Ep. 343 Andrew & Kara Root - A Pilgrimage Into Letting Go - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Andrew Root (00:00):
And what does it mean to be on this path with

(00:02):
these kids, with thiscongregation saying goodbye and
saying hello and meeting peoplealong the way, but always aim
towards this the holy towardsyou know, God's very presence.
You Joshua,

Joshua Johnson (00:27):
hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, you know,
life has a way of confronting uswith the limits of our control.
Parenting, pastoring andpilgrimage all press us into the
reality that we can't manage orscript our way into

(00:49):
transformation in this episodeof shifting culture, I sit down
with Andrew and Kara root toexplore what it means to let go
of our children, of ourcongregations, of our
expectations, and Discover theGift of uncontrollability along
the way. Their new book, apilgrimage into letting go, is
born out of walking st Cuthbertway through the Scottish

(01:11):
Highlands with her kids on thetrail. Every step became a
prayer, every argument andinvitation to surrender, and
every surprise a lesson andpresence together, we talk about
how parenting and pastoring canbe a pilgrimage, why our
culture's obsession with controlsteals resonance, and how the
way of Jesus opens us up toencounter God in the mess and

(01:33):
beauty of the journey. This is aconversation about release and
trust, about walking the pathtogether, even when it winds
through uncertainty, and abouthow the spirit meets us when we
loosen our grip. So join us.
Here is my conversation withAndrew and Kara root. Andy Kara,
welcome to shifting culture.

(01:55):
Excited to have you both on atthe same time. Andy, it's been
four or five times now. Kara,the first time you've been on
I'm really excited that you getto join us. We'll see what the
dynamic is with you. And Andy begreat.

You might watch this podcast. Might be watched,
who married people fight, andwe'll see how that goes.

Well, we're going to dive into a pilgrimage,
into letting go your new bookyou've wrote together taking a
pilgrimage on st Cuthbert swaywith your with your kids, and
you just informed me that youhave now just come back from
Europe as empty nesters. You'vealready sent your daughter off
to college, so now you haveliterally let go. So I want to

(02:39):
know just briefly. How does it,how does it feel at the moment
of the actual letting go ofthings, the

Kara Root (02:47):
feelings haven't let go. I mean, we physically let
go, but it's, it's a toughtransition, yeah? I mean, it's a
journey,

yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I really it hit me hardwhen our son went two years ago,
and our daughter's a littlecloser, so that maybe feels
better, or maybe because we wentto Europe, and then I came back
with this terrible head cold.
It's like I can only reallythink about myself anyhow, so I
don't know, but yeah, it is.
It's really ironic that thisbook comes out. This was not

(03:16):
planned as any kind of great.
You know, I don't know StevenSpielberg like movie press
release, you know, it's not anAndy Kaufman like live
promotional kind of wrestling onLetterman or something, kind of
experience. But we're actually,yeah, letting the book is about

(03:38):
letting go, and we're in themiddle of doing it even more
directly than when we wrote thebook.

So Kara, this pilgrimage itself was your idea
of going on st Cuthbert sway,take me into that for you, what
were you trying to seek? Whatwere you looking for to just go
on pilgrimage?

Kara Root (03:58):
I've spent many years working with the idea of
Sabbath, both just personally,but in practice, in my
congregation, as well as a wayof practicing presence and
pilgrimage, is another way ofdoing that, and one that I
really wanted to experience. Iknew a lot of people who had
gone on the Camino, but thatsounded really hot to me, and

(04:19):
also kind of crowded, frankly.
So there was something about thehighlands, the Scottish
Highlands, that appealed to me.
And just realizing how muchwalking is a part of the
Christian story is a part of,sort of my sense of feeling
present. So wanted to give thata try.

Where did it come in that it was going to be
a family trip, set us up intoyou saying, Let's go on a family
trip, and scheduling it for thebest time in the world to go on
this trip.

Yeah, the best time in the world to plan anything,
yeah. So Cara said she wanted todo this, and we've had this.
We're introverts. Everyone. Ourfamily. So it's sometimes it's
hard for us to talk to eachother like we love being home
and we love being home becausewe are in our own spaces. So we
have to be really deliberate. Ithink about spending time

(05:11):
together, and what that's alwaysbeen for us is traveling. So
because I've just had the realprivilege of being, well, it's
not always a privilege to be onairplanes, but the privilege of
going around and talking topeople about other books and
things that I've just like, theone thing I'm absolutely
dogmatic about is I have to flyjust one airline, and I don't

(05:31):
think they're a sponsor of thisfine podcast, so I won't mention
their name, but like you, youcan get me to come and do you
know anything? Basically, Imean, I'm not going to sleep on
anyone's couch anymore, but Iwill not come if I can't be on
this airline. And that allstarted when my kids were young,
because it was both like so hardto be away from them, and also a
sense of being away to pay itforward. So we could travel

(05:53):
together, but then we would getwe get places with miles, and
have really no money to doanything else but walk, you
know. So, like, we could maybedo one or two things. I could
get them to Sydney, Australia,but, you know, we could go to
the aquarium, and that was aboutall we could do, and maybe some
ice cream along the way. Andthen as we just walk these
cities, so kind of walking andtraveling had been part of this,

(06:15):
and we had some of our bestfamily moments, some of our
worst family moments on thesewalks. And so Cara said she
wanted to do this. It just madesense to me that we try to do it
together as an excuse to go tothat part of the world and be in
Scotland and be in theBorderlands and have that
experience.

So as you got up there, how did you start to
realize that this was apilgrimage into letting go, that
there was something to do withcontrol and uncontrollability
that was happening on this walk,this pilgrimage.

Kara Root (06:49):
Yeah, I mean, I had booked everything and tried to
plan down to the smallestdetail, sort of how this was
going to go, except I hadn'tplanned, you know, the
relationships or dynamicsbetween us. And so being being
in a situation where, you know,you've got all your stuff in
suitcases, and you're, you know,eating at restaurants and

(07:10):
showering in different placesalong the way, um, all of a
sudden, I'm bumping up againstthese kids who we've, you know,
raised, and now already know howto do things like eat and
shower, but I'm finding myselfover functioning in asserting
control over things that I'mlike if they haven't learned
this by now, you know, I'm notme telling them this at this age

(07:32):
isn't going to help. And so itreally is, in a sense,
confronted just what is thestage of parenting where you
know you've you've finished someof the steps, and yet you're
still relating to this person,and you're not necessarily
appreciating their choices aboutshowering or eating. But the
real crux of it was that when wehad been walking the first

(07:55):
couple of days, our daughter hadcome off of a injury from a
school bike trip, and so she waswalking pretty slow, and I was
walking along with her, and Andysaid to me one night after we
got to our our location, youknow, I'm surprised by how slow
you're walking, because you'reusually kind of out in front.
You're usually a fast walker.
And I said, I'm just pacingmyself to amazing. He said,
Well, I'll walk with hertomorrow. You go your pace. So
we started the next day, and allof a sudden I was like, my pace.

(08:18):
What is my pace like? I'vespent, you know, 18 years
matching my pace to the pace ofthese little ones that need me,
and now all of a sudden, I'mtrying to figure that piece out.
So it became a prayer. It becamea mantra. Every step was, God,
help me. Let them go. Help me.
Let them go. That that's where,at least on my part, where it

(08:43):
really became that emphasis andthe sense of image, Andy had
been deep diving into Cuthbert,so his was a little bit of a

different path there. Well, yeah, and the other
piece of that, which we didn'treference, that you set us up
for, was that we planned thisfor summer 2020, and then it got
it got canceled, and so wereplanned the whole trip again.
So Cara planned it once, thenCara planned it twice, and we
were going to do it summer 21and Europe opened, and we

(09:11):
thought we were going to dothis, but Scotland never opened,
not without, like a 14 dayquarantine or something. So it
got pushed off until August 22and that became a blessing. Like
we didn't go into this thinking,you know, when we planned this
in 2020 that this was some kindof ritual of letting our kids
move into adulthood, orrealizing that we're kind of,

(09:34):
you know, firstborn kids. BothKara and I are firstborn, and,
you know, our control freaks. Itwasn't a kind of spiritual walk
of giving up control. But itjust so happened now that here
in 22 our son was a risingsenior, and our daughter would
be in the middle of high school.
And it really did become anexperience of kind of walking
every step and letting lettingour kids go and our son, when we
planned this originally, in 2020we were kind of worried about

(09:57):
him. He was kind of class. Like,for his generation of spending a
lot of time on the computer, andwe're like, gosh, can he walk
this? And through the end of thepandemic, he became a major
Walker, like he, he, kind of,the way he, he coped with just
the stresses of the pandemic waseventually, towards the end of
it, after a very sedentary kindof situation for half of it, the
second half of it was to walkand to move. And so he became

(10:20):
our leader, you know,ironically, but that meant he
was out ahead. And for Cara,firstborn, I'm a firstborn, our
firstborn who will refuse to becontrolled as a firstborn, would
be out ahead. And the first fewdays were like, slow down, stop.
And then he always had an earbudin his ear, and I wanted to
strangle him, and like, youknow, wanted to control the
experience he was having, like,be here, be present. You know,

(10:42):
don't be listening to music or apodcast or whatever you're
doing. And it did really becomea spiritual practice for us of
just letting him go, like,literally go out ahead of us and
watch him stop and then wait forus. And you know, we've known
this since he was small. Themore we tried to control him,
the more he rebelled, and themore we gave him freedom, the

(11:03):
more he kind of came back to us.
But it really became embodied inin The walk itself, watching him
do that. But it took a good twodays for us to to do that.

Tell me about Cuthbert. You go on, st,
Cuthbert sway, who is Cuthbert?
He's a this crazy mystic man.
There's some crazy storiesaround him. So, crazy, yeah,

so, like, the crazy thing about Cuthbert, so, you
know, you're talking about akind of North Umbrian, kind of
mystic seventh century, becomesa bishop, doesn't want to be a
bishop. The interesting thingabout him is we have nothing
from his own head. Like, youknow, we don't have any sermons,
we have no disputations. We havenothing from his own hand that's

(11:48):
left with us. The only thing wehave is the Venerable Bede, who
was a generation after him,never really knew Cuthbert, but
knew people who knew Cuthbertwrote about him, and he kind of
has become the Saint of theNorth, for people in the North
of England and in theborderlands in Scotland, he's
become this kind of Saint andand this kind of representation

(12:08):
of that. And so, yeah, so he's,he's, I think he's born 635 and
and becomes a monk after kind ofhaving a military career, they
think. But does all these kindof crazy miracles. And what he's
really known for is miraclesthat He did after he died. Where
the this, this pilgrimage endsis on the holy island of
Lindisfarne, which you walkacross on the mud flats. And he

(12:32):
died on an island off of thatbecause that wasn't remote
enough. So he had to go toanother kind of remote island.
Because, you know, all themystics of the Christian
tradition go out into the desertsince, since, since Anthony. But
the poor British Isles monks,they didn't have any deserts to
go to. But then they looked atthe oceans and realized, Oh,
hey, that's basically a desert.
So they try to get as far outinto the ocean as they as they
could. And so he dies there, butthen the monks bring him back to

(12:54):
the holy island of Linda's farm,and then exhume his body. I
don't know. I think it's 13years later or something, which
is kind of tradition, andthere's no, no decomposing of
his body. So the monks realizethat this means there's a
holiness running through him.
But then even more so be reportsthat his his corpse essentially

(13:16):
starts doing miracles. You know,people are sick, are touched by
his corpse. There's a reallysuper gross story about a kid
drinking the water that hislike, after 13 year body was
washed in, drank it and washealed. So, you know, like,
there's some crazy stuff in theChristian tradition that for us
moderns is hard to evencontemplate. And once you have

(13:40):
germ theory, it's really superhard to kind of think about this
stuff. But yeah, that's the ideaof it. And then it was
eventually buried in with Bede,actually, in the Durham
Cathedral, in, in in in England.
So interesting guy, andinteresting that we don't have
any any sermons. It's just kindof reports of the miracles his
dead body did, and then, ofcourse, his during his own

(14:01):
ministry, the miracles he did aswell.

So then why do you take partment Rosa and the
uncontrollability of the worldand use that as a conversation
partner within your book,talking about resonance and
really uncontrollability all theway through this pilgrimage.
What was it about Rosa and thatbook specifically that really

(14:27):
resonated, resonated, of course,with with what you were trying
to do.

It's impossible to talk about Rosa and not use
puns. I don't know. I don't knowif you want to start with that
Cara, start

Kara Root (14:38):
by saying Andy has was like immersed in rose at the
time, and he couldn't help but,you know, start applying these
theories to our to what we wereexperiencing.

Yeah, yeah. And in that book, rose even talks about
raising children around kind ofcontrollability. And he does
this. It's a very small chapterin the in this, in the little
book The uncontrollability ofthe world, where he just talks
even about life cycles and. Incontrol, and now how we're even
trying, as late modern people,to control death, you know, like
we're trying to the last stageof our lives and how we die.

(15:08):
We're trying to control that.
And, you know, I don't know, wemade some kind of comment at
some point as we planned thistrip, like maybe we could write
a book off of this car. Haswritten two books, and I sit in
this monastic cell in mybasement, and, you know, peck
away at the keyboard trying towrite books. And we thought,
well, maybe there could be abook here. But I remember
sitting on the plane going homeand thinking, you know, it would

(15:29):
be really interesting,essentially, to give a
commentary of Rose's little bookwith the through line of this
trip, and kind of thinking aboutleadership and parenting as an
invitation intouncontrollability, because I
just do think this is thedynamic of of both, that it
feels like we're managing forcontrol, and it ends up doing
the opposite of what we want.

Kara Root (15:51):
But here's how that goes. Is like four months later,
I'm sitting in the dining roomand I get an email from my
basement from Andy, saying, Hey,we're writing a book together.
Here's my 40,000 words. Add yourown and change whatever you
want. And I was like, Andy, Imean, he just kind of went with

(16:14):
it to see, I think, could thiswork? And then thought, oh,
maybe it could. And then kind ofbatted it over to me. So it
wasn't even like we sat downtogether and plotted out, you
know, here's how this book isgoing to go. And actually was a
gift to me, because I usuallywrite just like a pile of things
that have to find the throughline. And he just sort of handed
me the skeleton and said, Okay,you want with it. So it was

(16:35):
really fun.

Yeah, you had to let control go when it comes to
the writing of this book aswell. So take us into this, this
modern age we live in. And whyare we control freaks? Like, why
do we want to controleverything? Why do we want to
make sure that we can move andshake everything so that it
bends to our own will?

Yeah, I think this is one of the really interesting
pieces about Rosa, because onereaction would be, we're control
freaks because we're just asmodern people. We're just awful
people, like, you know, likemodernity has made us terrible
people. We're justconsumeristic. We're just, you
know, willing to just kind ofdestroy the earth for our own
sakes. We're, you know, we're,this is, this is what makes us

(17:20):
so bad. But actually rose thisgreat lover of humanity, and
doesn't think that we want tocontrol the world because we
hate the world, or we have anykind of diabolical response to
it, that we actually really wantto love the world, that we have
experiences that speak to us insuch a deep way. But one of the
kind of curses, I guess, ofbeing modern is that we then are

(17:42):
kind of propelled to try tocontrol those experiences and
get more of those experiences.
So it's actually out of a loveof being spoken to by the world,
being connected, say even tonature, or in this context of
this book, connected to ourchildren. I mean, we love our
children so much and have suchdeep, resonant experiences with
them, and feel such deepresponsibility for them because

(18:03):
of the deep experiences we'vehad with them, that we think
that the only response, and thisis the tragic element of being
modern. We think the onlyresponse is then to control
them, you know, or control thethe environment in which they
live, so nothing bad wouldhappen. Or, I mean, even that's
a little bit too pejorative. Sonothing would disconnect us from

(18:23):
them. And then it's tragic,because we end up destroying the
very thing that we we desire.
And yet, you know, and it wouldbe, it would be complete folly.
I mean, it would be utterlycomplete folly. For, you know, a
fairy tale, if us late modernpeople weren't so good at it.
You know, we're actually reallygood at controlling stuff. You

(18:45):
know, like, we can control,Well, depends on who you talk
to. We can control the weather,or some people control the
weather, but, you know, like, wecan at least control the
temperature in our buildings. Wecan control air travel. I mean,
we're we can get around theearth so quickly. I mean,
there's a lot of dynamics wherewe've, as modern people, been

(19:06):
able to control a lot ofcontingencies, and so, you know,
it would be utter folly for usif we weren't so good at it. But
the reality is is both leading acongregation and Cara can talk
more about this, but being aparent out of the impulse to be
so connected with them, weactually kind of are pulled into

(19:26):
the illusion that we need tocontrol them, and it actually
destroys the very thing we wantthe most, which is to have these
encounters, these conversations.

Kara Root (19:35):
Yeah, it's it's not always negative or preventative.
It's even like we're going tomake good memories now. So you
all need to show up and careabout this, like, I care about
it. Or, I mean,

I tried to do that in Europe this summer too,
you know, it didn't, didn'twork.

Yeah, you almost guarantee it won't happen. When
you're like, today, we're gonnahave three great memories that
you're gonna remember the restof your life. You know, like on

Kara Root (19:59):
you're gonna. Love this as much as I do, or as much
as I think you should. I mean,we do that in in in
congregations as well as withour

families. What?
How do you do that incongregations like, what? What
is it that we control, as youknow, congregational leaders?

Kara Root (20:15):
Well, um, I mean, I think we, we try to control,
sort of, the message peoplereceive the experience that
people have. We definitely haveexpectations going into things
as far as what we want people totake away from experiences. But
I also think we're afraid, veryafraid of the uncontrollable
elements. I can remember somevisitors to our congregation

(20:39):
many years ago who had been inchurch leadership and were a
little upset that in our prayerpractice, we were kind of open
mic about letting people share.
Somebody shared something thatwas kind of uncomfortable for
them, and came up afterwards andsaid to me, you know, when we
lead, we don't let just anybodysay anything, and because you're
you're also like thinking whenthat's happening, it is a moment

(20:59):
that's completelyuncontrollable. And, you know,
is this reflecting poorly on meor on the congregation, or on
what I want people to take awayfrom this? And what will people
think instead of, you know, theHoly Spirit meets us when we're
human alongside of each other,and being human is messy, and
all things happen. And that'snot the end of the story.
There's always follow up, andGod meets us in that as well.

Joshua Johnso (21:23):
Uncontrollability is counter to all of us, modern
people like I feel veryuncomfortable with
uncontrollability. And why isthat? Why is uncontrollability
actually good? What is it? Whatmakes it good for

us? Yeah, well, I think what potentially makes it
good, or the kind of throughline, I think in this book, Rosa
develops that we want to develophere and relate to parenting and
pastoral work is actually, Imean, underneath this, and I
guess maybe why I like Rosa somuch, he's he's working a kind
of philosophical school of kindof Jewish philosophy that goes

(22:01):
back to Martin Buber. And inBuber kind of point, of course,
everyone who hears the nameMartin Buber knows the
difference between the I it andin the i thou. But buber's basic
point is, like in a modernsociety, you actually do have to
have I it relationships. Youknow you have to relate to
people, some people as it's, forinstance, the telemarketer that

(22:21):
calls you, or, you know, theclerk at the at the at the
supermarket, or something like,you know, there's certain you
just have to, there's just toomany people. We're not living in
kind of small villages orsomething. So there has to be I
it, relationships. But theproblem is, is that our kind of
muscles get built for I it, andwe lose the I thou, and we lose.

(22:43):
And what he really means by Ithou is the conversation, this
kind of conversational dynamic.
And so why uncontrollability isso important is not because we
should ever glorify chaos.
Because I think that's one wayto look at it. Is like, and we
say this in the book, like, thelast thing we want is our
children. I mean, we're a littlebit probably more okay with this

(23:03):
than even two three years ago,like setting the menu, you know,
like we would just have chickenfingers every night if they were
in control the menu. And I'msurely, you know, even now, I'm
not ready for them to take Iwill never be ready for them to
take control of the familybudget. You know what? I mean,
like, so it's, it's, it's notlike an invitation into chaos,

(23:24):
but the uncontrollability isthere, much like a conversation
where, when you are in a deepconversation with another human
being, you do have to be in astance of the uncontrollable,
like where you're actuallylistening to what they say, not
controlling what they say. Andwe've all had those
conversations with people wherewe know they're not listening to
us, they're just waiting for usto stop talking so they can

(23:45):
talk, and that ends up beingkind of devoid of relationship.

Kara Root (23:50):
And just to clarify the I it dynamic is more like
transactional relationships. Imean, we have transactional
relationships all the time, butthe problem is that then we turn
those close relationships thatwe're that are meant to be this
sort of differentiation andconnection into transactional
relationships, because that's aneasy way to feel in control and

(24:11):
to try to get the other personto be like how we think it
should be, so that we feel moresecure. It's a modern sort of
gut response, I think, to choosethat we're not going to do that,
rather than, like,acknowledging, oh, this is a
transactional moment. No, likewe're that's kind of the default
setting. It feels like, yeah.

And then there is the dynamic that we just work
with an imagination of a certainkind of economic kind of
category in our minds. So we dothink, like, I don't know if you
felt this way in Europe, Joshuathis this summer, but you're
like, we paid a lot of money forthis. Like, we, we need to have
an experience like, I, you knowthis will be completely,
completely wasted. And I thinkeven pastors can feel that way.

(24:54):
Like, you know, no one would saypeople paid to be here, but you
do feel like, if this is pure.
Chaos, or there's an opennessfor the uncontrollable people.
Yeah, that that people didn'tpay for that. You know, people
paid. They have have have a goodexperience. And again, we
probably, crassly wouldn't sayit that way, but it's amazing
how we function that way withour kids, you know, like, you

(25:15):
know, I I paid not to have myflight be delayed for God's
sakes and and now you're ruiningour experience, or, or, you
know, or whatever,

Kara Root (25:26):
or the one time you go to the all inclusive, and
you've paid, you've paid ahead,but then you get the stomach
flu, and you're like, I have toeat. I have to money's worth

exactly, exactly. Yes, I think we, yeah,
we had delays on every singleplane and train ride in Europe
this summer. And you know,that's just how it goes. You
also talk a little bit aboutaggressiveness and how us modern
people are just aggressive tostart. And one of the things you

(25:57):
talk about, like slowing down isnot going to help us move
towards something or takevacations and get rid of some of
this aggression that we allhave. Where does the
aggressiveness come into playwith this control that we want
to have in this world?

Yeah, well, I mean, this is how Rosa actually starts
the book, which I think isfascinating in some ways how our
pilgrimage started, too, is hesays, when we have this kind of
drive to control things again,because we want the goods out of
them, we want to extract thegoods we think we've paid for
the goods, so we want the goodsback. What it ends up doing is
creating in us not a point ofconnection with the people we're

(26:36):
with, but a point of aggression,where we feel like everyone we
encounter? Well, I mean, I don'tknow you. You're probably better
in your airport delays than Iam, but I, you know, like when
I'm in a major delay, everyother human being becomes a
point of aggression for me. Youknow, it's like, Get out of my
way. Why are you walking soslow? Hasn't anyone ever taught

(26:57):
you people not to walk fourpeople across because I got a
place I got to be somewherewhich I have nowhere to be, but
I feel like I have somewhere togo, like I'm being I'm being
blocked from living well andliving in the way I want to. So
everything I encounter is thiskind of point of aggression. And
so there is a sense of what itmeans to be human is to live at

(27:17):
points that we're always livingat points in the sense that
we're living at the points ofencounter with one another, and
those points can be filled withconnection, or they can be can
filled with conflict. But italso means that we live for a
point like, you know, what's thepoint of your life? What's
what's the point of this, thistrip? And when we do kind of get
control, to seep in, then thosepoints all become very

(27:39):
aggressive. The point is tomaximize my kids. You know, you
see, think of this with likeyouth sports. The point of this
is so my kid can get the mostthings out of this, and so all
the other kids who are gettingmore playing time than my kid. I
hate those people, you know,like you start to feel like this
is a, you know, you end up inconflict. This is one of the

(28:02):
reasons why we can see so manysocial media videos of parents
behaving badly at sportingevents. Is because they their
kids enjoyment of the sport getsovertaken for some kind of form
of acceleration or fromextracting some goods out of it,
and so it just becomes a pointof aggression, you know, and
ultimately, they want their kidjust to have a good experience,

(28:23):
but the next thing they know,they're taking a swing at an
umpire or, you know, yelling atanother parent, and they just
feel like the whole the point ofwhat they're supposed to get out
of this is their kid is supposedto receive some goods from it
that can build and keep themfrom falling behind, and it
leads to this deep sense of kindof aggression, so you lose the

(28:45):
conversation. The kid doesn'teven get to have a conversation
with the sport anymore, if wekind of can push the analogy now
it's like it's not about thelove of the game, it's about
what this coach can get for us,and this coach doesn't see my
kid the way they are. So someoneneeds to take control this
situation, and as the parent,I'm going to take control the
situation, and then you get allthe terrible videos.

Kara Root (29:05):
And if we can't control other people, I mean, we
CO we go into it with our owngoals and aims and objectives
and expectations, and then theyclash up against somebody
else's, and then they are just abarrier to our our drive, and
then become a point ofaggression, rather than a sense
of of security, and somethingdeeper than this moment we have

(29:27):
to make happen the way we thinkit should happen, bumping up
against them, having the sameexact feelings and attempts to
meet their needs.

So what's happening with the and you Kara
when you're bumping up againstothers and your expectations of
others. How do you move yourselfback into saying, Okay, we
could, I could let that go andlet go of my expectations of
them. What's happening inside ofyou to be able to let go?

Kara Root (29:55):
Well, I mean, sometimes nothing until later.
I. I mean, sometimes I'm just,I'm the jerk in the point of
aggression. And it isn't until,you know, I've vented to Andy
and processed and, you know,sort of stepped back and
rethought situation, but, um,but the moments that it breaks
through, I think, is when we seeeach other as human beings, and,

(30:16):
you know, recognize that at ourcore we we all need and want the
same things. We all wantconnection and belonging and
security and groundedness andmeaning and purpose and all of
these, these things that arereally beautiful. We just have
differing approaches orstrategies in the moment. And so
when I can recognize thehumanity of someone else that
will, that will break open forme that moment, and call me back

(30:40):
to the i thou, instead of the Iit, you know, instead of this
person being this barrier to mydesires to see them in their
humanity, which also gives mesome compassion for my own
humanity in the moment. Andlike, oh, I jumped to aggression
here. And really it's because Ithis longing I have is so deep
and I care about it, so thatthere's some mutual empathy that

(31:01):
can emerge when we can recognizeone another's personhood.

You know, because we want connection,
belonging, resonance, we want tolike, be steeped in this, one of
the things that you talk aboutis slowing down is not going to
help us. And you say it in a waywhere your vacation or your
weekends, isn't just going to,you know, have some time off and

(31:25):
then you're going to be okay.
Because what we're trying to dowith our vacation, whether you,
you know, you have the stomachflu and all inclusive, and you
want to optimize what you getout of it, and we want to
optimize our vacations. We wantto optimize our weekends. What
does then help us move towardsmore connection and belonging
and a different way of being,rather than just taking breaks

(31:47):
from who we are?

Yeah, I mean, this is the, I think the, you know,
the revolutionary thing thatthat Rose is trying to get at
and we're trying to develophere, is that it is, how do we
put ourselves in constantconversation? And it's not just,
you know, conversation withother human beings, but
conversations with the world,like, how do we live in this,
this kind of conversational way?
And in his point is, is, youknow, slowing down could help.

(32:13):
You know, like that, that couldhelp. There's, there's no reason
to try to not slow down, butthat the system is so insidious
that it's going to take anotherform of being than just kind of
taking a break from from this.
And that is the kind of pointthat there is a real difference
between a pilgrimage and atourist event. And in some ways

(32:35):
it's late modern people, theyget really blurred together, you
know, like we flew on thatairline that should not be
named, you know, with all sortsof people who are, you know,
we're going on a pilgrimage. Butit, it has every it looks like
it has all the accouterments ofbeing a tourist experience. And
in many ways, you know, likethere's a very kind of Seinfeld
esque kind of dynamic to this,for those of the age where car

(33:00):
and I are just, well, I'll ownthis for myself a bit immature.
She's not. She's a very matureperson. But we do have this kind
of Seinfeld esque where we justname, like, I can't remember
anyone's name, so I just namedthem, you know, weird things. So
throughout the book, the peoplewe meet on the trail end up
getting these names, likeponytail and the three maidens,
which we cannot remember thesepeople's names, yeah, but, but

(33:23):
that's what we called them. Butthe first time we met them, we
were walking up to them, and oneof these women says, Where are
you coming from? And I respondedlike a tourist. I said, we're
coming from Minneapolis. And sheshe was a British woman, and she
was like, she kind of rolled hereyes, like, no, no, like she did
not care where I was comingfrom. She wanted to know where I

(33:44):
was on this walk, like where Iwas in this journey, not how I
how was I using theseexperiences to add to my
experiences and therefore giveme value or lower my stress or
help my wellness? That wasn'tthe point. All there is on a
pilgrimage. Is this trail, thispath? And that is a kind of

(34:05):
analogy of life. You know, thatwe keep this is part of the
modern problem, is we keep on.
We're on the path of life. We'reon the pilgrimage of life. We
keep on thinking like, Okay,what do I need to maximize it?
What do I need to get more outof it? And really, the question
is, where are you? You know,like, where are you in sorrow?
Are you in celebration? Is Goddistant? Is God near? All that

(34:25):
matters is the trail and thatwhich you're aimed towards. You
know, like the the holy placethat you're aimed towards. So
you're always, you know, doingthis towards God, but also
saying goodbye and movingforward and being on, being on
the trail, and so I think partof our issue, and why we want
control so much and then theretherefore lose resonance, or our

(34:49):
weekends become optimized, isbecause they become more tourist
experiences. Of, how do I leavehome? Harvest More experiences?
They. That add to my I don'tknow my sense of my life being
good. They add to my Instagramfeed, and then then I go home.
How do I optimize that? Insteadof thinking, what does it really

(35:11):
mean to be on this path, andwhat does it mean to be on this
path with these kids, with thiscongregation saying goodbye and
saying hello and meeting peoplealong the way, but I always aim
towards this, the holy towards,you know, God's very presence.

Kara Root (35:29):
I mean, to say slowing down isn't the answer.
If you don't slow down, you'realso not going to have the
experience. I mean, slowing downis a component of it, but it
kind of reminds me ofBrueggemann saying, you know,
God gives the Israelites, takesthem out of slavery with the
other nine Commandments, butwith the Sabbath command, he
takes the slavery out of theIsraelites. And there's that,

(35:49):
that sense that what Sabbath orrest or pilgrimage or slowing
down offers is, uh, is theopportunity to be present in a
different way. But if we take,like Rose is saying, if we take
all of that sort of internalstuff with us, and then we just
try to slow down correctly andSabbath well, and measure our
pilgrimage against the perfectpilgrimage, and make it all this

(36:10):
sort of competitive thing, noteven against other people, but
necessarily, but against someideal or some internal drive.
All we're doing is just takingthese tools and turning them
into tools for acceleration andmeasuring, instead of allowing
ourselves to actually be humanbeings in in our frailty and in
our beauty and in our connectionand receiving the experiences

(36:33):
that come to us,

right? Which is also the performative
contradiction of us writing abook out of this too, you know,
because you can see this isRose's point about the weekend
is, we go on this pilgrimage, wehave this great experience with
our kids, then we write a book,really, which is just a
testimony of that experience.
But now, how about how will itsell? What will people think you
know? What you know? What doorswill this open? What doors will
it not open? Like you know, allyou see, all this, the whole

(36:56):
system just starts to pull thatin. And so, yeah. I mean, part I
think Rose's point that's reallyhelpful, and we experience on
the pilgrimage is that no one isno one can perform their way out
of this, or can somehow come upwith the right idea to escape
it. Like our pilgrimage startswith a fight over ice cream and

(37:16):
my desire to control it, and itends that way. I mean, it ends
with the very last experiences,realizing that our our daughter
has lost her retainer somewherein Durham, like we just had this
incredible experience, and rightbe the day before we find out
there's going to be a trainstrike. So now I'm freaking out,
like the trains areuncontrollable. This doesn't

(37:37):
feel like a gooduncontrollability, like I'm
freaked out about how are wegoing to get back to Edinburgh?
We find out our train is going,it's like, oh my gosh, yes,
we're going to make it. Has thisbeautiful kind of sense of the
story coming full circle, andwe've learned something. And
then our daughter's like, Idon't know where my $400
retainer is. And you I mean, youjust think of the retainer as

(38:00):
just an objective, you know,just an instrument of control,
like we're controlling our teethso they come in the right way.
And then you lose this thing.
And, you know, like this. Thisis the the monstrousness of
control, all of a sudden, thisthing that really helps her have
a beautiful smile and controlher teeth. Now you lose it.

(38:22):
You're out 400 bucks, and yourparents are screaming at you. We
have everything of her bag outon the you know, on the platform
of the train. I'm freaking out,and that's how we get on the
train, you know. So this is thisbook, is not the confessions of
people who have it figured out,but who can feel this tension of
even when you think you areaware, aware of it, want to opt

(38:44):
out of being control freaks.
Man, this world, particularly inthe West, really does just push
us back into trying to control.

Kara Root (38:54):
And I love, there's a there's James Finley says it
beautifully in a talk he givesabout Meister Eckhart, because
he says, you know, the poetcan't make the poem happen, but
the poet can assume an innerstance of least resistance to
having the poem come. You know,the lovers cannot make their
moment of oceanic onenesshappen, but they can assume this

(39:16):
inner stance of leastresistance. And I found myself
trying to be. I mean, you can'tmake these moments happen. You
can't make yourself appreciateyour kids or appreciate the
experiences you're having, butyou can be aware that I can't
control any of this. I can sortof surrender to the
uncontrollability of it and letmyself be encountered. And I may

(39:36):
be encountered and I may not be,you know, I might have a
resonant moment with thesepeople I care about, or we might
just argue and fight the wholetime, but at least I can. I can
try to approach it with thatsense of availability to the
presence of God in the presenceof one another,

practically. How do I control uncontrollability?
Like? What does that look like?
But, but. Yeah, really what Iwanted? Oh, it's like, what is
pilgrimage as parenting reallylook like or and what is
pilgrimage as you know, leadingcongregations really look like?
How can we do this?

Kara Root (40:13):
Well, I love the metaphor of pilgrimage because
it's that sense of walkingalongside. I mean that it is not
there is sort of the furtherhorizon that as Christians,
we're drawn to, to say that, youknow, God holds this story, this
bigger picture, we don't. So ifwe're held on this journey by a
loving God and given thesepeople to journey alongside

(40:36):
with, what does it look like,not to try to shape the path,
but to be on the path with eachother, knowing that God is going
to encounter us through thingsthat we can't necessarily see
coming, and when they come. Howdo we maintain that view of one
another's personhood in thissort of mutual sense of
journeying together and insuffering and in joy and sharing

(40:58):
those moments, knowing thatthat's how Christ encounters us
concretely, is by, by beingalongside with and for each
other?

Yeah, I do think that there's, you know, this is
a, probably a through line of mywork too. Is there? There's a
necessity of confession. Sothere is something we can do.
And what we do is create semicontrolled experiences, you
know. So like, for instance,this podcast, no one can
guarantee. I mean, you know, youhave an incredible track record,
Joshua, but no one can guaranteethat listening to this will be a

(41:28):
resonant experience. But youknow, if, if we try to do it
well and it's available, andpeople you know, have it up,
there's a kind of semicontrolled experience,
experience to it. So, you know,worship, Sunday, worship,
certain practices families putin, they are good in their semi
controlled experiences. But theproblem becomes the temptation,

(41:49):
the modern temptation, toactually make the semi
controlled experience the wholething. And you know, so what,
what you look at on Instagram isnot a kind of way to be formed
to create semi controlledexperiences, so a deep sense of
conversation and togethernesscan happen with our children or
with our congregations. It'slike this becomes the thing, and

(42:11):
now I have to control that weget this out of it. So I think
that the real practicality is,how do we take steps in the
Christian tradition, like, we'vethought of this as practices.
Like, what practices do we takeon that are semi controlled
experiences, but theologically,they, in and of themselves, are
not magical acts that canguarantee God's presence. So you

(42:34):
know, even you know prayer andand the liturgy, these are all
semi controlled experiences. Andif you think, because you do
this liturgy, then God has toshow up. Then the god you're
talking about is not the God ofIsrael, and is not the God who
is, is God. And so to kind oftake a step back and think
about, then, how do we thinkabout the way we raise our kids?

(42:56):
And that really what our kidsneed is not us to manage their
lives, which is the greattemptation of this control is we
actually think the best pastor,the best parent, is a manager.
Your job is to go out ahead andmanage everything for everyone.
I don't think they needmanagers. I think that
congregations and parents, theyneed persons to be in

(43:18):
conversation with, and you'regoing to have to create some
semi controlled experiences forthose conversations to happen,
like going to Europe and sittingin a cafe in Paris and having a
conversation. But the minute yousay, if we don't get eight
conversations out of our time inEurope, and if I equate that,
that means we're paying 350 europer encounter, if I don't get

(43:42):
that. This is, you know, thisis, this is terrible. And I'm
going to write a very angryletter to someone at the Tourist
Board of France, you know, likethat. It just promises it, it
won't happen.

Kara Root (43:54):
Or, or even, I mean, I jump to going to Europe, or
taking a pilgrimage, even, youknow, going to the dog park, or
gardening together, whatever, assoon as we turn it into, you
know, a semi controllableexperience, but it's for the
purpose of control. We've lostit. And I think it's fascinating
that Rosa, as a sociologist,holds up, like in his book,
names prayer as kind of theultimate example of a semi

(44:17):
controllable experience thatopens you up to something that
you can't control that mightencounter you.

How do I open up myself to an uncontrollable
experience with God and have Godencounter me and not just try to
get God to do what I want God todo? And because I think we all
pray some prayers like that,like some controlling prayers,
we're trying to control God,which doesn't work, but

there's best selling books from the 90s that
would tell you how to controlGod with your prayers. Yeah,
yes,

yeah. So what does it look like to lift these
things up to God and say, Okay,God, yeah, your will be done.

Kara Root (44:55):
Well, one thing that I think Andy's been talking
about about conversation islistening and. And through the
Christian tradition, listeningis a is a more of a form of
prayer talked about then, thentelling God things. So that's
that's a piece. I think our inour modernity, we don't practice
prayer that way. We we we'realways sort of talking and

(45:16):
moving, and so we just lovegoing to sit down and tell God a
bunch of stuff. There's a womanin my congregation who brought
this form of prayer to us, like,when there's stuff going on and
you just, you've people in yourheart you want to pray, and we
want to tell God what to do,like my three year old telling
me, you know, Mom, I want thetoast with the butter all the
way to the edges, and I want,you know, like that, as though

(45:37):
God needs to know, you know,like guide the surgeon's hands
and make sure that they do agood job. Like God knows what
needs to be done here, but shehas this lovely form of prayer
where she just says, here nowwith you, for Gaza, here now
with you for my son. And you'renot telling God to do, but
you're what to do, but you'reletting yourself actually be

(45:58):
present. I'm here now. I'm herenow, God's always here, but I do
a bad job of showing up. So nowhere I am in the presence of
God, and I'm with you for yourpurposes, whatever those may be,
in relation to this person. Andit's just, it's such a gentle
way of praying. So that's kindof one example. I think that's
been helpful for me, is likesometimes you have too many

(46:19):
words, or you don't have anywords and to be able to just
say, you know, in either case,the spirit prays with groans too
deep, you know. So how do Ialign myself with the Spirit's
prayer?

I need you to help me and my wife out. You
know, we are a good 10 yearsbehind you in raising our son,
but we are also 90s youth groupkids that said we could go and
change the world. We're firstborn achievers, like we want to
go and achieve this parentingthing and we want to control it.

(46:55):
What have you learned? Help meout. Help me and my wife out. My
son is eight. What is apilgrimage with him start to
look like how? What is itshifting? What have you learned
that would help me in my shifttowards letting go, even in a
place where he's too young toreally let go?

But yeah, and this, you know, obviously it's, it's
unique with each kid, but withwith with our firstborn, one of
the things that's been reallypowerful for us, and obviously
he's he's almost 21 now, andwe're still dealing with with
battles of control all the time.
But is to say, and this maysound a bit harsh, but is to
say, it's his life, like it'shis life, and that can seem

(47:38):
flippant like, well, it's hislife. Whatever the bleep happens
with it is his responsibility.
We don't mean it like that. Forus, it's a mantra of a prayer of
like, we can't, can we can'tcontrol it. And so what you
know, what does it mean toparent in a way that we're aware

(47:58):
that these people have their ownlives to live, and that they
need us to be with them asagain, you know, I'm reiterating
what I said earlier as aconversation partner about what
is meaningful about what's thepurpose of life. They don't need
me to control everything. Andyet we fall into this trap like

(48:19):
incredibly like we are theparents who survey our kids all
the time, like you know the findon the iPhone. We know where our
kids are at all the time. And wehad an experience in Europe this
summer where Maisie was, ourdaughter was with some friends,
and they were not going to maketheir train. They were going to
take a train out of Heidelberg,and they had to make a

(48:39):
connection another German city,so they could get to Leon, where
we had friends that were goingto see them for the night, and
they were not going to make it.
So we're, like, getting a cab.
And then it was like a situationroom. We were in a hotel room in
Berlin, and it was like asituation where we had three
computers up an iPad. We were,we were seeing them. We were, we
were, you know, like, analyzing,is that train? Is the next train
going to go on time? You know,we're like, basically had the

(49:01):
miles per hour of the cabdriver, and we're doing
equations on I mean, it was, itwas it was nuts, like, so we're
always in the midst of having toconfess that we want to control
every piece of it. Like we wethink we know better. I mean,
we're first born youth groupstars. We know better than
everyone what to do. So for us,the mantra that, like it is his

(49:24):
life has been a power. It's aprayer, really. It's it's not.
It could be seen as a kind offatalistic, kind of grumpy like,
you know, well, to hell, to hellwith it. Just, it's your life.
But for us, it's a prayer ofletting go so we can be put in a
disposition to be in aconversation with him. And the
more we say that that like it'sit's your life, it's his life,

(49:47):
it's interesting, the more hebecomes in a position to
actually talk to us.

Kara Root (49:52):
And I think that we haven't said much here about
trust, but that's such a hugepiece of it. Like we we
actually. Act like God's notreal. I mean, we believe God's
real so much so that that's whatwe formed our careers and our
lives and our vocations around,but, but then we act like God's
not real, and and there's sometrust and entrusting those we
love into God's hands, but alsoit means that God is speaking to

(50:16):
them just as much as God'sspeaking to us and ministering
through them, as much as God'sministering through us. And so
seeing our children as ministersand as you know, capable of
participating in this life inways unexpected and unplanned by
us is is such a gift. I mean, itmakes each moment when they're

(50:36):
young, especially this like whatmight happen. Where's that
moment of encounter that mightoccur where God meets us and
through them and meets themthrough us, and, you know, or
some beauty or experience in theworld that we together share and
then get to process. So I thinkit's to journey alongside kids
in a pilgrimage mentality is isjust to also have to adopt their

(50:58):
wonder and to have that sense ofexploration. You know, it's old
hat for us. We've been in thisworld a long time, but
everything's new when you'relittle and you know to be able
to take on sort of their ethosof of pilgrimage, that we've
maybe lost the pilgrim andbecome kind of the worker and
the manager, but they still havethis sense of encountering
things for the first time andseeing the world through through

(51:20):
young eyes.

Yeah, so try and control your readers experience.
What? What would you like themto get? But what? What hope do
you have for readers? What wouldyou hope that they would would
get from your book?

Yeah, I think at the end of it, I think we want
them just to breathe. Justbreathe a bit and and just be,
just be with these people thatyou've been blessed to be within
this church and be with yourchildren. We really hope that
anyone who reads this bookrealizes this is not a parenting

(51:59):
book of people who have itfigured out in any way, this is
a kind of anti parent parentingbook, and that there's this,
there's a lot of struggle and alot of confession, and just be,

Kara Root (52:10):
yeah, I mean, I was gonna say the same thing about
this. Is not a how to, this isnot how to, how to parent
better. So now you addpilgrimage onto your list of
things to accomplish as a goodparent. Like, Oh, great. Now I
gotta do that too. It's askingyou to step back and receive
what's already there alongsideeach other, and this gift of a
life that it all comes from God,and it all returns to God. And

(52:32):
we are not on this journeyalone. We're accompanied by by
the the presence of Christ inthe presence of one another. And
so how do we just walk that andreceive that?

Well, that's beautiful. I'd love to get a
couple recommendations from fromeach of you. So anything you've
been reading or watching latelyyou could recommend for us.

Yeah, I mean, we've been in the midst of of
traveling and being a littleunder the weather, so we've been
watching some major garbage TVthat we were raised on. So we've
been watching MTV. Is thechallenge, the 40th anniversary
of that, which just the the 40thseason. So where I think, I
think they're actually on a 41now, so that just everyone who

(53:10):
had any respect for us listeningto this has just lost it right
now, because it's absolute,absolute garbage. So I'll try to
go a bit more sophisticated.
I've been back reading a lot ofBonhoeffer of late, and so
trying to kind of think about anew project on Bonhoeffer, and
reading some letters and someengagements he had with his twin

(53:31):
sister in thinking about aboutthat dynamic.

Kara Root (53:37):
Yep, I just had to look on my Kindle, because I
never know the titles of books,because I never see the cover.
But I'm reading how to inhabittime by James K A Smith, which
is really interesting part ofkind of this conversation a bit
as well. That's what I'm readingat the moment, and I've been
enjoying it.

Good recommendations. Yeah, a
pilgrimage into letting go isavailable now anywhere books are
sold, anywhere that you wouldlike to point people to, how
could they connect with youguys,

just anywhere where it gives us more control of the
profit margin? No, I whereveryou can find it. Find it. You
know it's on. It's alwayseasiest for us on that, that big
mammoth called Amazon. You can,you can get it there, but
wherever you feel comfortablegetting it, hopefully you'll,
you'll check it out. And wewould be honored if you take a

(54:27):
look at this kind of very nonparenting, parenting book of a
confession of failed parents,more than expert

Kara Root (54:35):
parents, non church leadership, church leadership
book, too. Take a load off.
That's you know, to stopthinking this is yours to manage
and control and find the joy init. Amen.

Well. Andy Kara, thank you for this conversation.
Thank you for giving us thispilgrimage into letting go so
that we could actually embracesome uncontrollability of the
world and that we. Can let goand trust and say that God can
actually encounter us and ourkids and our congregations, and
so we could actually have abeautiful life on the trail, on

(55:13):
the path, as we go on pilgrimageto him. So thank you. It was
fantastic. Thanks for having us.
You

Unknown (55:34):
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Ep. 343 Andrew & Kara Root - A Pilgrimage Into Letting Go

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 343 Andrew & Kara Root - A Pilgrimage Into Letting Go