  

Have you ever wondered why people reacted so strongly to Jesus? It wasn’t just His words—they’d heard teachers before. In that synagogue, Jesus wasn’t just teaching… He was declaring war? When He confronted the unclean spirit, He wasn’t just healing one man. He was overthrowing spiritual darkness, publicly showing that all the forces of evil knew exactly who He was before anyone else did.

The demon didn’t just fear Jesus—it recognized that its time was up. When the demon called Him the ‘Holy One of God,’ it wasn’t just naming Him, it was waving a white flag, knowing that Jesus was here to tear down the gates of Hell itself. This wasn’t a quiet teaching moment—this was the start of a cosmic revolution. 

“What makes this even more shocking is that while humans were still trying to figure out if Jesus was just a great prophet or teacher, the spiritual forces already knew they were up against the Son of God. And what’s even crazier? In Jewish tradition, the title ‘Holy One of God’ was reserved for the most sacred of all—God Himself.  

The demon wasn’t confused; it was terrified, because it knew Jesus wasn’t just another rabbi—He was God’s warrior, sent to reclaim the world from darkness.” 

By combining elements of cosmic conflict, spiritual recognition, and the divine authority of Jesus, this passage is more than just a miracle story—it’s the start of a spiritual revolution that still reverberates today. There is a dramatic shift in power dynamics: Jesus isn’t just offering moral teaching but is challenging the deepest forces of evil, transforming the way we see Him from merely a human teacher to the divine liberator. 

In first-century Israel, demon possession was seen as a severe and terrifying condition, distinct from typical illnesses. The symptoms varied widely but often involved a loss of control over one’s body, mind, and voice, with demons believed to seize people, driving them to extreme physical and mental disturbances.

Descriptions include violent outbursts, seizures, and unusual physical strength. In some cases, people would be rendered mute, blind, or even convulsed into foaming at the mouth or other fits that resembled epilepsy. They were also often driven to dangerous behaviors, like self-harm, as seen in the case of the Gerasene demoniac who lived among the tombs, cutting himself with stones (Mark 5:1-5). 

Jewish and Greco-Roman exorcism rituals of the time were elaborate, involving chanting, the use of holy texts like Psalms, or even physical methods like fumigating the demon with smoke and sulfur or immersing the possessed in water. By contrast, Jesus’ method was remarkably direct—he simply spoke, commanding the demons to leave with a word, and they obeyed without the need for complex rituals, demonstrating his unparalleled authority over the spiritual world. 

The phenomenon of possession was often understood as a mingling of the supernatural with real-world afflictions. In many cases, what might today be considered mental illness, such as schizophrenia or epilepsy, was interpreted as demonic in origin. However, during this time, the spiritual and physical worlds were deeply intertwined, so signs of madness, extreme fear, or physical debilitation were seen as the presence of a foreign spirit, an agent of chaos sent to torment or inhabit the individual. 

Possessed people were marginalized, often viewed as cursed or dangerous, living on the fringes of society. Jesus’ interaction with them—whether healing or exorcism—challenged social norms. It demonstrated not only his divine power but also his compassion, as he restored both their spiritual and physical health, reintegrating them into society. 

Understanding of demonic possession provides a vivid backdrop to the first-century fear of the unseen forces that could destroy a person’s life, making Jesus’ exorcisms even more powerful as acts of liberation, striking at the heart of what people feared most: the loss of themselves to dark forces they could not control. 

Mark 1:21-28 – My Take 

A cosmic battle began when Jesus came to bring ‘up there down here.’ When Jesus announced that God’s kingdom was coming from outside our cosmos to Earth he was declaring war against evil. 

The battles occurred in different forms. 

In the Marvel universe, Thanos may resemble Satan. Ironman, Captain America, Black Widow and the like may resemble the disciples. No character in the Marvel Universe resembles Jesus. Because the enemy had no chance against him. 

We are left to wonder why Jesus, fully God and fully man, didn’t just give Satan a whooping and call it a day. Perhaps, he wanted us to know the joy of winning, too. So … he invited, make that he invites us to join him. 

Jesus wins. 

It’s not enough to just know the Bible. We must apply it to our lives. 

Jesus’ words, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you …” Jesus was not business as usual. 

Jesus was taking on evil and we are invited to not only watch but to also participate. 

The demons know who Jesus is. Why is there any doubt among us mortals. 

We simply can’t just stand by and be indifferent. We are called to participate.