Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

• Listen Again: Father Richard Rohr on Learning to Hold On, Learning to Let Go

  Life is painful. Period. But are there some aspects of our faith or our posture toward the world that can change how we experience it? Father Richard Rohr is everyone’s favorite preacher of love. Love for each other. Love from God. In this conversation, Kate and Richard talk about: How great love and great suffering can move us into a new stage of life The spirituality of subtraction Making room for mystery of joy and suffering His secret to staying present to God Together, might we all learn when to hold on and when to let go. Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too! This episode originally aired November 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Advent: A Protest Song

  We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants where Mary is very sweet and demure and she is wearing a tablecloth pulled from the church dining hall. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much impossible courage Mary had from the beginning. She finds out that she is pregnant in a completely scandalous way. But what does this divinely-prepared, teenage girl do when an angel crashes into her life with an announcement guaranteed to upend all her best plans? She sings. But not a sweet lullaby. Mary belts out a protest song: “He has brought down the mighty from their thronesand lifted up the humble.He has filled the hungry with good things,and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52–53). This is not the peace of spa music and chamomile tea. It’s the kind of peace that rearranges the furniture of the universe. That scatters the arrogant and topples the unjust. God’s peace doesn’t politely avoid conflict; it writes the soundtrack for a revolution. And somehow, Mary holds all of this—terror, disruption, and hope—in her own body. She sings peace into a world that did not ask for it, but desperately needs it. And here we are, centuries later, humming along too. Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Listen Again: Nikki DeLoach on a Not-So Hallmark Christmas

  The pandemic introduced many to living with uncertainty. But for some, uncertainty has always been their norm. Actress Nikki Deloach has starred in several Hallmark Christmas movies, but her life hasn’t matched the happily-ever-after plot-lines of her characters. Nikki’s dad was diagnosed with an aggressive form of dementia and her son was diagnosed with congenital heart defects in utero… all in the same week. In this conversation, Kate and Nikki discuss how to live with constant uncertainty, how to stay open to both the terror and the beauty of living close to the edge, and how to make Christmas meaningful when hope is hard to come by. Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too! This episode originally aired December 2020. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Advent: Begin Again

  Well, here we are. December has arrived (shudder). And with it, the great cultural sprint: decorations, office parties, and the annual anxiety dream about whether you will accidentally forget someone on your gift list (spoiler: you will). Some of you already finished your shopping over Thanksgiving and have a freezer full of perfectly labeled Christmas cookies. (Who are you?! Come to my house and fix my life!) The rest of us are still trying to remember where we put last year’s wrapping paper. It’s easy, this time of year, to let December carry us away. The shopping carts, the streaming playlists, the endless events. Advent, though, asks us to live by a different rhythm. The early church saw this season as one of watching and waiting—not just for Christmas morning, but for the whole story of God’s redemption. They began the year not by rushing, but by slowing down. The prophet Isaiah describes this posture well: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). The church fathers loved this verse because it sounded like Advent: strength found not in frantic activity, but in patient trust. So maybe the invitation this December is not to do more, but to intend more. To decide, amid the cookie dough and to-do lists, that this month won’t only be measured in packages mailed or tables set, but in moments of return. Little pauses of prayer. A fat candle lit on the dining room table that makes you take a breath. A quiet reminder that God is coming, and we don’t have to hold the season—or our lives—together by ourselves. So welcome to December, friends. Whether you’re ahead of the game or already behind, you are exactly where you need to be: at the beginning. Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• Listen Again: Anna Sale on Hard Topics, Softer Conversations

  In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss: How conversations might engender the intimacy we need to get by Fostering the right interpersonal and listening skills it takes to approach a difficult topic (especially when you’re feeling nervous) Best practices for responding to someone’s hard news How learning to listen might bridge differences of all kinds What do we lose when we don’t talk about hard things? And what might we gain if we do? Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over on Substack! This episode originally aired April 2022.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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