The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Traveler’s Path: Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel by Douglas J Brouwer

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

The Traveler's Path: Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel by Douglas J Brouwer Dougsblog.substack.com Travel shapes our identity, from ancient spiritual journeys to the modern movement of people across the globe. In his latest book, Douglas J. Brouwer, a pastor, scholar and lifelong traveler, invites readers to reflect on the profound, transformative power of travel in all its forms. With over 40 years of pastoral ministry in the U.S. and Europe, Doug shares personal stories from his own life, from childhood road trips to leading mission teams, study tours, and pilgrimages. Whether serving international congregations in Zürich, Switzerland, and The Hague, Netherlands, or walking solo along the Camino paths of Spain and Portugal, his journeys reveal how travel reshapes our understanding of ourselves, others, and the divine. The Traveler's Path challenges readers to go beyond tourism and embrace the spiritual dimension of travel. Through his compelling stories, Doug sparks readers' own memories of travel, or hopes for future travel, making this an ideal choice for individual reading or small-group discussion. Doug also offers readers a free, downloadable discussion guide to help spark spirited conversations. In these chapters, Doug explores how even the most ordinary trips can teach us humility, foster empathy, and reveal deeper truths about belonging and purpose. Part memoir, part spiritual guide, and part travelogue, this book invites readers to view travel as a sacred act, where every journey becomes an opportunity for transformation. With warmth and wisdom, Doug inspires us to move beyond our comfort zones, reminding us that the road itself can lead us home. Whether you're planning your next adventure or reflecting on journeys past, The Traveler's Path will inspire you to embrace the sacred potential of every step you take.

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Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, most of us here from the Chris Voss show.com. We're the Chris Voss Show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. As always, the Chris Foss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you. For over 16 years, we've been bringing The Chris Foss Show. The 2300 plus episodes is getting crazy and we bring you 10 to 15 new shows a week. So we are like the Netflix content binge provider of podcasting. If you want

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or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show. Thanks for that. People are like, quit my day job. Anyway, but it's worth it. You're going to learn so much more and probably start your own company from all the entrepreneurial advice we have there. He's the author of the latest book that comes out the March

25th, 2025. It is called The Traveler's Path, Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel. Because everyone knows travel is a lot of fun sometimes. Depends on how much TSA fun you have there at the airport. Well, beginning into his background, Douglas J. Brewer joins us on the phone show today. Did I get your last name right, Douglas? Douglas J. Brewer. It's close enough. Brower. There you go.

Douglas J. Brewer joins us on the show today. We're going to be talking to him about his latest books, his insights, and everything in his life that can influence you to have a better one. For nearly 45 years, he's been a Presbyterian pastor serving churches in Wheaton, Illinois, Ann Harbor, Michigan, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and for five years, towards the end of his career in Zurich, Switzerland. Oh, you got to have those numbered accounts somewhere. He also led trips, pilgrimages, and study tours to, they don't do numbered accounts anymore, I don't think, and study tours to countries in the world.

In recent years, he's embraced the joy and challenge of walking solo along the various Camino Pass in Spain and Portugal with pilgrimages that have added depth and insight to his life. In the last few years, he's served two churches asweb pastor, one in Lucerne, Switzerland, and the other in The Hague, the Netherlands. That explains it. There's a lot of great forestry and places to walk around that area and stuff that are beautiful. You're also the author of eight books, which explores life on faith, life, and the human experience. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir? Chris Hey, Chris. It's good to meet you. Thanks

for having me. Chris Pleasure to meet you as well. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Doug Sinclair I've got a Substack newsletter and there's a profile there, although you've included most of it already, but it's dougsblog.substack.com. Chris Larkin So give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book? Dr. David C. Citty You know, I'll start where I start in the book. My family, when I was growing up, went on long road trips every summer. And we saw everything,

every state in the lower 48, I think every province in Canada. And I just kept going. My sisters, not so much, but I was given the wonderful gift of curiosity by my parents. Pete Slauson Curiosity is the thing that killed the cat. No! Pete Slauson Sometimes travelers too. Pete Slauson That's true. You got to be careful. You got to stay out of those from falling trees. You give to curiosity, more people need that in life. I love, I love being curious about things in life because I think it really shows someone who

wants to learn and is open to learn, is open to ideas, is open to really experiencing the world. Chris, this is a good place for me to mention that dentists have uncovered what they think is an adventure gene. And I don't know, about 12% of the population seem to have this gene. I've done, I've done ancestry.com and I don't know that I was tested for this, but my life certainly suggests that I have this gene. My life, me too, as well. I never got married and never had kids. I tried, you know, I was engaged twice, but I tried to punt up,

but I just couldn't make it work and see things lasting more than five years. Probably, probably bad choices too as well. But no, I've always loved doing adventures. I've always loved building companies. To me, that's fun, you know, building adventures and companies. And plus they have a monoclonal control over it to a certain degree. You know, when you're dealing with other people, you don't know.

I mean, they have, they have their own free agency. So yeah, they can do what they want. So sometimes what they want to do isn't what you want to do. Thereby, at least I've kept myself out of divorce court. It's weird having all this money that I saved from divorce court. That's one way to look at it. Marriage is an adventure in itself, but that's a- I'm sure, yeah. Yeah. I've heard about those adventures. yeah. Everybody my age is married or not, and I hear about the adventures every day, so I'll stick with what I'm doing. Anyway, marriage is nice. I mean, I have friends that made a lot of it work. They've been married 25, 30 years now,

and they seem to be doing well, so good for them. So, tell us about your life. How were you raised? good for them. So, tell us about your life. How were you raised? You know, we've got a little bit of that, but how did you become a pastor? How did you get interested in that? I know you have a, I think you have a doctorate, right? You're a doctor by nature? I do, I do. Yeah. Tell us about your journey through life and what brought you here. You know, unlike many pastors, I didn't grow up thinking that this is what I would become. I was a writer, at least. My fifth grade teacher told me I could write a good story. And so I thought that was my direction in life. And in college, I worked one summer for a publisher, a local one. And I thought this was

my career path. But I noticed that the editors, senior editors at the publishing company had that the editors, senior editors at the publishing company had degrees from theological schools. So, that's where I went after college. So, here's the funny thing. I didn't realize that in order to graduate from a theological seminary, you had to work in a church. Who knew? Pete Slauson There's a catch to that theological stuff there. David I wasn't opposed to the church, I just didn't realize that that would be a requirement. But between my second and third years, I took a year long internship and something happened during that year, I realized I was born for it. I wasn't very good at it, but I realized that I was born for that kind of work and I would

not have been happy sitting in an editor's office staring at a manuscript all day. Oh, I love how you started early. You said, it sounds like you had some teacher support there telling you you're good at it. That's always good to have. You don't want the people who go, your writing sucks. I think we've got a few people that eventually become great authors that were told their writing sucks.

It's good to either have the sticker or the carrot. What do you find attracts you to being a leader as a pastor? I mean, you've done that for a long time. Obviously, when you lead people in that title, what do you like about the leadership aspect and serving others in that way? Dr. C.J. Oh, that's a great question. I think what happens is that I lead people into spiritual experiences. So, not only does it happen in a church setting, but for me, it has happened on pilgrimage and study tour as well. I've taken a group of people and shown them something and in many cases, surprisingly, they have an inner change as a result of what they've done and what they've seen. So, but of course that happens, as I said, in a church setting as well. I don't think you have to go anywhere to have a life-changing experience. Why do you feel that travel makes a difference in a spiritual growth and inspiration?

What are the aspects in your view, you talk about in your book, that make that difference in, you know, some people travel and they just, you know, I've been known to go to Vegas and put on too much booze and, you know, have a record of a three-day weekend. I'm not sure there was a spiritual growth or inspiration that happened through that three day weekend, but it sounds like you have a different tack to it and you approach it differently than going to Vegas and getting smashed. Dr. John Deakins You know, I worry that people will listen to me talk about this and think, you know, I would never go on a vacation with that guy. Let me just say that I think there's a difference between vacation and some of the travel that I do.

I like nothing better than to go away for a few days to the lake and relax and read a book and not look for life-changing experiences. So, I get it. Sometimes we just need a vacation. Pete Slauson Three days of booze in Vegas will change your life. Chris LaUrce That's never done it for me. Sorry, Chris. Pete Slauson I'm not claiming it's spiritual growth. The only spiritual growth you're going to do is that second or third morning when you're hungover and you're just praying, you're actually praying to God at that point. You're like, God, please let my liver and kidney keep working. Please make my head stop throbbing. I can't, make my head stop hurting Bernie, please, make it all.

I promise I'll never drink like this again. There was a time in my life where I recognized it as an entrepreneur, I wasn't taking vacations and I thought I was cool because I was like, I don't take vacations, I'm busy making money. I realized somewhere along the line that it wasn't working for me. I was frying out. And while I didn't have time to take two week vacations or a week vacation because we own multiple companies that were running at the same time, what I found was getting away on

what you said, weekend jaunts. So I would take off on weekends. And you know, one of the problems with most vacationing is people always take it with when everyone else is. So over in Europe, they go on holiday at the same time, and then virtually the same time. And then here in America, everyone's like, oh, it's Veterans Day or whatever. Well, let's all go to the lake. And so you just spend four hours in traffic back and forth going to the lake because everyone is going to the lake. And so I found that doing those weekend jaunts like you talk about and going out someplace

that's peaceful really helps and sometimes solo. So on Sundays, I started this a couple years ago, but I made Sunday my day and I call it gratitude Sunday. And it's my day. I don't date on that day. I don't, I try and make it a day that I spend with me and my family of dogs and I usually, there's a lake house that I go up to that sits on the lake and they serve most beautiful food and steaks and you're literally sitting on the lake on their patio and you have this beautiful vista, beautiful sunset over the tip of August mountains.

And I try and find different experiences like that. I go up to Sundance, Park City, if you're familiar with Sundance Ski Resort, it's a beautiful place. But it has that going out in nature and smelling nature and smelling nature, bear poo, smelling nature, sucking up to the fresh air. There's something peaceful and cathartic about it. Why don't you tell me what your thoughts are? Dr. John Deakins And believe me, I don't think there's anything all that special about traveling long distances, flying across the ocean and seeking to have a

transforming experience. Sometimes it happens close to home. One of my favorite authors, one of the best travel writers I know, wrote a book and she went more than two miles from her home. This is Annie Dillard. I don't know if that name, some of your listeners will know that name, Annie Dillard. Her book is Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. So she took long walks from her home and she had her eyes open and she observed the natural world and it's really a remarkable book. It's a lot like Henry David Thoreau's Walden. He did the same thing just took walks near his home and observed and had life-changing experiences. I confess though that I still like to get on a

plane and go somewhere and I find that to be a transforming. It's something that really helped. I found going to like Cattley and Island, just sitting on the beach, you don't have to spend a lot of money and you bring up a good point. You really don't have to go that far. You, you know, you can just enjoy one of the things I'll do is do like an air beer or a, what are those ones things that you can go? Oh VRBO

No, the where they they kind of have the house set up and they serve you dinner and breakfast and stuff Maybe they're good for it, but I forget what they call them But usually some owner lives there and you you kind of rent a room like a hotel. I Forget what they're called, but usually going away on those types of jaunts or staying in a little hotel that's got a quaint restaurant, there's a really cool French place by me that has, it's basically built like a giant French chateau. And you can go there and they serve wonderful food, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and they have a beautiful hotel that you can stay in. And it just feels like you're in France. That's about 30 minutes away from me. Like you don't have to, you don't have to go far. And just getting out of your, just getting out of being at home, just getting out of

your four walls, just getting out of your, out of how you're, you know, what you deal with every day can really be refreshing and refill your cup as it were. And to you and to the readers of my book, I would like to challenge you to go an additional step. Just last week, my wife and I tried to get away from the readers of my book, I would like to challenge you to go an additional step. Just last week, my wife and I tried to get away from cold Michigan weather. We've had a miserable one here.

And we went to an island off the coast of South Carolina that I had never been to before. And so in those situations, my curiosity gets the better of me and I want to know the history of the island. And I want to talk to the people who have made it their home, not a vacation destination, but their home. And I found that exploration and the talking with people there to be just a rich, rich experience. So, it can happen just about anywhere.

Pete Yeah. It's wonderful out there. And so, you help people with the book find their spirituality and sometimes, how important is it to be alone? You talked about how you walk, you tend to walk alone when you go on some of your spiritual jaunts. Why is it important, you know, because a lot of us, you know, we're taking our phones, probably using them in nature, we're, you know, taking other people because we can't stand to be alone with ourselves. Why is it important sometimes to kind of do some

jaunts on your own? I didn't realize this at the beginning. I was having so much fun going places, but the more I did that, the more I realized that taking a group of people to another country is hard work. Being a tour host is hard work. In the last few years, I just decided, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to be the one who goes and has the wonderful experience. And so that's led me to, as you

mentioned, Spain and Portugal. And there are some wonderful walking paths there. There's some wonderful wine in Portugal, too, I admit that. But that has turned out to be a wonderful experience for me. Pete Slauson Wow. Yeah, and plus, you're not, you know, you're not running the show. It's hard to enjoy anything when you're running or hosting, you know, the show. I've thrown lots of parties and events and it's quite stressful. So, it's a little hard to, but you know, there's something, you know, more and more, I had someone on the show a couple of months ago and they talked about turning off

the phone, turning off this need that we have. It's kind of a dopamine addiction with the phone and with social media, with the internet and, and just spending some time with our thoughts. And so, you know, I kind of, up until that point with that author that came on the show, I until that point, you know, would do different things. If I get up from my computer, I'll take my phone with me to go make coffee or something or maybe some food and I'll play a video or a podcast. And I realized that it was like a baby pacifier for me. I was constantly, if I went to the gym,

I'd get in the car or anytime I get in the car to go someplace, I'd play a podcast from Sam Harris or maybe a book. And I started realizing that a lot of times I was just escaping, listening to myself and my thoughts alone. And this author made me realize that I was, you know, doing all this distraction and that sometimes it's healthy just to kind of listen to your thoughts, kind of monitor what you're thinking, you know, what am I thinking? And what's going on with me instead of all this distraction that's almost trying to get me away from me. And so I kind of started paying attention to that. I started driving around without turning on the phones and stuff.

And looking at the phones, I, same thing with, you know, going, it's like, Hey, you're going to go five minutes ago, make a coffee. Do you really need your phone with you? Do you really need to watch before you make your coffee? I mean, like, how, how freaking lonely are you, buddy? And spending time alone, and I think walking through the woods gives us a renewal, because I think it grounds us back to our early caveman days, our early human days, where we interacted with the forest, where we interacted with clean air, where we interacted with nature. And I think there's something that

refills us that, you know, isn't going to quite refill you a downtown. Maybe you and certainly some of your listeners need to think about this the way I've come to think about it. Taking ourselves out of our comfortable spaces and putting ourselves in places where we're uncomfortable, where we don't speak the language, where we don't know the local culture, those are the times when we're most alert and when we're uncomfortable, where we don't speak the language, where we don't know the local culture. Those are the times when we're most alert and when we're growing and learning. I wanted to call the book, the publisher was not as happy as I was about this. I wanted to call the book Get Off the Bus. When I lived in Europe, I saw busloads of tourists riding

around and then they're looking out the window. I think the way to encounter another culture is to get off the bus and to meet the people and get lost. I don't recommend this but there's a lot to be learned by going to the hospital. Learn the health system of another country. I suppose you can learn a lot of people if you go to the hospital. I've done it. I've been to the, you know, the emergency department of a hospital in Switzerland. I'm fine. But I learned a great deal that day. And I think the way we learn is to be scared, uncomfortable, not sure what's going on.

You know, I, one of the things I like doing is I like doing day jaunts I used to do it with my cameras where I would just go I just take the day and go drive and shoot and at the time I was living in California so there's there's lots to do you can go down to Venice Beach and Lots of really interesting people that are the fabric of society I would go up the beach course on California one up into Malibu, which sadly I think I photographed a lot of stuff That's now gone. But even when I traveled, you know, I'd go out to Catalina Island or I go someplace for the weekend and I really wouldn't have an agenda. What's the agenda?

I don't know. We're gonna go out there and just kind of wander around You know like all these people they they almost run their vacations like they run their business life, you know We've got appointments. What do you mean? We've got appointments like this is this vacation. We're supposed to relax I don't want to have to be somewhere at one o'clock and so a lot of times I would go To places just wander around and then when dinner time came out, I'd pull out the Yelp app and be like, you know, what's the best restaurant around here to eat at? And you just kind of go where it takes you. You know, I've wandered all over Cattley and Island and sometimes I missed stuff.

Oh, I missed a movie. I wanted to go see a movie at the Avalon Theater. Oh, I was thinking about going to that place over there, but you know, I'll just go next time. And so that wandering and just kind of discovering stuff, I think, I think from what you said, it kind of stretches you as a human being. It takes you out of your comfort zone, teaches you to learn new things, teaches you to meet new people, interact with new people, you know,

you may not fully be aware of, you know, what's going on or where you're at or how to navigate the map, you know, but it kind of, I think it does help grow you. So you're a photographer. I have tried my best over the years. I once owned a fancy camera and had to get rid of that, but my dad, whenever we went on these long family road trips, my dad would have his camera. And I think I learned from him and I sense you're talking about this too. You're a closer observer of where you are. If

you've got a camera in your hand, you're looking for an interesting angle. This was in the days before the selfies. We never took a family photo at the Grand Canyon, for example. But my dad was looking for an interesting shot, a place of beauty. So yeah, I'm good for you for taking that camera along. I think more people need to do that and need to focus less on the selfies because we've seen you, we know what you look like. We don't need to, hey, here's me and Aruba or

whatever, and I suppose it's appropriate to take a couple of those. I like to look at photos where I traveled and you know, my problem is I'm always the guy behind the camera. So no one ever sees me. I don't have photos, but no one wants to see that. But yeah, I mean, with the camera eye and taking a camera, you'd really do look at things differently.

And I even like, uh, you know, I know, I ran with the expensive cameras, but there was a guy I knew who's a really great photographer and he would travel and he had to have, he, he would take great brilliant photographs because he had a wonderful eye and, and photographer skill, which I don't have. And he would, he would say, if I'm going to travel, I'm going to take a pocket camera. It has to be able to fit in my upper pocket. It has to, uh, uh, work off of batteries. So if I need to, if I need to, you know, put double A batteries or, you know, buy

those anywhere in the world, I can buy them off the shelf and, and yeah. So he had this rule that he had to have a camera that could always be available at any time. Of course, they say the best camera is whatever camera you have in your hand, which is usually most people's phones. But yeah, looking at the world through trying to find a shot or trying to find a beautiful picture or focusing on the beauty of life and people and the engagement, to me, it makes

it for a better vacation and better travel. Yeah, good for you for recognizing that. I wish, yeah, there are a limited number of hobbies that a person can have and I decided that that wasn't going to be mine. But I go places with my pen and notebook. Oh, tell us about that. Yeah, I try to observe in other ways. So do you keep a journal or do you write what you saw or do you, since you're spending time

alone with your thoughts, are you kind of writing down what you're thinking and kind of the summations you've come to? Yes. And I heard you say that you've been podcasting for quite a long time. I was an early adopter in the blogging world in 2012. I started a blog and it has migrated recently to sub stack, but it's still my way of recording what's going on in my life. I had a daughter who said I should think about podcasting, but I

don't think that's in my future. I'll let you, I'll let you do it. Everyone's good at something, but I like the idea of taking a notebook and writing down your thoughts and stuff and capturing them. You know, journaling is a really important thing that people should take into. Um, and it can really, it really helped help you to mark the different things in your life, to remember some of the things you think about. Cause a lot of gets lost.

You know, you're like, what was I thinking about yesterday? And so journaling, keeping that journal and everything can make a lot of difference in the quality of your life. A lot of successful people keep journals and notes. And of course, you're out there in peace and you're trying to really absorb it and make yourself part of it. It makes sense that you should try and record some of it in some sort of way. It's meaningful. Even at that though, I find that I don't remember everything I want to remember. And in the writing of this book, I had to call a couple of people who traveled with me and pick their brains

about their experience and their memory of that time together. So, you know, even though I think I take careful note, what's happening is that other people are seeing different things and they're remembering different things. You know, we used to do back in the, when social media was like really huge and everything was positive about it and Instagram became hot. There was a lot of interest in photography and you know, the advent of phones and stuff, people are starting to use them for photography as well. And my friends used to hold Johnson California where we'd have a bunch of people come out and we'd do a photo walk through the city or through nature or something,

and everyone would bring their phones and everyone would take pictures. And we'd compare those pictures and you pictures and everyone put them on a website so everyone could see the pictures. And you're right, a lot of people see things from different angles, different paradigms and maybe photos that you're like, wow, I didn't think of taking a shot from that angle. That makes sense. But yeah, it was a great group experience and it taught a lot of people how to look through the lens at life. And to me, I've always been a watcher of people.

I've always been a watcher of life. I've always been a ponderer a bit. And I think looking at life through a camera, looking through life spending time alone, when you've got people with you, you've got distractions. You're usually trying to entertain them and keep them happy and stuff as a man. And so it can be a challenge, but doing it alone, I think, gives you much more perspective. Jim Collins Good heavens. I listened to your description of this podcast and the number of people you talk to on a

weekly basis and it's astonishing. So yes, I hear that you have a spirit of curiosity, no doubt about it. Yeah. Yeah. I love talking to people. I love hearing their journeys. I'm a story collector. I'm a griot.

And so it's, you know, and part of it, I, you know, I always joke that it's cause I'm sick of myself after 57 years. I really don't want to hear about me anymore. I'd like to hear about somebody else different. Cool shit they're up to. But also, you know, you learn from people, you know, their stories, their journeys through life, their cathartic moments, how they overcame them. You know, we all have, our life, all of our lives are this giant fabric of stories,

this giant quilt of all these stories sewn together that are the fabric of who we are without them. I mean, can you imagine having a life where you didn't have any stories? I don't know what you'd be. Maybe an AI could be being or something. Oh yeah. Here's the thing. I have retired to Western Michigan. This is where I grew up and then I lived away for 40 some years.

But I know the people here pretty well. I don't have to wonder about what they're thinking. But when I find myself in another country or another city in the US, for that matter, I find myself wondering what's really going on inside their heads. And that leads to conversation and questions. I'd love to tell you a story about this. Do we have a couple more minutes for this? Yeah, please do. On my first trip to Israel, I took a large group of church members and I knew that there were Arabs in the land as well as Jews, but what I didn't realize was that about 5% of

the Arab population was Christian. Who knew? And so we, because we were a Christian group, we made a point of getting to know the Christians in the land. And I met one in particular, Father Shakur, no reason you would know that name, although he's been, he's written several books and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I listened to him talk and realized that there's a whole different perspective about Israel's history that I had never thought about before. And I have not stopped listening to him and thinking about the questions that he asks. I think that was one of the major, but one of the life-changing moments I had because of a conversation with

a person from a different culture. Pete Yeah. It does open your mind to a perspective. It opens your mind to other people. You know, sometimes we have this narrow view, especially if we haven't had a lot of exposure to different people of, you know, who people are, their behavior, their motivations. You know, you see a lot of that here in America where sometimes people who have never left this country or never traveled, they have some narrow views of other people in the world or other countries or other races, etc., etc., and other cultures. And there's no right one culture. This is the right one.

It's interesting to see this tapestry, this kaleidoscope of different cultures and people and nature and what they do and how they do it. And it's never ending. You can learn so much from them. I have a lot of guests on the show that talk about something I kind of already know. But a lot of times they bring a different perspective or a different way of looking at things. Sometimes they know how to break through scotomas and different things like that. So yeah. It works both ways. I mean, Americans tend to have stereotypes about Europeans,

let's say, but Europeans have definitely have some stereotypes about who Americans are. And so that too leads to some interesting conversations. I hope I break some of those stereotypes when I travel, maybe not, maybe I just reinforce what they are already thinking. But my hope is to be an authentic voice when I travel. So tell us sort of what's on your sub stack so we can get a plug in for that. Pete Slauson So, tell us sort of what's on your sub stack so we can get a plug in for that. David Morgan Yeah, as I mentioned, I started out as a blogger, so I don't write about one subject in particular. If I were a financial planner, I guess I'd write

about investing. But I write about just about everything. I write about books and movies and my experiences. It's all over the map. It usually has a faith component because the spiritual life is an important part of my life. Yeah, it's an encounter with what I'm thinking and observing. I stay away from politics. I think there are plenty of people who are writing about that and I'm not sure what I have to add.

So it tends to be non-political. Okay. All right. Well, people get inspired by checking out your sub stack and all that good stuff. So as we go out, pitch people on where to order the book, how to order it, how to subscribe to your sub stack and find out more about you on social media with all the.coms. Thanks for this opportunity, Chris. The name of the book is The Traveler's Path, and it's available from Amazon,

Barnes and Noble, even some local bookstores, everywhere your favorite books are available. So thank you very much for coming in the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. I've enjoyed talking with you. Thank you. Order up wherever fine books are sold, folks.

The Traveler's Path, Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel out March 25th, 2025. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.