← The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
Kate Bowler on how to accompany those who are suffering
01:04:19
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- [00:00]
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- [00:33]
Kate Bowler
How is it possible that we can
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have a temporary transcendent feeling of wholeness in the middle of an absolute mess, like most of the great gifts of God have no relationship to our effort, no relationship to math, and have only to do with the fact that we are somehow chosen in all this universe to be God's precious creatures.
- [00:57]
Father Jim Martin
Welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Father Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their prayer and in their daily lives. And I'm joined by my long suffering producer, Maggie Van Dorn. Maggie, it's good to be with you. And I'm using that word for a reason.
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Maggie Van Dorn
It's great to be with you, Chip. This show is pure delight and joy, but we all do suffer. And I think that headlines the subject of this episode very well.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah. This time we're speaking with the amazing Kate Bowler. We can talk about why we wanted her on the show, but can you tell us a little bit more about Kate Bowler?
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Maggie Van Dorn
Yeah, I'd love to. So Kate Bowler is a scholar of American religion history. She's an author. She's a cancer survivor and a professor at Duke Divinity School. Kate's work explores suffering, hope, joy, and the myths of modern optimism in American Christianity. Kate is the creator and host of the very popular podcast Everything Happens and is the author of many bestselling books, including Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved and no Cure for Being Human. And her latest book is coming out this April 7th. It's called Joyful. Anyway, and we wanted to have Kate on the show as we alluded to before, because she is one of these voices in the atmosphere today who can actually talk honestly and authentically about human suffering.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah. And you know, as you pointed out in your introduction, she not only has the credentials, the academic credentials as professor of American religious history, she's at Duke Divinity School, one of the great divinity schools in this country. But she is a cancer survivor and she speaks about suffering and believing in God at the same time with a lot of authority. And she really, in this interview, dispels a lot of these kind of myths. Right. About if you're good, God will reward you. The prosperity gospel. And you know, what I sometimes call the transactional God. And it's just a great instructive and very healing episode, I think it is.
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Maggie Van Dorn
And one of the terms that comes up in the conversation is theodicy. Jim, could you kind of outline what scholars mean when they say theodicy?
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah, it's a fairly straightforward idea. And it's also wrapped up with what's sometimes called the mystery of suffering or the mystery of evil, which is, if God is just and all loving, then why is there a world with suffering and injustice? And sometimes philosophers say, well, it's inconsistent because God is either all powerful or all loving. And if God were all loving, then there would be no suffering in the world, and therefore God must not be powerful. Right. And if God were powerful, then he could prevent suffering. And so therefore God probably is not all powerful. So it's this kind of inconsistency. And, you know, we look around the world, and it's difficult to square sometimes. Right. We pray and pray and pray for an end to the war and wherever, fill in the blank. And. And it doesn't happen. And we think, you know, why is God doing this? So it is. The theodicy is really connected with this mystery of suffering and mystery of evil. And we. We address it throughout the conversation. You know, she talks about her cancer and other forms of suffering that people have undergone. And we also directly answer that question in the audience question today.
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Maggie Van Dorn
Yeah, and that audience question I'll just outline right now. And that comes from Kim, although many of you have asked this question, and it is, how do we believe in a just and loving God in the midst of such an unjust and deeply unloving world? So if you have a question for Father Jim, you can write to us@thespirituallifemericamedia.org and I will just say it's such a privilege to have Kate on, because she helps us tackle that question from a scholarly perspective, but also just a very human perspective as someone who has encountered real suffering.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah. And I'll say more personally, this show comes a couple weeks after my mom's death at age 94. And so I was really happy to talk with her and share a little bit about my experience of that kind of suffering. So it's a really special episode for all of us here.
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Maggie Van Dorn
That's right.
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Father Jim Martin
So now onto our conversation with Kate Bowler. Well, Kate Bowler, welcome to the spiritual life.
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Kate Bowler
I am so glad to be with you.
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Father Jim Martin
I am a big fan well, thank you. I'm a big fan and we're a big fan of yours. We're going to jump right in to some difficult stuff. You were diagnosed with stage four cancer at 35 years old and survived it and wrote a wonderful book, Everything Happens for a Reason and other lies I've loved. And you started a podcast called Everything Happens, so I really do want to start there. How would you describe your understanding of God, say, earlier in your life, and how did your cancer diagnosis and that treatment influence, if it did, those beliefs?
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Kate Bowler
Yeah, well, I mean, I grew up among sweet, hard working, cheese eating Mennonites, and they're sort of last of the
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Puritans, where we are accidentally kind of an achiever culture, oddly.
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Like, I will be good and God
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will quietly and barely perceptibly reward me for all of my hard work.
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And there was a lovely certainty about all of it in which I understood God to be loving, but also that most of my life was about me trying and achieving and climbing some kind of ladder toward possibly more and more small participation trophies. And that really came apart when I got sick, when I was looking at not being able to live through the summer when I had just a little boy of two and my high school sweetheart I'd married. I was looking at a world in which any story about a meritocracy doesn't make any sense anymore. And initially that made me so angry at God. Don't you love me? Am. Am I not special somehow? Didn't I try? Wasn't I good? Good enough at least to. To get a full life? And I. That coming apart ended up being deeply, deeply meaningful to me because I started to recover a sense that, like, God's love would be so enormous that I would feel carried regardless of what I earned. And that belief actually that God loves the brokenhearted has become one of the most powerful things I've ever experienced and one of the strongest things I believe.
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Father Jim Martin
That's interesting. Did you feel that early on that you had failed or that God was being cruel or both?
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Kate Bowler
I think initially, because I had had so much medical mistreatment before my diagnosis, it only became a stage four cancer diagnosis because I'd been turned away from the hospital multiple times with, like, Pepto Bismol and a firm talk about how it must be women problems. I think I got one speech about, like, being. Being a little lady in a big job. I just gotten my dream job at Duke University. I just. I had felt so unheard that by the time it happened and they said, you have stage Four cancer. I think accidentally, I experienced it primarily as shame that I had done something that I just was not the kind of person that a good thing should happen to. And I think that sometimes happens when you've been part of a system that just can't quite make sense of you, that by the time something bad does happen, it starts to just feel inevitable.
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Father Jim Martin
So how did you make that shift from that kind of transactional relationship with God where if I do xyz, God will do abc, to this new relationship where God is loving you in your brokenheartedness? What enabled you to do that?
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Kate Bowler
Well, Christians didn't help for a long time because the second I got sick
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almost, I mean, the first instinctive and it sounded faithful answer was that this was. This was a lesson for me. This was something I had to learn in order to become a better Christian, a better woman, a better wife, a better mom, and I, you know, as like a good little student. I got a PhD for a reason. I love homework. I wanted to do my spiritual homework. And the cruelty of that really kind of needed to come apart. I needed to recover the belief that God's love is so insane, so unconditional, so ridiculous, so not math. And that this wasn't about lessons and trying to understand, in particular the American Christian cultural scripts that are always trying to force us to learn lessons, that we give that back to people who are suffering in the worst moments of their life.
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I think that helped me become, like, much more of like an evangelist and a witness for that God that I believe in than I ever would have been before.
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Father Jim Martin
Was there a moment that that helped you make that shift? Something that someone said to you, or was it kind of a gradual process?
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Kate Bowler
Would you say it was actually a really weird. I say weird because Mennonites are inherently suspicious of strong spiritual experiences.
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But I was.
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I had a very intense feeling, even in the hospital, of feeling deeply, like, bubble wrapped, loved by God. Like there was a weird sweetness to the way I felt carried and I was still mad and I was still brokenhearted, but that feeling somehow, like, carried me for a couple months. And I've never had that feeling of being sort of protected from the worst parts of fear and feeling disposable. And, I mean, I wish I could bottle it. I wish I could predict that it was ever going to happen again. But I felt like I got a gift. And that gift gave me a sense of my own value, particularly at the moment where I didn't believe it.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah, value as a person who's going through sickness rather than God values me and therefore will give me health.
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Kate Bowler
That's right. When you don't get a lot of guarantees, you have to love a God that doesn't give guarantees and embrace contingency and that feeling of being delicate more than you wish that God was an answer factory.
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Father Jim Martin
I'm curious as you're talking, and thanks for being so honest. Did this distance you from your family a bit or from your Mennonite brothers and sisters?
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Kate Bowler
It's funny because there's an appendix at
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the back of my memoir. So I wrote that memoir in, like, three months because I thought I was going to die. And it was very, very visceral.
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But at the end, there's like a little appendix of things not to say to a suffering person. And it is funny because I did write that at a family gathering in which I was like, one more person tells me that God needs an angel. So there was. There is, like, a lot of. I think there's a lot of rage in there.
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And I think, too, especially when it comes to, like, the people who love you, when everyone is that scared. I think the people you lie to first are the people you love. So I know I was so quick to say, it's going to be fine. Like, I can, you know, just assurance, assurance, assurance, and. And I think they were quick to lie to me. And I think in all that accidental dishonesty often born of love, there was a deep loneliness that set in, that did feel sometimes, like, estrangement.
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Father Jim Martin
That's very beautifully put. So the idea is that you're, in a sense, papering over your suffering because you don't want them to be worried and they're trying to help you feel not worried? Is that the idea?
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Kate Bowler
Yes. And then we're all worried deep down.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah. And rather than being honest with one another, can you. Can you share some of the things that are in the back of that book, in that appendix, Things that people say. I mean, I've read them, but I also, and I think, think it's good for people to hear these platitudes from time to time.
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Kate Bowler
Well, I think anything that starts with at least. At least it's not. I mean, I think my. You know, then you start to be like, well, at least it's not stage five cancer. Where are we. Where are we going with this? At least you're at a great hospital.
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I remember I was. It was so unbelievably expensive. As an immigrant, I didn't qualify for charity care. It looked for a while like we were going to be My family and my parents medically bankrupt. It was awful. And somebody was very quick to say, well, at least you have the mental
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resources to deal with the bill collectors. And I was like, yeah, I think we've reached. We've reached a little too far on this one.
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So. Yeah, anything starts with at least the. The most tempting, of course, is the desire to immediately relate by describing your great aunt who recently died of the same affliction that you've died of.
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Or so it's a very. Comes out of a very common want to connect, but it almost always ends with someone else describing the worst moment of their life and a person who didn't recover.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah, I find it's a very strange thing. In pastoral counseling class during theology, they told us that, you know, while you may believe in some of these things, right. I mean, I believe people go to heaven and God's merciful and all that. That, you know, sort of short circuiting people's own path to making meaning for themselves and finding meaning in it really can be destructive. So one of the things I always struggle with is, you know, when people die and my mom died just a couple weeks ago, you know, I believe she's in heaven. And so when people say, you know, my aunt died or my grandmother died, I do believe, you know, yes, with God's mercy, they're in heaven. But saying that does sound a little facile. Right. Because even though I believe that this person's loving, wonderful, generous grandmothers in heaven, for me to sort of say that as the first thing.
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Kate Bowler
Yes.
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Father Jim Martin
Can be hard for people because it sounds like you're sort of. You're. You're kind of denying their pain. Would you agree with that?
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Kate Bowler
Oh, I love that. Yeah. It reminds me of. And even our own desires to sort of work backwards from a best case and then accidentally gaslight ourselves and be unable to acknowledge what we're going through. I did get very good advice along those lines from an old man, colleague, friend who said one time as I was just trying to, like, rush through everything I could possibly do to fix, to minimize, to save. And he said, oh, don't skip to the end, Kate. Just don't skip to the end.
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Father Jim Martin
I sometimes tell people who are suffering that when people tell you those things in the sense that your family is trying to help, that they're trying to help and they don't know what to say. So there's a kind of forgiveness, I think, on the part of the patient, as it were right to recognize that they're doing their best. They don't know what to say. And it is a strange kind of form of love, right? They want to comfort you. They don't know how to comfort you.
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Kate Bowler
I like that interpretation because I think it's mostly true. The other part that doesn't feel true about it is when people's faith to them sounds identical to certainty, it's not identical to love. It's identical to certainty. And then I find when they see anybody that is among the least of
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these, like anyone struggling, anyone broken, they
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are just very quick to whip out a certainty that will help explain a world in which God is fair. And it reminds me of a very telling definition of theodicy. Right? The explanations for the problem of evil. And one is a defense in order to justify God. As if people by suffering have made an accusation. I think that is sometimes how we treat the suffering is they've actually pointed out a glitch in the system and we need to explain it away.
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Father Jim Martin
That's interesting. Let's unpack that. Do you mean that if people are suffering or poor, that people of faith sometimes look for the reason to sort of give them confidence that their understanding of God is still intact? Is that the idea?
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Kate Bowler
I think so. And even if it's not material, any doubt or despair or fear then immediately gets explained away as faith over fear. Truth is when angels show up in scripture, they show up screaming, do not be afraid.
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Because angels are by definition terrifying.
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Father Jim Martin
That's true. Let's go back a little bit. Do you connect the way that you were brought up with aspects of the prosperity gospel? Is that part of it as well? If you suppose lead a good life and are Christian and moral, therefore God will reward you. Is that part of it as well?
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Kate Bowler
I think every good behaving culture has
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an accidental works by righteousness. I think Mennonites can definitely fall into that.
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I became an expert in the prosperity gospel very early on in my academic career. And I really. Which is the belief that God wants to give you health, wealth and finance if you have the right kind of faith and speak the right kind of positive words. And I did notice that once I saw it in these mega churches and in these televangelists. I did sort of notice it everywhere. I noticed it in my own background. I noticed it every single time. I'm affronted that my.
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That my hard work hasn't paid off.
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I think we do all have an accidental prosperity gospel.
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Father Jim Martin
I think that's a great insight. I think buried within us, at least most Christians, when something bad happens, I mean, I Still find it myself. I've been a Jesuit for 37, 38 years, and I still feel, not so much that God is punishing me when something bad goes happens to me, but if I do something bad, God will punish me. It's a kind of superstition, too. You know, one of my spiritual directors said that superstition, it's not religion, and it's not a kind of relationship with God. And you're also. You're ascribing too much power to yourself. That's good, you know, that I'm going to sort of make God do something either good or bad. Let me ask you, though, and I'm sure a lot of people would be curious, what do you say to people who are suffering? Everything happens to reason is a maxim that many people lean on. So what do you find helpful if you're confronted with someone else's suffering?
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Kate Bowler
I think it's one of the hardest things to answer because you have to really believe all the way down that what you're about to say is available to everyone. I think promises, spiritual promises, are a very special category of truth.
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And I try to be really selective
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about which things I really, really believe. And one is that I do believe that God has a special place in his heart for the. For the brokenhearted. God draws close to those who are afraid, who are desperate, who need Him. So I think that's like a. One very natural thing to be able to write in a card if you've got a second, which is that I truly believe that God will never leave you and loves you, specifically you and your.
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And then insert a million very specific compliments.
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I think people love to know that their lives in particular will not have to be lived out in loneliness. I think the other thing, I just like it when people say is I love it when they don't pry. And they say something general, like, I know you're walking a really hard road and just know that I'm. I'm always here if you want to talk about it. Or I loved it when people said, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. And the two you used to really get me, especially when I felt, frankly, like, so shameful that I kept being the unlucky one.
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Father Jim Martin
That's interesting. Why. Why did that strike you?
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Kate Bowler
I guess because everybody's language is so generalizing. They're like, well, bad things happen, but they're not happening in general. They're not happening to Linda.
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They're happening to me like they're taking apart my life.
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It's my hopes, my want to relearn French and see the pyramids, you know, and just to feel like it. It mattered, that it was my life, felt really special to me.
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Father Jim Martin
I find it really interesting that the two things that you mentioned, which are very beautiful, are about accompaniment. The first is God accompanying you, and the second is I, you know, your friend will be accompanying you. You know, one of the things that I find helpful to share with people is that, you know, God is with you. So that, that first thing you said, which is very powerful, although I think that the challenge is helping people see where God is. Because a lot of times they might say, well, I don't feel God, you know, and then it's about my experience is asking people or inviting people to look for signs of God's presence. And the other thing is also about accompaniment, which is that Jesus, you know, having lived a human life, may not know exactly what you're going through. He didn't have stage 4 cancer, but he did understand suffering. And one of the most powerful things for me is that when you pray to Jesus and when you're talking to Jesus in your prayer, he is someone who understands you. Right? And you know, when we think about Jesus on the cross and, but also Jesus in his daily life, I mean, he would have seen his foster father Joseph die, right? He knew what death was. And I find that's helpful for people. It's not an answer. Right. But it is true that Christ understands you. But I like that both of your sort of offerings to people are about accompaniment.
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Kate Bowler
I really like that. I think I've had a hard time being a good witness to my own life, being able to look at what's actually happening and believe myself that when other people can mirror back to you your own worth, your own goodness, your own possibility, it really feels like grace.
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Father Jim Martin
Do you think that people who are suffering or people who are ill or people are being treated doubt their own worth sometimes? That they're just bodies or just their illnesses. Is that what you mean?
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Kate Bowler
Well, I think we have a very loud American cultural story about winners and losers and people who lose, people who didn't get back up, people who took more than they could give. They very quickly get the message that in a culture of self sufficiency and independence that they are the wrong kind of person. They're the person that might need to be carried. When, of course, I mean, so much of your theology is like helping people understand how much being carried opens us up to new spiritual insights.
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Father Jim Martin
That's really helpful. Winners and losers and also kind of unlucky.
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Kate Bowler
Yes.
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Father Jim Martin
Right. And I don't want to associate myself with someone who's unlucky, who got cancer or who lost their job. And I often think that, you know, part of that is like a, like elementary school or junior high school, like playground stuff. Like I don't want to be with the uncool kids.
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Kate Bowler
Yeah.
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Father Jim Martin
Oh, I want to be with the cool kids or the successful kids who are lucky. I see that in people sort of withdrawing from people who are ill, you know.
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Kate Bowler
Totally. I mean, so I've been working on this history of self help and one of the most common sort of modern theologies is that people don't believe in luck. So if you don't believe in luck, then all of a sudden you're in a new causal universe in which you deserve everything that comes to you or doesn't. And I really appreciated being able to research happiness this last year for that reason. Given that the word happiness comes from hap, like happenstance, the stuff that happens to you if you are unlucky, if you're not somebody who gets to line up their, you know, their haps, then they don't always get to be happy. And we have a culture only wants us to be independent, only wants us to be happy, only wants us to carry our own weight and then be able to give more. And I, I love thinking about all the ways that actually that totally misses the point. Like most of the most beautiful things we can ever experience as Christians and as people is, is terrible math. Like service. Service is weird because you actually get
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more than you give. How does that make any sense? I'm like same with like joy. How is it possible that we can
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have a temporary transcendent feeling of wholeness in the middle of an absolute mess? Like most of the great gifts of God have no relationship to our effort, no relationship to math, and have only to do with the fact that we are somehow chosen in all this universe to be God's precious creatures.
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Father Jim Martin
Do you think that people withdraw from situations of suffering because they are selfish or because they're frightened or because they don't have answers or because it's not leading them to joy and therefore they think they, they need to avoid it?
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Kate Bowler
Well, I do think we have a happiness obsessed culture. We have, we have good vibes only
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on every single 8 year old's T shirt at this point, like from now till kingdom come. And the problem with good vibes and
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happiness and luck is it's all, I mean, even from a psychological standpoint, happiness is an extremely fragile emotion. It can be toppled over by other people's. Unluck by other people's moods. It's not very durable. So if you're trying to build a life of total self sufficiency and happiness, I think you kind of know instinctively that you're a Jenga tower and that somebody else's problems are going to knock you over and you just want to stay tall. So we'd have to want other things. We'd have to want something maybe a little grittier than just happiness and independence.
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah. You know, it's funny, a couple years ago, I did a book called Between Heaven and Mirth on joy, humor and laughter. And, you know, it's funny. Kate. I often say to people that if you go to a bookstore and you go to the religion section, if you can still find the religion section or if you go online, there's so many books on suffering and, you know, pain and finding God in the midst of suffering and all that. And the number of books on laughter, humor, and joy from the spiritual perspective were pretty lacking. And it's funny because, you know, joy is the end point of the Christian life. I mean, the resurrection is nothing if not a joyful thing. And Jesus said, I came so that your joy can be complete. Do you think that joy is undervalued in the spiritual life in Christian circles?
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Kate Bowler
Oh, my gosh.
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And I totally think it is.
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I love where you're going with this. I totally agree.
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Do you think people think of us
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as, in Christians, as inherently humorless?
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Father Jim Martin
Yeah, the Frozen chosen, as I heard a long time ago. I think that it's. I mean, as I say in this book, I want to talk about your book, not my book, but that I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of who Jesus was and is. He's fully human, so therefore he has a fully human sense of humor. I talk about the parables and some of his comments that would have been seen as funny in first century Judea and Galilee. And I think that people from the Catholic point of view see the saints. You know, they see these statues and they're all grumpy and one of the things. Yeah, one of the things. Well, they all look terrible. Who would want to join this group? Whereas when you read the lives of the Saints, you know, most of them were pretty funny. Right. And I talk in this book about, you know, saintly humor and the jokes that they would crack. But it is. I think that people think that we know when they think of Christians, you know, they think of people who Are joyless.
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Kate Bowler
I love where you're going with this because I think it also pretends that we also don't know that life is absurd. Of course it's absurd. It's ridiculous. I mean, and knowing that is part of the joke. Like, the faster you can realize.
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Like, for example, I was in Portugal with my dad.
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My dad is very opinionated about everything. And he hates a certain form of Portuguese art called Manuelian art. And it is annoying.
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He's right.
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That if you look around, you realize it's an entire art form where they're like, I love this late Gothic period, but let's add more pineapples.
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So on the wall, it's just like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pineapples. And all, of course, in gold. And we're walking around and my dad is like, moaning about how Manuelian architecture ruined. Ruined the late Gothic period.
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And I saw this lovely old man just marveling at every moment of this gorgeous cathedral, and he is just delighting himself. And at that moment, I looked up and I realized that this entire cathedral didn't have a roof on it. And, like, birds are dropping things from the sky. The whole thing is so heavily ornamented
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that apparently, the story goes, kingdoms rose and fell and no one just. Everyone was so busy ornamenting the building that they never actually finished it. They never actually gave it a ceiling. And I really thought that was such a perfect encapsulation of the absurdity of the human life is we are endlessly ornamenting, flourishing, busying ourselves with more pineapples. And always, always our human lives will remain unfinished and fundamentally ridiculous.
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And if we know that we can never be done, never finish our lives, I think we can accept the. The randomness. Like, why did you choose this? Not this. Why. Why do I love world's largest roadside attractions so much? Like, when you can get inside the joke of the human life, you can see that that tragedy and absurdity is what makes it so beautiful. And I think they don't believe that we know how funny it is.
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Father Jim Martin
Who's the they? Non Christians.
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Kate Bowler
American culture. I don't think they think that Christians get the tragicomedy of life.
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Father Jim Martin
That's interesting. Do you think that joy stems from an appreciation that, you know, it's in a sense a move towards humility, Right, that we're not in charge, that our lives aren't perfect. Do you think that's a prerequisite for joy, that. That kind of humility?
- [32:12]
Kate Bowler
I hadn't honestly thought about humility as being a prerequisite. Because joy is this bright, enlivening feeling. And I have always thought spiritually, it has three cousins. And one is delight because it typically makes us laugh. And another is hope because it's a refutation of despair. And the other is gratitude because it feels suddenly when we feel this great yes in our souls, that we feel a temporary wholeness that. That makes us say, like, it is so good. It is so good to be alive.
- [32:48]
And that I think for me, the relationship to humility would be like, in
- [32:52]
that one moment, like it doesn't matter. Like nothing, everything matters and nothing matters.
- [32:57]
I think you're right.
- [32:58]
That would just mean that all efforts are just kind of beside the point.
- [33:03]
Father Jim Martin
I love those three features. I'll give you my definition. How do you define joy? Since you just wrote a new book called Joyful Anyway, do you have a go to definition of joy?
- [33:13]
Kate Bowler
Okay, well, now I need to hear yours first because I'm sure you're more right than I am.
- [33:16]
Father Jim Martin
No, I don't know about that. So I came up with a sort of distinction between, in my own mind, between joy and happiness. That happiness, as you were saying, can be kind of fleeting. Right. But joy is happiness in God. Joy is about a relationship. And you can be sad about something, but still have a sort of fundamental joy because you're in relationship with God. What would you say?
- [33:41]
Kate Bowler
Oh, I love that last part in particular, because it is a crazy feature
- [33:44]
that you can't be happy and sad at the same time, but you can be joyful and sad at the same
- [33:49]
time, which is a very neat trick. And I, I totally agree that, like,
- [33:54]
joy is an experience of transcendence. I did really honestly struggle with definitions because joy is. It's a strange paradox. It is this weird contradiction where you can feel your heart say yes. Even in the midst of an unfinished, unfinishable, frustrating life. And I. I think these, like, these moments of soul enlivening bright fireworks from inside are a spiritual gift. And also it's pretty crazy that it can happen in the middle of a huge situation, like at a funeral or in a hospital room in my case. Or it can be like just the other day where I could hear my son in the other room prattling on and on about what he thought Winston Churchill was thinking to my dad, who also had a lot of feelings about what Winston Churchill was thinking. And it suddenly just brought tears to my eyes and went all the way through me that I couldn't believe that it is so good to be alive.
- [34:59]
And I was like, ugh, that's it. It's joy.
- [35:01]
Dang it.
- [35:01]
Father Jim Martin
How old is your son?
- [35:03]
Kate Bowler
He's 12.
- [35:04]
Father Jim Martin
I love that. A 12 year old expounding on Winston Churchill.
- [35:07]
Kate Bowler
It's like pizza. And just a lot of thoughts in another.
- [35:11]
Father Jim Martin
Yeah, I had an experience my. I celebrated my mom's funeral just a couple weeks ago. And obviously it was extremely sad. But, you know, when I was preaching, I felt this sense of, you know, I would call it maybe not joy, but consolation. Right. That God was with me. And it was, it was very uplifting and surprising to me that, you know, that sort of combination. Again, I wouldn't say I was happy, but maybe joyful. Let me ask you though, how do you practice hope and joy? And what kind of practices do you think are conducive to hope? What would you say to people who aren't particularly, or they don't feel particularly hopeful or joyful?
- [35:51]
Kate Bowler
I guess I learned a lot from, you know, I have this community at Everything Happens, this center I run where people who are part of this community have frequently gone through some very difficult before and after. And I'm always very interested in like, what qualities it takes for them to not just survive but to like persist in joy even after their lives have been stripped down to the studs. And I. So I'm always like, eyes open. What, like, what are you doing that you can invite more joy. And I have found that there's a particular kind of. Well, I saw it very recently in an old man that had been assigned to me as a driver. And I really mean old. He was like 84 and translucent under direct sunlight.
- [36:37]
And I was like, why are you working? And we went on, are we both safe right now? And we had this ridiculous, hilarious boondoggle adventure where he let me let him
- [36:50]
get lost and we went to visit
- [36:51]
ridiculous things together instead of making him
- [36:54]
take me back to the airport. And when I asked him at the end of the day, like, why he said yes to any of it, really, I remembered that over the course of the day he had told me really about all the yeses he'd been saying all along. He'd said yes to taking in foster kids, yes to new careers he didn't want to choose, yes to God's surprising mercies and for sure, life he didn't plan. And I realized that he had developed a certain quality. And he said, well, it's. I don't take life day by day. I believe God has. Has tasked me with love. And I think feeling tasked by love, like, that's your Homework assignment. It does let you say that initial yes. That I do think is the big precondition to joy, if you can say yes. And this is what Emmanuel Kant, in
- [37:47]
a triptych likely attributed to him, he
- [37:49]
says, find something to do. Find someone to love, find something to hope for. That, to me, sounds like being tasked with love. Someone like that is much more likely to be, I think, surprised by joy than someone who initially just said no to the opportunities in front of them.
- [38:07]
Father Jim Martin
Boy, I really like that. Because, you know, the. The being tasked implies that there's someone who is giving you that task.
- [38:14]
Kate Bowler
I love it.
- [38:15]
Father Jim Martin
Right. And reminds you that this is God who's inviting you to do this. Right.
- [38:19]
Kate Bowler
Yeah. I think that language of vocation to be called is so beautiful there to feel like we're called into love. And really, I think it's a good reminder for all of us, like, called into joy. Like joy is for us. We're not just supposed to grind it out. God delights in our joy.
- [38:38]
Father Jim Martin
You know, it's interesting you should say that. My first spiritual director said to me once, he quoted that line, you know, the Lord takes delight in his people, which I didn't know very well. And he said, do you think God delights in you? It's such a strange thing for people to hear. I often use that on retreats, you know, because I think people think God. Well, maybe God loves me. Right. Because that's what God does. Right. And it's no big deal, but that God delights in you. I want to try another one out on you. This is from my friend James Allison. This sort of blew me away. It's the difference between God loves you, which we hear all the time, and God likes you.
- [39:20]
Kate Bowler
That's nice. I feel very complimented when you say that.
- [39:23]
Father Jim Martin
Yes, yes. And I think the invitation is to allow people to see how God likes them.
- [39:30]
Kate Bowler
Yeah. It lets us be as weird as we really are. That's what I hear in that.
- [39:34]
Because I am and we are.
- [39:36]
Father Jim Martin
What do you think enables people to make that choice, to feel tasked or to sort of seek out joy?
- [39:44]
Kate Bowler
I think. And maybe this gets back to what we were saying about American culture's sort of self sufficiency and hyper individualism and hyper happiness is. I think that's a mindset that's always worried that they're going to run out, that they won't have enough to make themselves happy, healthy, wealthy, whole. And I guess what I see in the people who feel tasked with love is they're less worried than I would be. About running out, about not having enough, is they want to feel used up in the service of being a person. I think what that tells me is that in order to live a life of love, you have to have a little more courage then you might want to. And I know that when I have tried to reach for more, I immediately have to confront my inner voice that says, like, well, just no, you need to like, conserve everything, keep everything for yourself. There's a kind of scarcity and lightly hoarding mindset. But I think the people who say yes to God, yes to other people, I think they have, I think they have real courage.
- [40:56]
Father Jim Martin
Yeah, I think that's great. And of course, so many of the parables are about, you know, Jesus ability to give people in not just abundance, but superabundance, right? So the loaves and the fishes, there's 12 baskets left over. The wine at Cana is just, you know, tons of wine, just huge stone jars of wine. And I like that idea of just, there's always enough to go around. And that God will, that God will help you, right, to multiply your, your. What you think are your few loaves and fishes.
- [41:24]
Kate Bowler
I, I think that I was very confronted with whether I believe that's true when I was listening to people as parents wonder if they're allowed to have more than enough. Any parent who's watching their kids suffer, I think the first thought that they have is, I must suffer equally. I must suffer more. I must suffer alongside them. How could I possibly, how could I possibly be joyful when my child is suffering? And I, I know I hear it in women, like, how can I be joyful if everyone in my family isn't thrilled and all lined up for their next Christmas card? And I think I hear it in caregivers who are so exhausted, like marrow of their bones, tired of caring for other people, which is like a third to half of the population, are openly sacrificing their own well being for somebody else's physical self. All those people, I, I think they would probably be the first to inherit some real suspicion about whether joy is for them. But I read this really powerful story from Frederick Buechner, that wonderful theologian, about his own daughter's anorexia and his initial belief that if she was suffering, that he had to suffer. And then he had this lovely, like, transition where he said, you know, I've actually come to believe that God gives us each a sacred commission to bless our own lives and to breathe free, that we might have a hopeful word and be able to extend that Hope to others. And I was like, oh, if that is not a permission slip. To still be joyful, to still have your own deep hopes, even when other people around you are suffering. I don't know what is.
- [43:09]
Father Jim Martin
Yeah. And I think it's just. It's about, you know, caring for the caregiver. I think it's a spiritual message. You know, I was saying my mom died a couple weeks ago, and my sister was selfless, heroic, loving, primary caregiver. What I found in myself was, you know, I needed to care for myself. From a spiritual point of view. Just what you're talking about. Exactly what you're talking about. But also from a practical point of view. Right. I mean, I needed to get sleep and recreate and not be focused entirely on my mom's illness. Right. Even though it's a temptation because it's born out of love. I mean, it really is born out of love. And I try to remind caregivers to really look after themselves, too. We're going to pause for a short break, but we will be right back.
- [44:01]
Sponsor Representative (Give Us This Day)
The Spiritual Life is sponsored by Give Us this Day from Liturgical Press. Our community works for a faith that fuels hope, justice, and prayer with voices and perspectives you trust. Like a monthly feature from Father James Martin, Blessed among Us, and reflections that meet you where you are. Listeners of the spiritual life receive 10% off a new subscription@giveusthisday.org spiritual life.
- [44:33]
Dramatic Voice Actor
Our names were whispered through time, from generation to generation. Our lives were to become one. The story started long ago.
- [44:51]
Kate Bowler
Don't you feel that there are things
- [44:53]
Dramatic Voice Actor
that cannot be explained? I have to go. If you need me to do this, Abraham, I will go with you. What if we were brought together for a purpose? He appeared to me. Who appeared to you? An angel of God. I thought my purpose was elsewhere, but I don't need to keep looking anymore. I should have known you wouldn't understand.
- [45:34]
Kate Bowler
Hey. Go.
- [45:34]
Dramatic Voice Actor
Don't. Don't you dare.
- [45:36]
Kate Bowler
Rachel.
- [45:37]
My own sister.
- [45:38]
Dramatic Voice Actor
After all I have given you.
- [45:41]
Kate Bowler
Esau.
- [45:41]
Dramatic Voice Actor
You left me no choice. This is not what God wants.
- [45:46]
Kate Bowler
No, it is not what you want.
- [45:50]
Dramatic Voice Actor
Leia. God has a destiny for us all. My whole life I've been waiting. What if this is it? Nothing is impossible for God.
- [46:15]
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- [46:27]
Father Jim Martin
Credit.
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- [46:45]
Maggie Van Dorn
Refreshing Wild cherry cola meets smooth cream,
- [46:52]
Kate Bowler
the treat you deserve.
- [46:55]
Maggie Van Dorn
Pepsi Wild cherry and cream.
- [46:57]
Kate Bowler
Treat yourself.
- [47:03]
Father Jim Martin
We talked about ways of moving towards joy. What are your own spiritual practices in the broadest sense these days?
- [47:10]
Kate Bowler
Well, I'm a. I'm a big prayer. I do love what I kind of call 2am prayers, 2pm prayers. I work at a divinity school. You and I have not the same
- [47:19]
job, but not, not the same job
- [47:20]
Father Jim Martin
where we're allowed similar jobs, right?
- [47:23]
Kate Bowler
People with, like, lovely trinitarian roundouts for their prayers. There's a lot of, like, a lot of formal worship, a lot of.
- [47:29]
A lot of, you know, good liturgical work. And 2pm I get that done really well. 2am it's much more like, help me, God, Save me, Make me more loving, Take away this pain, Save me for myself, make me less selfish. I'm just, still, I'm. I'm really. I'm enjoying how loved I feel in my prayer life, to be that honest. I feel like once I was released
- [47:54]
into honesty, it's been a good road for me.
- [47:57]
Um, the other thing I really have found to be spiritually important is just. Is just realizing what, what magic services that when you are useful, when otherwise, if I'm not useful, there's. There's really such an accidental narcissism to pain. You're like, well, my. No one's ever had my problem. No one will understand what I'm going through. Of course, none of that is true. And the more I feel kind of caught up in other people's problems, the more it sort of spiritually recenters the world and lets me feel like God is bigger and also invisibly a giant web that holds us all together. So I do think service and hilarious honesty have been two of my most useful spiritual practices.
- [48:41]
Father Jim Martin
And how do you experience God's presence in your life? You're praying at 2am and you're serving, and you feel that sense of joy and rightness, it sounds like. But what would you say your experiences of God are like? And when do they happen?
- [48:58]
Kate Bowler
Well, I guess that's why I was so interested in joy, because it's always such a mystery.
- [49:02]
And I'm such a pietist, right? Like, I actually believe that we have, you know, spiritual emotions that are reliable, that tell us something about God, and I love them. So every now and then I'll just feel this, like, huge surge of.
- [49:14]
Of love that feels divine. And I remember it When I was sick. It's like you're suddenly in love. You're so in love with the world. And everything has this crystalline, beautiful quality to it. And then it goes away. And I'm petty and I gossip about my colleagues and I have a lot of qualms about their work.
- [49:31]
And so, you know, it really comes and goes. But I do find these, like, surges of what feel like helium are kind
- [49:39]
of what I realized that joy is for joy being this temporary wholeness. It lets us, you know, in a post Easter world, it lets us live like this in a world that. Where the kingdom of God is here and also not yet, which is really frustrating.
- [49:57]
Father Jim Martin
I love that it's that you admit that these things are temporary.
- [50:01]
Kate Bowler
I'm a bad person most of the time is what I'm trying to tell you specifically.
- [50:05]
Father Jim Martin
Well, I always think about the transfiguration right up on the mountain. Peter, James and John. And then they have to come down. Yeah, right. It's temporary. It's like back to work.
- [50:15]
Kate Bowler
You know, I do like that quote from Augustine where he's like, everything, however wonderful, ends in boredom.
- [50:22]
Father Jim Martin
Did he really say that?
- [50:23]
Kate Bowler
Yeah, he did.
- [50:24]
Father Jim Martin
That's fantastic. I really want to ask you, I'm also very interested in your academic work as professor of American religious history. I just find that fascinating. When you were going through this, this trial, this suffering, how did knowing about, you know, what American religion teaches us help you?
- [50:46]
Kate Bowler
I did feel like it gave me a different way to understand why it's so hard to suffer in America that there was such an industry behind self help and individualism and everything is possibleism
- [51:06]
is what I like to call the
- [51:08]
entire self help ethos. I mean, America is the number one producer and consumer of everything is possible, as in products.
- [51:16]
It invented the genre in the late 19th century. Just even knowing that is very comforting to me. Looking at the New York Times bestseller list, knowing that like 4 to 1
- [51:25]
self help is winning over any other kind of nonfiction. And in part it relates to our deep hunger for practical wisdom. But mostly what you're getting is five step plans to stop feeling like a loser anymore. And as someone who has been both very lucky in my life and deeply
- [51:44]
unlucky, just weird, weird, long, horrible seasons of unlock.
- [51:49]
I really have appreciated having this historical perspective on just how dense and punitive these American cultural scripts can be.
- [51:59]
Father Jim Martin
That's a great answer. And I mean, I would expect no less. But I think the idea that it is comforting to know why you're thinking like this is very helpful because you know, we come out of this context and I think it's so sort of reflexive that a lot of American, particularly American Christians, don't even know that they're thinking like this because of this, this culture of self help and prosperity gospel and. Yeah, and I find that sometimes when I travel overseas and I see different ways of looking at these things, it's a totally different way of approaching religion and approaching God and approaching suffering totally.
- [52:36]
Kate Bowler
I will never forget what a student said in his reflection after the very first American religious history class I ever took. He stood up at the very end. He said, thank you so much for your lectures, Dr. Bowler.
- [52:48]
I thought I was a Christian, but
- [52:49]
it turns out I'm just American, which was so horrifying.
- [52:54]
Father Jim Martin
That's a great title for a book, Kate. We have an audience question that we take every week and I'm going to answer it first. Put my two cents in and then you can answer it. And we get this one in various forms from people regularly. And this time it's from Kim. And Kim asks, how do we believe in a just and loving God in the midst of such an unjust and deeply unloving world? So that is a big question. And you know, I would say the invitation is to, for me to believe in a God that you may not understand. That's a big thing for me. So the world is unjust and deeply unloving. And you can say, well, how can God allow this? That's, you know, part of the theodicy. And I often say to people, we don't understand, right, exactly how God works or how God is acting. We believe God is active. And it's hard sometimes to think that God is just and loving when we see unjust people flourish and people being so unloving and wars and all that kind of stuff. And so can you believe in a God that you don't understand or do you have to understand all of God's ways? And then the other thing I often say to people is, look at Jesus. Just look at the life of Christ and how he responded to injustice and hatred, which is always with himself. You know, I'm going to borrow what Kate said. Being tasked by the Father to love, right? And being tasked by the Father to be loved, to sort of embody love. So I think in the midst of these difficult problems, it is believing in God beyond us, whose ways we don't understand and being comfortable with that. And it is also seeing that when God is human, he manifests himself as Jesus, which shows us how to respond and how to believe. So I'm going to repeat the question again now for Kate from Kim. How do we believe in a just and loving God in the midst of an unjust and deeply unloving world?
- [55:00]
Kate Bowler
It is one of my very favorite questions because it's one of my very favorite lectures to give is on American theodicies, American explanations for the problem of evil. And I think one of the ways I can get any kind of clarity around it is if I try to offer some of the answers. Like if, let's say the answer to that question is God is directing everything and everything is happening for a reason, and that reason is God. That answer reveals to us an understanding of God's power, God's sovereignty, these moments in which we feel God's will, God's choosing our sense that we want there to be a plan. We need there to be a plan. We're so grateful that plan is in us. And then let's try a different answer. We'll say, well, actually, it's only there is no vision of a God. Abandon your reasons to an unfeeling universe.
- [55:54]
I get mail like that all the time.
- [55:56]
And if science is the only God worth believing in, I think what I learn when I think about that answer to a question might be that often, frankly, it's the people who are atheists and the people who don't express faith that have the courage to say how afraid and how unfair and how wronged they feel to not always feel cared for on this earth and what courage it takes to say so. And then the other third possible answer is that we are the ones that must save ourselves. We're the ones must act in concert with God and just. Just look at me. Try, look at me. Solve the problem of evil with my own effort. I think when I look at all three possible answers, I see that we get glimpses into a story of how we can possibly live like this, live among such enormous evil, live somehow believing and knowing that we are good and yet having to live in the rubble of everything that seems to contradict it. But in every answer, I think what we get if we ask it is an almost complete truth that tells us something about the Christian story and will always leave us exactly back to where Father Martin began, which is, can we live in light of a God we can't entirely explain, but in knowing that in our explanations we will have an almost complete truth that will still be a gift to us. It will tell us something of God's power. It will tell us something about our own ability to act and our need to act. It will tell us something about the courage of despair, frankly. And I think in all these things we learn that faithfulness is going to be a long road of living without full answers, but that in each we can feel the gift that we are almost right in the meantime.
- [57:44]
Father Jim Martin
That's so beautiful. You know, I was thinking as you were talking, you know, the platitude, which is also true. That's the problem with some of these platitudes. You know, God's ways are not our ways. You know, highest above the earth. They're God's ways. And you know, you say that to someone and they'd say, oh, that's just a cop out. But in the end, it is true. God is really beyond us. And I think the other American sort of temptation is to say that in order for me to believe, I have to understand God.
- [58:16]
Kate Bowler
That's good, right?
- [58:17]
Father Jim Martin
And I'm not going to believe unless I can make sense of this. And that's another temptation for people rather than living with the, the mystery.
- [58:24]
Kate Bowler
Oh, my gosh, mystery. People don't like mysteries at all. We pretend we do. We read them. We imagine that we'd be okay if we tried to finish a puzzle and a piece was missing.
- [58:36]
Spoiler alert. According to psychological studies called the Zeigarnik effect, if there is a puzzle piece missing, we will loop over it and
- [58:45]
far longer than people who get to finish their little puzzles. And it's because we are, we are pattern seeking, closure seeking creatures. But it doesn't mean that living with a mystery means that we're just saying, well, if it's not worth, you can't possibly know. I think we can almost know many things, but I like having the courage to say, but that, that gap in there, the rest, the rest is mystery.
- [59:08]
Father Jim Martin
Absolutely. I totally agree. Kate, you close each episode of your wonderful podcast with a blessing, which for believers is a kind of prayer. And for non believers who listen, maybe a, you know, kind of a friendly wish of goodwill. Where did that practice of blessing start for you? Why is it important to remember in that in your podcast?
- [59:29]
Kate Bowler
I'm laughing because it was kind of embarrassing, honestly. I wrote this book called Blessed because it was a history of the prosperity gospel about how people believe that God wants them to be blessed. And then I just felt like I
- [59:40]
didn't have a redeemed, like a redeemable
- [59:43]
version of what I was like, well, we don't want to pretend to be blessed. And then dot, dot, dot, it took
- [59:48]
me like 10 years to be like, wait a minute.
- [59:50]
I think I need more than hashtag blessed.
- [59:52]
I think I need a blessing. So I went and asked a wonderful Old Testament scholar we have here, Stephen Chapman. I was like, what does blessing mean?
- [60:00]
Actually, he said, apparently comes from the
- [60:02]
word emplacement, which I imagine as like
- [60:07]
a very overzealous interior decorator. Like, this goes here, that goes there.
- [60:12]
And I sort of liked I. When I. When I read the psalms as forms of blessing, I'm seeing all the, like, all the rage, all the hope, all the mess. I sort of liked the idea that maybe a blessing is our. Is not our hashtag blessed? It's our emplacement. We can put things where they belong and then somehow say, God, could you look at this and say, bless it all?
- [60:32]
Father Jim Martin
Well, that's wonderful. Would you like to offer a blessing to our audience as we close?
- [60:36]
Kate Bowler
How dare I in the face of such holiness? So I'll just be my best Protestant self and try. All right.
- [60:44]
This was from my episode with you
- [60:45]
because I was very inspired by our conversation.
- [60:47]
It's called a blessing for when you might not know how to pray or want to. Blessed are you in this terrible, wonderful. Now fumbling around for the right words. You need so much, and it seems impossible to say it all. Blessed are you for whom prayer feels hopeless, disappointing, futile. Blessed are you in your radical honesty, in the ways you speak of your grief, the long, sleepless nights in a still, empty bed, or the pain you may feel. Blessed are you who have the audacity to ask for the miracles you need, the healing, the new friend, the redeemed family. Blessed are you as you learn to trust. Trust a God who hears, who listens, who hasn't left your side, who prays on your behalf, interpreting those deep groans you can't quite put into syllables or sounds. Blessed are you as you settle into new acceptance. And blessed are we who live here in the someday but not now.
- [61:44]
Father Jim Martin
Amen. Well, Kate Bowler, thank you so much for a wonderful episode and for all of your wonderful work and really for helping so many people find their way to God through suffering and after suffering. Thanks for joining us, Kate.
- [61:57]
Kate Bowler
You're my favorite. I would live here. Let me just live here now.
- [62:01]
Father Jim Martin
Amen.
- [62:10]
Maggie Van Dorn
Well, Jim, I think that we have all been blessed in the richest sense of the word by Kate Bowler's conversation. What do you think that you're going to explore in your article following up on this?
- [62:21]
Father Jim Martin
Well, I want to agree with you first. You know, it really is a joy to listen to someone who is able to speak with such authority, right? You know, not only academic authority, but just experiential authority. And I just, I just love the way she lays these things out. You can go over to our website and read an article I wrote on the theodicy and how that plays out in American culture today and the link is in our show notes. Also, I'd like to let you know that I have a new book out, a memoir called Work in Progress. It's the story of finding work through a variety of crazy summer jobs like busboy, dishwasher, caddy, factory worker, and many more. And eventually finding God. Basically, it's a light hearted spiritual memoir about growing up in the 60s, 70s and 80s and is available in print, ebook and audio anywhere. Books are sold. I really hope you enjoy Work in Progress the Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin is produced by Maggie Van Doren, Sebastian Gomes and myself, production assistants from Kevin Christopher Roblez and Will Gualtieri. Adam Buckmuller engineered the show. The theme score is courtesy of Teddy Abrams and Nate Farrington. You can follow me across social media. Amesmartinsj thank you. And just to echo Kate Bowler's blessing, God bless you. Hey everyone, it's Father Jim Martin. I want to take a moment to welcome all of you, especially new listeners, to the Spiritual Life. This is a podcast that we hope will nourish your spiritual practice through open and honest conversations about life, prayer, and even suffering. We're now in the season of Lent, as you know, and there's no better time for us to pause and pay attention to the deep longing for God that exists within all of us. And you're not alone in that. We'd like to accompany you on this journey of discovery. So our staff at America Magazine is writing short and inspiring Bible reflections every day during Lent. They are free for listeners of the Spiritual Life and you can sign up@americamagazine.org thespirituallife.