Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

How do we stay soft in a world that has taught us to be tough? Actress Minka Kelly is known for her roles as Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as Samantha in HBO’s Euphoria. Despite her fame on the big screen, one might not realize the chaos that surrounded her childhood. Being raised by a single mom who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka had to learn how to take care of herself and the adults around her, and, eventually, to forgive her mom. In this tender conversation, Kate and Minka discuss: How we can be built from the outside in through our friendships and how our friends become our chosen family How anger tells us that a boundary has been crossed The unfinished ways people love us—reconciling our complicated childhoods with the love we feel for each another How Minka has processed her difficult childhood through a lens of love and grace The way Minka’s mom was changed by her cancer diagnosis, and how once they found their way to one another again, there could never, ever be enough time  CW: colon cancer, death of a parent, brief mentions of abuse and neglect***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Some people are the LEAN IN sort. They lean into your unsolvable problems, show up on your impossible days, and walk with you all the way to the end. How do we become them? How do we create belonging when the people we love experience such uncertainty? Practical theologian and mental health nurse John Swinton knows a thing or two about this kind of love.  In this conversation, Kate and John discuss:  The importance of learning to be present for people with intellectual disabilities, dementia, or in mental health crises  How two places that should be known as places of belonging—the church and the hospital—have become difficult for fragile people… and how we might begin to make these institutions better A theology of hope we might all be able to sign up for (Spoiler: Hope is a long story.)  How love moves at a certain speed, so we all might need to slow down a bit ***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maggie Smith (poet and author of books like Keep Moving and You Could Make This Place Beautiful) chronicles the aftermath of a painful divorce she didn’t see coming. How do we raise our kids in the wake of such change? And how do we reconcile who we are and who we are becoming? In this conversation, Maggie and Kate discuss: How to support someone going through divorce The metaphor of nesting dolls as how we contain who we were before (and how our befores and afters might not be as dramatic as we thought) Speaking honestly with our children about the beauty and tragedy of the world Why tragedies are not worth the “lessons” that we might learn from them CW: divorce***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when the people we built our lives around stop needing us? Or when we have to pick between our meaningful careers or our family? And what do we do with the ambiguous grief that comes with every expected and unexpected change? Today, Kate takes an honest look at juggling the demands on our time and on our heart with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly.Kate and Mary Louise discuss:  Debunking the women can “have it all” paradigm and what happens when the things we love come into conflict The limitations of gratitude How our callings pull us into a wider sense of who we belong to How to savor (and mourn) all the lasts as your children grow older  This may be a conversation about parenting, but I think there might be something in here for anyone who wonders: Who am I as my relationships change? Can I still find myself there?***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rabbi Steve Leder, a bestselling author and a rabbi who has presided over a thousand funerals, discusses topics such as finding beauty in death, the importance of showing up for others in grief, honoring someone's memory while being truthful about their humanity, and the peace that comes from acknowledging life's dualities.

Historian and Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff explores the cracks in our seamless worldviews… or at least the worldviews we thought were seamless until we’re faced with tragedies of all kinds. In this wide-ranging exploration, Kate and Michael probe humanity's enduring attempt to console ourselves and construct meaning from our pain.In this conversation, Kate and Michael discuss: Why truth and trust are so important when it comes to finding meaning in our pain The difference between comfort and consolation  The limits of stoicism and hyper-futurism  What it means to be hopeful The importance of community through pain and suffering  Michael does not denigrate anyone’s attempt for comfort, but asks us to look carefully at the consolation that lasts. He asks: What is consolation? And why do we all crave that practice of meaning-making?***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Supermodel Paulina Porizkova has been in the public eye all her life. But it has been a rollercoaster of soaring successes and deep heartache. Grief and pain comes to us all, and in those moments, we need our shared humanity (and not our super-anythingness) to build a bridge back to others.In this tender conversation, Kate and Paulina discuss: How to show up to friends in unsolvable pain Why “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” is just plain wrong Why the assumptions we make about one another are untrue  CW: Spicy language***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rev. Tom Long, author of a book on funerals, discusses the importance of truth-telling at funerals and the necessity of rituals to navigate death and dying. They explore the complexity of love and the decline of spiritual authority, highlighting the need for a sustaining narrative. Learn about the journey of answering one's true vocation and the challenges of recalibrating after loss.

Over thirty years ago, Elaine Pagels’ young son and husband died within the same year. In this tender conversation, Kate and Elaine discuss surviving the aftermath of such devastation, the painful explanations religion often offers, and how we love and keep loving even after so much tragedy. Together, they discuss: The need for connection to others during grief Religion’s often painful and punitive explanations for suffering (and why they aren’t helpful or complete) Why parents often feel like they’ve “failed” when a child dies How suffering pulls us closer to mystery  This episode is for someone who has ever had the thought “haven’t I suffered enough?” Elaine and Kate are trusted companions in a life that hasn’t turned out like we thought it should. CW: death of a child, death of a spouse***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731A big thank you to Jed Meyers for contributing his beautiful poem to today's episode. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every problem New York Times columnist Frank Bruni faced had a simple fix. Doctors offered reasonable solutions for reasonable problems. Preventative care guaranteed future health. That is, until he woke up one morning without vision in his eye. This experience forced him to rethink how much of life is in our control and how to live fully in the face of unfixable problems.In this conversation, Kate and Frank discuss:  Letting go of the idea that life is a series of choices and learning that there are things we can’t fix How the lacquered lives we see on social media deny us the fuller picture of each other’s problems Importance of finding the things that light up our lives and taking the hard stuff bird by bird, vine by vine.  ***Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.We have free Lent guides for you to use by yourself, with a group, or with your church. Click here to get started.Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.