TL;DR
Two travel-shaped books—one theological, one memoir—arrive at the same insight: the harder we grasp for control, the more isolated we become. Transformation begins with letting go.
Author’s Note:
This is the third of a week full of “book review” posts
I tend to get a lot of books in the mail—and I mean a lot. Not all of them end up being a good fit for the podcast, but I do try, at the very least, to offer some kind of written reflection or review.
Two recent books that landed on my desk took a surprisingly similar approach.
One, A Pilgrimage into Letting Go by Andrew and Kara Root, will soon turn into a podcast interview with Kara Root. The other, The Traveler’s Path by Douglas J. Brouwer, also uses travel as its central frame—though with a very different tone and aim.
In the Roots’ case, Andrew and Kara use a family pilgrimage as a way to make a broader parental and theological point: control is fleeting, illusory, and ultimately corrosive.
They write,
“The more we want to control the world—make it all visible, reachable, manageable and useful—the more the world withdraws. We end up connecting to the world as points of aggression because the world fickly hides itself from us. We work in opposition to our own aim. Our desperate grabbing for control leads us to manifest the very things we fear: isolating, unmoved, and disconnected feelings of discontent” (105).
Brouwer’s book is far less theological and functions more as a memoir of a life shaped by travel. Still, I found the final chapters especially compelling. Near the end, Brouwer describes attempting to “go back home” to the Netherlands—the country his grandmother immigrated from years earlier. Despite familiarity with the language and culture, he slowly realizes he is unmistakably American. No matter how well-traveled he is, he cannot fully belong.
That realization comes into sharp relief during an American Thanksgiving—“just another Thursday” in the Netherlands—when he tries to make his way to a gathering of Americans celebrating the holiday. His own family, of course, is back in the States.
The loneliness of that moment lingers.
Reading that chapter, I couldn’t help but hear an echo of the Roots’ argument. Brouwer, in his own way, seemed to be seeking control—to make himself Dutch, to locate belonging through geography and effort. Instead, like the Roots suggest, the attempt at control only produced isolation and disconnection from those he loved most.
One other overlap between the books stood out to me. Brouwer notes that “for an adventure to be worthy, it should change me and it should change others” (14). The Roots say something similar, though more explicitly theological, asking, “What if the journey of a pilgrim is a constant journey of forgiveness?” (226).
Both books also circle around the theme of desire. The Roots engage Augustine directly, asking, “The Christian life is first and foremost what you desire. What is your longing pointed toward? … What’s all it for?” (188). Brouwer, too, recounts a season late in his career when he wasn’t exactly unhappy—but neither was he fulfilled. A counselor presses him to look deeper: what was his ministry actually for?
In that sense, travel becomes formative. For Brouwer, it seems to cultivate humility and curiosity—virtues that sit comfortably alongside the Roots’ emphasis on uncontrollability and letting go.
The Roots also draw on Hartmut Rosa’s concept of resonance, and I couldn’t help but think Brouwer would intuitively understand it. His descriptions of awe—on mountaintops, at the edge of the Grand Canyon, in moments of beauty that resist explanation—read like lived experiences of resonance.
I suspect Brouwer would agree with the Roots’ assessment that
“Modernity offers a form of life that is tempted to see creatureliness as a problem that we can innovate ourselves out of if we just do the right [stuff]” (144).
While I found the Roots’ book more engaging and generative than Brouwer’s, both ultimately gesture toward the same truth: every journey—whether framed as pilgrimage or travel—can become an occasion for transformation, if we are willing to relinquish control and let ourselves be changed.