Everything Happens with Kate Bowler
Episodes
Heather Lanier: Whole and Holy
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if your life hasn’t turned out like you thought it would? When writer Heather Lanier’s daughter, Fiona, was born with a rare genetic syndrome...
Sunita Puri: The Uncertainty Specialist
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pain is like a geography—one that isn’t foreign to palliative care physician, Dr. Sunita Puri. Kate and Sunita speak about needing new language fo...
Justin Yopp and Don Rosenstein: The Magic of “We”
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When a group of young moms died around the same time, clinicians Dr. Justin Yopp and Dr. Don Rosenstein wanted to refer their widowed spouses to a gri...
Judy Woodruff: How Will We Live Our Beautiful, Terrible Days?
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do we navigate life within these beautiful, terrible days? In this special live episode of the Everything Happens podcast, Kate sits down with Ame...
Samantha Bee: This is Going to Be(e) a Great Story
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We become the sum of so many people throughout our lives. Kate speaks with one of the funniest people on the entire planet, comedian Samantha Bee, abo...
Pamela Morris-Perez: Suicide Prevention and Hope
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Here on the Everything Happens Podcast we don’t shy away from difficult subjects, and today’s episode tackles a topic we’ve been wanting to disc...
Chantal Kreviazuk: Finding the Melody
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Chantal Kreviazuk is a Canadian singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist—her voice is the soundtrack of all Kate’s Canadian’s teenage ang...
Rainn Wilson: Brave, Beautiful, and Good Things
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes we can fix our lives and sometimes can’t. So when self-help and self-care fall short, what do we need to turn instead? Rainn Wilson (Dwi...
Nicky Gumbel: Questions of Meaning
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our lives are rarely predictable or at all in our control. Sometimes what happens to us or around us can reshape our entire trajectory. Nicky Gumbel i...
Emma Gannon: The Butterfly Era
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So much of modern culture emphasizes success, hard work, and ambition. But what if we don’t conquer every problem or reach every mountaintop? How do...
Maggie Jackson: The Wisdom of Uncertainty
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
These are uncertain times for so many of us. But, according to writer Maggie Jackson, perhaps there is deep wisdom to be uncovered too—surprising ...
Alan Alda: Stay Curious
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t usually have repeat guests on this podcast… except we’re making an exception for the wonderful and wise Alan Alda. Alan Alda, of course...
Richard Grant: Finding a Pocket of Happiness
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When we are in deep grief, we can anticipate some of the horrible parts—the sleeplessness, the denial, the loneliness. But what about the moments of...
Savannah Guthrie: Mostly What God Does
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you have faith that can hold all of reality—the beautiful, the terrible, and everything in-between? The TODAY Show’s Sava...
Sarah Polley: Run Toward the Danger
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever look back at your childhood and go… certainly that didn’t happen like that? Where were the adults? Academy Award-winning director and ...
Stephanie Wittels Wachs: When Life Gives You Lemons
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we’re talking about tragicomedy. And isn’t that all of life? The absurdity. The horror. The laughter that somehow cuts through the most dif...
Made for Connection: A Bonus Heart-to-Heart with Dr. Vivek Murthy
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we have a little bonus episode to kick off your weekend. Vivek Murthy, the current U.S. Surgeon General, had so much wisdom to offer us in this...
Vivek Murthy & Jon Scheyer: Made to Belong
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A basketball coach, a doctor, and a history professor walk into a bar…. This might be the start of a great joke OR the start of an ep...
Bob Crawford: These Beautiful, Terrible Days
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are kicking off Season 12 of the Everything Happens Podcast (!!) with a little bonus situation because we’re having a little bonus moment. Ka...
Listen Again: Beth Moore
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we are re-airing one of our favorite episodes. Beth Moore has been in the limelight for almost thirty years, but during that time, she reve...
Listen Again: Bryan Stevenson
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we are re-airing one of our favorite episodes. Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) is committed to ending mass inca...
Katherine May: Becoming Enchanted
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Living in uncertainty can lead to a sense of languishing. How do we wake up from this feeling? Katherine May has written gorgeous books like...
Bozoma Saint John: Everything Can Be True at Once
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bozoma Saint John is a successful marketing executive, but she is also a woman who knows the rollercoaster of profound love and deep loss. She sh...
Anna Sale: Hard Topics, Softer Conversations
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss: How conversations might engender the intimacy we need to get by Fostering the right interpersonal and li...
Iliza Shlesinger: Laughter is the Best Medicine
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Comedian Iliza Shlesinger is refreshingly candid, especially about things many women can relate to, like the sheer exhaustion that comes from juggling...
Steph Catudal: Love That Carries Us
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you think about faith and hope when your prayers aren’t answered? What about when they are? Steph and her husband, Rivs, have the k...
Catherine Price: Serious About Fun
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Don’t Waste Your Life. Savor Every Moment. Live in the Present. Culture has a lot of prescriptions for how to live a good life. But what if we don...
Margaret Renkl: The Art of Noticing
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Renkl calls herself a backyard naturalist—but not because she has any particular expertise. From the birds in her yard to the bugs in her f...
David Brooks: How to Really Know Someone
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We may think we understand people. Where they are coming from. Why they act the way they act. … But what if we’re wrong? New York Times columnis...
Clover Stroud: The Rituals of Grief
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So many of us have experienced a before… and an after. My friend, the lovely writer Clover Stroud, had her before and after at a young age. When s...
N.T. Wright: The Mystery of God
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Scripture can become a weapon in the hands of the ultra-certain. As if every pain or suffering is part of “God’s divine plan.” So how should we ...
Angela Williams: The Caring Power of Community
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you sustain a life of service…especially when your job costs you something? Angela Williams has dedicated her life to advocating for others. ...
Emi Nietfeld: The Cost of Survival
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does it really mean to “survive” when what you survive… lingers? Emi Nietfeld went from being homeless to graduating from Harvard. But the ...
Lisa Damour: Understanding Today’s Teenagers
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How hard is it to be a parent today? After a pandemic? With social media breathing down our necks? It’s so hard! Navigating the delicate balance bet...
Rob Delaney: A Heart that Works is a Heart that Hurts
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 D...
Jenna Bush Hager: Get in the Game
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 an...
Introducing Season 11 of Everything Happens
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 Time...
Tig Notaro: The Luckiest Unlucky Person
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 illn...
Miroslav Volf: Life Worth Living
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Kwame Alexander: To Be Loved Like That
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our most precious relationships are often our most complicated, aren’t they? Poet and bestselling author Kwame Alexander wrote an honest book of poe...
Minka Kelly: Clear Eyes, Full Hearts
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
John Swinton: The Art of Presence
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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. ...
Maggie Smith: This Place Could Be Beautiful, Right?
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maggie Smith (poet and author of books like Keep Moving and You Could Make This Place Beautiful) chronicles the aftermath of a painful divorce s...
Mary Louise Kelly: No More Do Overs
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Rabbi Steve Leder: Don’t Come Out Empty Handed
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How should you show up for people in grief? What do you say? What should you do? Why is it that beauty can exist alongside deep suffering? What can be...
Michael Ignatieff: Where We Turn For Meaning
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Historian and Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff explores the cracks in our seamless worldviews… or at least the worldviews we thought were seaml...
Paulina Porizkova: Complicated Grief and Complicated Love
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 a...
Tom Long: Number Our Days
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Reverend Tom Long wrote the book on funerals. No, really. When grief threatens to swallow us whole, Tom reminds us of our place in a bigger story ...
Elaine Pagels: Love Pulls You Forward
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over thirty years ago, Elaine Pagels’ young son and husband died within the same year. In this tender conversation, Kate and Elaine discuss survivin...
Frank Bruni: Adapting to Loss
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every problem New York Times columnist Frank Bruni faced had a simple fix. Doctors offered reasonable solutions for reasonable problems. Preventative ...
Beth Moore: Back to the Beginning
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beth Moore has been in the limelight for almost thirty years, but during that time, she revealed very little about her formative family history. Now, ...
Blessing Our ACTUAL Lives
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to SEASON TEN of the Everything Happens Podcast! I started this podcast as a way to create language and community around some of life's most p...
Kelly Corrigan: Here's to the Happies
27 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As we approach the New Year, we might need a minute to look backward. What even happened this year? Who was I? What went well? What didn't? Before w...
Kelly Corrigan: Cheers to the Crappies
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This time of year can be rough. Somehow we are supposed to wrap it up or feel complete, but, more often than not, we can look back at a year that, wel...
Liz Gilbert: Why Your Creativity Matters
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The indomitable Liz Gilbert (of EAT, PRAY, LOVE fame) joins Kate for a live conversation on the courage to create. Listen as Liz helps us expose our e...
Bryan Stevenson: Love Mercy
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, to challenging racial an...
The Season of Waiting (And Waiting... And Waiting...)
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are going to practice the season of Advent together. Download a free Advent guide, here.At the end of today's episode, we asked you what your tradi...
Fred Penner: Music That Makes Us
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fred Penner is a Canadian sensation whose television show and hit songs like “The Cat Came Back” was part of so many of our childhoods. But what f...
Kate Bowler Joins We Can Do Hard Things
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today, I have a very special BONUS episode for you all. Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed, watched in awe as this simple phrase from Untamed – WE CAN...
Julia Samuel: Every Family Has A Story
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Julia Samuel is a psychologist in the UK who specializes in working with families who have experienced complicated stories of loss and love. So often ...
Priya Parker: The Art of Gathering
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we gather in meaningful ways? After the pandemic took apart so many of our favorite ways of hanging out, we might be out of practice. Or too ti...
Katherine and Jay Wolf: Wounded Healers
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jay and Katherine Wolf were 26 years old, newly married, and brand new parents when Katherine survived a brain stem stroke that upended their lives. T...
Stanley Hauerwas: More Life, Fewer Explanations
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas has written some of the most influential books on religion in the 20th century. But behind closed doors, he was suffering ...
Melissa Urban: Worthy of Boundaries
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Urban’s (CEO of The Whole30) experience of chronic illness forced her to accept her body’s limitations. You are going to love her practica...
Jeff Chu: Full Circle Faith
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Jeff Chu was raised in a devout Chinese Baptist community, yet struggled to reconcile being gay with the conservative faith of his family. And ...
Mary Laura Philpott: Everybody Has Something
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Writer Mary Laura Philpott had all the regular kind of parental worries until her teenage son had his first seizure. She had to learn to balance her f...
Thomas Lynch: A Good Funeral
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Lynch is an essayist, poet, and funeral director in Milford, Michigan, where he has served since 1974 when he took over the trade from his fath...
Arthur Brooks: When Success Isn’t Success
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur Brooks was a professional musician and spent his twenties touring all over the world. Until one day, he stopped being able to hit the notes. He...
Randall Balmer: Wrestling With the Faith We Love
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us miss the churches of our childhood and are trying to figure out what pieces of our faith to keep and which to leave behind. My guest today ...
Ibram Kendi: Showing Your Scars
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ibram Kendi and Kate Bowler have more in common than they would have liked. Historians and professors. Parents of young kids. Diagnosed with Stage IV ...
Introducing Season 9 of EVERYTHING HAPPENS
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I'm Kate Bowler and I am so excited to be back for another season of EVERYTHING HAPPENS. A podcast where we don't have to pretend to explain away our ...
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby: Suspicious of Joy
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Kate visited the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace in London.In this funny and poignant conversation,...
Susan Cain: Survival of the Kindest
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How is it that joy and pain seem to coexist at once? Susan Cain (author of the bestseller Quiet) explores this question in her new book, Bittersweet. ...
Haider Warraich: Embracing the Complexity of Pain
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When a random weight-lifting accident left cardiologist Dr. Haider Warraich in chronic pain, he went from being a physician to being a patient in one ...
Tara Westover: Remaking Home
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What do we do when our families are sources of pain, confusion, or harm? How do we (or can we) outgrow our complicated childhoods when we no longer ne...
Anna Sale: Hard Topics, Softer Conversations
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Our culture seems convinced that going off-script is unbecoming. Instead, we are rewarded for being buttoned up, perfect (or at least appearing to be)...
Cammie McGovern: Mythbusting Parenting
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We often have very romantic expectations about parenthood. Parenthood is about a mythical child who will be perfect in a way we haven’t quite put ou...
Mitch Albom: Counting your Somethings
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bestselling author Mitch Albom was at the height of his career when his favorite professor was dying. Mitch then spent his Tuesdays with Morrie—conv...
Ann Patchett: Behold, These Precious Days
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bestselling novelist Ann Patchett knows how to walk right up to the edge with people she loves. She is the friend who sits with you during chemo, or l...
Taylor Harris: Peace for Our Anxious Selves
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone loves to get VERY BOSSY when it comes to our fears. “Don’t worry, be happy!” Just be brave! But maybe ‘being brave’ doesn’t mean ...
Liz Tichenor: Being Church on Our Worst Days
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Author and priest Liz Tichenor lost her mom and her baby in the same year. Brand new to leading a church and reeling from the grief, the pain was enou...
Kate Baer: Tolerating Imperfection
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Poet Kate Baer found herself inundated with the demands of motherhood and little time to write. Nothing was easy and then, at a breaking point, it fel...
Giving Up on Perfect
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I do not imagine that I will settle centuries of debate about just how good we are, except that I believe that it is somewhere between two poles: ev...
Rick Mercer: Proud of Absolutely Everybody
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rick Mercer didn’t exactly know he was allowed to be proud. As a teenager, he was barely making it through high school and traveling the island prov...
Katie Couric: The Courage to Try (and Wisdom to Know When to Let Go)
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author. Her hustle and ambition not only served her career aspirations, but when faced wit...
Introducing Season 8 of EVERYTHING HAPPENS
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
My name is Kate Bowler, and I'm a professor at Duke, a writer of some books that have joyfully sarcastic titles, wife, and mom of a boy that is mostly...
David Brooks & Kate Bowler: Never, Ever Enough
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we reach for wisdom instead of self-help solutions? Much to their embarrassment, New York Times columnist David Brooks and Kate Bowler often fi...
Sarah Sentilles: Loving a Stranger
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're often given a story of birds and bees where two people fall in love and out of their love blooms a perfect little creature. But far too often an...
Cindy McCain: A Special Kind of Brave
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does courage look like in the face of the impossible? Cindy McCain had a front row seat to history, as wife of Arizona Senator and presidential c...
Richard Rohr: Learning to Hold On, Learning to Let Go
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Alexi Pappas: Staying Awake to Our Pain
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When she was a child, Alexi Pappas lost her mother to suicide. So when Alexi faced a season of deep depression she knew had to find a different way fo...
Jerry Sittser: Life After Loss
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do you move forward after an incalculable loss? Jerry Sittser lost his wife, young daughter, and his mom in one horrific accident. But even as hi...
Susan David: Toxic Positivity
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever feel a pressure to be positive? Harvard psychologist and bestselling author of Emotional Agility, Dr. Susan David studies the psychologica...
Stanley Tucci: Small Pleasures, Simple Joys
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stanley Tucci is a total foodie—of course, he starred in Julie and Julia and brought us the mouth-watering CNN special, Searching for Italy. But whe...
Philip Yancey: The Scandal of Grace
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Yancey is well-known for his bestselling books like What's So Amazing About Grace and Disappointment with God. But behind all of that spirit...
No Cure For Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn’t choos...
Tony Hale: Gentleness for Our Awkward, Anxious Selves
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What if we never fit in? Or always miss the script that everyone else seems to so easily understand? From Arrested Development’s Buster Bluth to Vee...
Antoni Porowski: Tastes Like Love
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of food tastes like love to you? Food has a beautiful way of making us feel less lonely in our pain or in our isolation or in our grief. Sta...
Gretchen Rubin: Can We Be A Tiny Bit Happier?
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to be happier? Bestselling author Gretchen Rubin wondered if she could discipline herself to take tiny steps in order to be more conten...
Nadine Burke Harris: What Your Childhood Means for Your Health
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can trauma you experienced as a kid still affect you now? What about the traumatic experiences of our parents and grandparents? Is there a way to undo...