Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Comedians have the ability to be unsparingly honest in ways that buck all cultural norms. It’s a truth-telling that so many of us crave. 

Cue Rob Delaney. 

Rob is a comedian, actor, writer, and director. His memoir, A Heart That Works is an unsparing account of the death of his beautiful son, Henry. Rob lives in London with his family where Kate visited him for this honest and hilarious conversation. 

Kate and Rob discuss:

• The importance of finding people who really understand what you’re feeling

• What not to say to people whose kids have died

• How tragic loss exiles you to a planet where only those who understand grief live

• The ways we hope grief metabolizes in us and transforms us into empathetic, heart-open kinds of people

Rob wants us all to understand that if the unthinkable happens, our hearts still beat so strong in truth and love. 

CW: hard-earned explicit language of a bereaved parent, death of parent, Suicide, death of a child

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Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

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The TODAY Show’s Jenna Bush Hager sits down for a wide-ranging conversation with Kate Bowler. Together, they share about the importance of family and intergenerational relationships (Jenna shares such tender stories about her grandparents), how they hope to let their kids make mistakes and be met with grace, and how they both (try to) find beauty in ordinary, regular days and regular problems. 

In this conversation, Kate and Jenna discuss:

• How to model openness and empathy across difference (even when people really, really disagree)
• Why they want to raise their kids to be curious and independent
• How the love of others makes us brave—brave enough to make mistakes (and why that’s okay)

Kate visited Jenna in New York City for this conversation. And Jenna is just as lovely and generous of spirit as you’d imagine.

CW: fertility issues; Alzheimer’s 

Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here.

Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter). 

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Are you living your best life now? Not always? GREAT, ME NEITHER. 

My name is Kate Bowler. I’m a professor, speaker, podcast host and New York Times bestselling author. Which makes it sound like I believe in living your “best life.” Don’t worry—I don’t. 

I study the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. And hobbies are wasted on me because I’d rather be talking to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens. 

A new season of *fantastic* conversation starts on September 5th. 

Mark your calendar. Make sure you’re subscribed. You won’t want to miss this. 

EVERYTHING HAPPENS is available everywhere you get your podcasts. 

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How do you live knowing life can just come undone at a moment’s notice? In the span of a few months, Tig Notaro received three life-threatening illnesses, unexpectedly lost her mom, and went through a breakup. Tig is a brilliant comedian whose real life informs her comedy and has a lot to teach us about living honestly in the face of reality. 

In this conversation, Kate and Tig discuss: 

• Tig’s “hands-off” parents and her journey of self-discovery, eventually uncovering her talents in the entertainment industry and making her a respected figure in comedy
• How Tig Notaro's family of “real characters,” served as an abundant source of comedic inspiration in her life (including the best graveyard story ever)
• How to live alongside fear of what you know could actually happen?

CW: cancer, death of parent

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Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

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THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.

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What makes a good life? How would you answer that question? Not just life in the abstract… but what makes YOUR life good? Professor Miroslav Volf teaches a popular class at Yale University which guides students through these kinds of questions and might help us all think a little more deeply about what our lives are adding up to be.

In this conversation, Kate and Miroslav discuss:  

• Why just practicing the habits of a good life doesn’t make a life meaningful (hint: we need to be thinking about the ends)
• Importance of asking questions we don’t always have the answers to
• How to define joy
• What does flourishing look like when we feel like we’re “losing” 
• How joy and suffering can coexist

On a personal note, this is a special interview for Kate because Miroslav was also her professor at Yale and someone she looks up to with joy and admiration.

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THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.

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Our most precious relationships are often our most complicated, aren’t they? Poet and bestselling author Kwame Alexander wrote an honest book of poems and essays that name the difficult and beautiful and heart-wrenching conversations we have (or should be having) with the people we love and with the ones who love us. 

In this conversation, Kwame and Kate discuss: 

• How we can’t outrun our grief
• How our own parents love us in the ways they want to be loved, but maybe not in the ways we need—and how we find our ways back to each other
• The desire to share with our kids how we love, where we fail, where we tried, and who we were before we were their parent

CW: death of parent, divorce

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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See 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?

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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

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.