Kate Bowler wants to tame her inner efficiency monster

Summary

Podcast Summary: Wild Card with Rachel Martin – Episode Featuring Kate Bowler

Release Date: January 9, 2025
Guest: Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author, Professor at the Divinity School at Duke University, and host of the podcast Everything Happens.

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Introduction to Wild Card and Kate Bowler

Rachel Martin opens the episode by distinguishing Wild Card from typical interview podcasts. Instead of following a standard script, Rachel utilizes a special deck of cards to explore life’s profound questions with her guests. This episode features Kate Bowler, renowned for her candid discussions on faith, suffering, and personal growth.

The Concept of Toxic Positivity

Rachel Martin (00:15): "Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die?"
Kate Bowler (00:19): "Yes, 100%, absolutely."

The conversation begins with the theme of toxic positivity—a cultural tendency to enforce optimism even in the face of adversity. Rachel introduces Kate's perspective, highlighting Kate's efforts to move beyond superficial positivity to embrace a fuller range of human emotions.

Rachel Martin (03:02):
"So we're going to get to the game in just a minute, but first I want to talk about what I just laid out there. I introduced you with this whole idea of toxic positivity and the things that we try to tell each other to just like, you know, it's all going to be fine...

Kate Bowler (03:29):
"Right. I hear you. That is probably true. I think where I'm really hoping, because American cultural scripts are very limiting... we're supposed to get worse at some things because we're not paying any attention to it and we found something better to focus on." (04:42)

Kate emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and embracing negative emotions alongside positive ones, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of mental health.

Family Traditions and Personal Rituals

Rachel Martin (05:35):
"We’re going to play a game."

Engaging with the Wild Card format, Rachel and Kate draw cards that prompt them to share personal stories and reflections. Kate recounts a poignant family tradition where she and her sisters would clean gutters, reflecting on the work ethic instilled by her father and the emotional weight of mourning lost birds.

Kate Bowler (06:24):
"My dad was too lazy and too determined to teach his little girls a work ethic...

Later, Kate discusses her practical nature, influenced by her Mennonite family, leading her to build a "sauna of despair" as a therapeutic space.

Kate Bowler (07:46):
"I built a barrel sauna in my backyard. My sauna of sadness... It's my favorite place." (07:59)

Early Memories of Appreciating Beauty

Rachel Martin (08:21):
"What’s an early memory of appreciating beauty?"
Kate Bowler (08:26):
"I love Canadian Lakes... You can always hear the distinctiveness at dusk and dawn of the loons..." (08:26)

Kate shares her deep appreciation for the natural beauty of Canadian lakes, highlighting how these serene environments shaped her positive outlook on the world.

Letting Go of Regrets and Measuring Efficiency

The second round of questions delves into personal growth and the struggle with self-imposed standards.

Rachel Martin (11:07):
"What do you wish you could let go of?"

Kate candidly discusses her battle with being an "efficiency monster," a mindset that emerged during her battle with cancer. She reflects on the corrosive nature of measuring every aspect of her life, yearning to embrace unstructured, " wasted" time to foster deeper connections and personal joy.

Kate Bowler (15:36):
"I can't seem to let go of... measuring a day... treating my life like a Ford motor company." (15:36)

Experiences of Loneliness and Authenticity

In a vulnerable moment, Kate recounts an incident where a marketing company accurately portrayed her feelings of loneliness in a presentation, sparking a discussion on the authenticity of personal experiences versus external perceptions.

Kate Bowler (19:12):
"They were so good... 'you are deeply lonely.' It was enormous... But I love being part of all my relationships." (19:12)

Evolving Relationship with Faith and Unanswered Questions

The final round addresses Kate's evolving feelings about God and faith.

Rachel Martin (22:48):
"Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die?"
Kate Bowler (23:06):
"I used to think of Christianity as an answer factory... I started to think of it as another prosperity gospel." (23:06)

Kate explores her transition from seeking certainty in faith to embracing love and mystery, acknowledging that faith does not provide clear-cut answers but offers a framework for understanding love and human connection.

Kate Bowler (26:01):
"We can have a great experience of the adventure of feeling like, made for love and released out into a dangerous world with the purpose of loving others." (26:01)

Reflecting on Priceless Memories

The episode concludes with a nostalgic reflection on a cherished memory with her son, highlighting the blend of humor and deep emotional bonds that define her relationships.

Kate Bowler (34:11):
"I have frozen in my mind the look... 'you've got 12 more years of this indentured servitude..." (34:11)

Notable Quotes

• Kate Bowler (03:29):
  "I think we're supposed to get worse at some things because we're not paying any attention to it and we found something better to focus on."

• Kate Bowler (15:36):
  "I can't seem to let go of... measuring a day... treating my life like a Ford motor company."

• Kate Bowler (26:01):
  "We can have a great experience of the adventure of feeling like, made for love and released out into a dangerous world with the purpose of loving others."

Conclusion

Rachel Martin and Kate Bowler navigate a rich tapestry of personal experiences, philosophical musings, and heartfelt reflections. Through the Wild Card format, listeners gain deep insights into Kate's journey of balancing efficiency with emotional authenticity, evolving faith, and the pursuit of meaningful connections.

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For more episodes and insights, subscribe to Wild Card+ and support NPR's mission to bring thoughtful conversations to listeners everywhere.

Transcript

[Narrator]

This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with the Room Next Door, the new film by Pedro Almodovar, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. After years go by, two friends meet again in an extreme but sweet situation, now playing in select theaters.

[Rachel Martin]

Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die?

[Kate Bowler]

Yes, 100%, absolutely.

[Rachel Martin]

Which part?

[Kate Bowler]

The eyeballs, mostly. They're the last to decompose. You know, there's all the stuff of our bodies, but there's this, like, incredible durability to how we think about the soul.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one and to flip one question back on me. My guest this week is author and professor and podcaster Kate Bowler.

[Kate Bowler]

Love and mystery have gotten me farther, I think, down the road than certainty did. But I do miss certainty.

[Rachel Martin]

You know when something bad happens in life and people around you don't really know what to say to make it feel better? And some of them think that the trick to fixing it is to tell you that there must be some lesson that you're supposed to learn from the bad thing or that your suffering is okay because it's all part of some grand, universal plan. We all know those people, and they mean well. They do. But when your world falls apart, the last thing you want to hear is that it's all supposed to be that way. This is the gospel of Kate Bowler. Kate is a New York Times bestselling author, a professor at the Divinity School at Duke University, a native of the great country of Canada, and the host of the podcast Everything Happens. I first met Kate in 2018 when I interviewed her for her memoir that she had just written about dealing with a stage four cancer diagnosis when she was about 35 years old. She writes about all the not so helpful things that people said and did to try and help her get through it. Kate refers to those sentiments as toxic positivity, which happens because there is too much pressure in American culture to find the silver lining in things that just suck. Kate Bowler, welcome to Wildcard.

[Kate Bowler]

I'm Rachel. I'm so glad to see you. It's too. When we first met, I was very, very sick and possibly dying, but mostly like, oh, my gosh, it's Rachel Martin. I'm so excited.

[Rachel Martin]

For God's sakes.

[Kate Bowler]

You were my very first interview, and I have super creepy photos of me, just like, basically cheerleader hugging you or trying to be the big spoon. So it's really good to see you again.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, my gosh. It's been a lot of living has happened for you since then. A lot of actual life that you didn't think you were gonna have.

[Kate Bowler]

That's right. And career stuff and same hair length. I mean, it' comes, it goes well.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm so glad you were willing to do this with me.

[Kate Bowler]

I'm excited.

[Rachel Martin]

So we're going to get to the game in just a minute, but first I want to talk about what I just laid out there. I introduced you with this whole idea of toxic positivity and the things that we try to tell each other to just like, you know, it's all going to be fine. Where are you on your journey with that? Because, Kate, you are. You're an incredibly positive person. I mean, you are, like, your whole thing is like, so positive.

[Kate Bowler]

Right. I hear you. That is probably true. I think where I'm really hoping, because American cultural scripts are very limiting. Like, I have read, for instance, as part of a research project, I'm doing every bestseller for the last 50 years. And I will tell you that the cultural prescriptions that we read are, I mean, pretty blindingly optimistic. They're like, hope you don't feel sad. Cause that would mean there's something wrong with you. You. You. So I'm really hoping, I guess, as part of living into a better cultural story, is that we can really learn to ride the roller coaster up and down. That we can feel the incredible highs and the joys and the of, like, humor and hilarity, but that we can also get a lot more comfortable with confusion, dread, that we can go into the depths with people. Because I think that's where, I mean, this is psychologist Lisa dimore's true definition of mental health is that you can feel the appropriate emotion at the right time. And so high or low, I really hope that we can round out our experience of emotion.

[Rachel Martin]

So it's not a warning against framing things in a positive light.

[Kate Bowler]

No. And in fact, I mean, I think part of our ability to be hopeful or courageous is to be able to see the places in our life where we actually can change. It's just there has to be more space between the idea that we, all American culture loves to say, like, everything is possible. And they worry that if they don't say everything is possible, that they'll be forced into saying nothing is possible. And then they're just sort of French existentialists smoking in the back of the train. But, like There is a place in between of, like, limbs, limited agency, and I want to stay there. Like, what is possible today? What can be done with what we have, with our short, limited, beautiful, dumb lives?

[Rachel Martin]

We're gonna play a game.

[Kate Bowler]

I'm excited. Are you? I'm so excited.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, here are the first three cards, and you pick one. Two or three.

[Kate Bowler]

Two, please.

[Rachel Martin]

What's a tradition or ritual that feels unique to your family?

[Kate Bowler]

Well, in the spring, my dad was always too lazy to clean the eavestroughs. Sorry, what's the American word? Gutters.

[Rachel Martin]

Eavest. Oh, gutters. Yeah, yeah, gutter.

[Kate Bowler]

Sorry. Eavesdrop sounds way better that swell. Eaves trough the eaves. We had to climb a ladder to reach the eaves where all the mourning doves, huge families of mourning doves, were always dead. And so my dad would send all of his little girls up on ladders to clean the gutters.

[Rachel Martin]

This is your family ritual?

[Kate Bowler]

Yep.

[Rachel Martin]

Every gutter cleaning.

[Kate Bowler]

My dad was too lazy and too determined to teach his little girls a work ethic. So we would climb the ladders and cry for all the. Cry for all the birds we'd lost that year. And that is so burned into my mind as part of our spring ritual. Take that, dad.

[Rachel Martin]

But did it give you. Are you good with your. With the physical world, Kate? Are you like, you can see a thing that needs to be done around your house and you're like, I will go clean those gutters. I will go mow the lawn.

[Kate Bowler]

I'm married into this family which belongs to this religious group called the Mennonites. And they are insanely practical. Like, they're the people who will. If they see IKEA flat pack furniture lying dormant in the universe, they will build it. So I did feel like I joined a tribe of people who are like, ah, like tut, tut. Like, is that, you know, just always, like, testing the structural integrity of drawers, you know, running a hand over the drywall to see if the spackling is smooth. And you're like, stop judging me. So I. Like, last Thanksgiving, I was very, very sad for unnamed reasons. And so I built a barrel sauna in my backyard. My sauna of sadness. So, yeah, I think I came out kind of practical.

[Rachel Martin]

You did?

[Kate Bowler]

I did. With my Mennonite husband, we built our giant, our sauna of despair.

[Rachel Martin]

I won't make you tell me right now what was so sad, but does hot steam make you happier?

[Kate Bowler]

Oh, for sure. Yeah, you can. It's like a little confessional in there. You're just like, come into My dark, dank chamber of infinite sorrow. So it's great. It's my favorite place.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay, okay. Sauna of despair. We're moving. One, two or three?

[Kate Bowler]

One, please.

[Rachel Martin]

One. What's an early memory of appreciating beauty?

[Kate Bowler]

Oh, I love Canadian Lakes. And so my parents put me in this ridiculous survivor camp when I was young called Pioneer Camp. And you didn't get anything that was nice about camp. You just got the outdoor part. But the best part is you'd get up like six in the morning and you see the mist on the lake and you can always hear the distinctiveness at dusk and dawn of the loons and their weird boo boo little sound. I think they're the most beautiful, weirdest bird on earth. So, yeah, I think Canadian Lakes will always, always make me think that the world is good.

[Narrator]

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[Kate Bowler]

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[Rachel Martin]

This is round two. Okay, so first round was memories. This is insights. Three new cards. One two or three one one. What do you wish you could let go of?

[Kate Bowler]

I would love to say a certain regret. Because regrets are one of my very favorite topics. I mean, go there because I think.

[Rachel Martin]

You think, like me, that we have them and they exist.

[Kate Bowler]

Absolutely.

[Rachel Martin]

And people who think they don't have them are deluding themselves.

[Kate Bowler]

Exactly. Exactly. Yes, exactly. I think one of the funniest things about American culture is their absolute insistence that there's some kind of relationship between having regrets and then a, not growing or b, not being willing to reframe it, like a regret, is something they just haven't reframed. Geez, Louise, there are so many things we should all regret. I mean, things I ate yesterday at 2:00am Absolutely.

[Rachel Martin]

Hey, that cold pizza made you who you are today, so we can't regret it.

[Kate Bowler]

This is the end of the celebrity interview moment, and it made me who I am today. I couldn't possibly regret my doping scandal. Oh, my gosh.

[Rachel Martin]

Okay. But since this is the product of a question that was. What's something you want to let go of? Tell me the answer to that. No, that can be a regret or a trait or however you. However you interpret that.

[Kate Bowler]

Hmm. I would love to let go of always. Well, I mean, I think it's something I write about all the time because I'm always really struggling with it is that cultural insistence that we always have to be getting better. I'd love to give up the idea that in every area of my life, I'm supposed to, you know, come the new year, always have this New Year's moment. But I always end up looking at my life like it's some kind of quadrant with, you know, progress and mostly dramatic and sudden failures. And so I just. I am always accidentally measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring, measuring. And I don't think that's. I think. I think we're supposed to get worse at some things because we're not paying any attention to it and we found something better to focus on. I wish for everyone they didn't wake up and think about how much they weigh in the morning. I mean, just. What a waste of time. Yeah. Waste of a good woman over here. It's just caring.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah. So now I go one step deeper and ask you to share if you would be willing to one thing besides, like, the befides, besides getting on the scale.

[Kate Bowler]

Sure.

[Rachel Martin]

What's a. What's a. What's a thing that. That you find yourself measuring yourself with or against that you want to release?

[Kate Bowler]

Okay. There's a way of measuring a day that I've been trying desperately to stop doing, and I can't seem to do it. And it's. It started so long ago that I don't even. I think it was probably the first time I really started thinking about efficiency and treating my life like a Ford motor company. But when I wake up in the day, I know exactly how many hours it takes me to. To do some of the most important things that I want to do. Like, I know exactly how long writing should take me for a certain number of Words. And that was. That served me really well when I had cancer. I mean, I was like, okay, this is the amount of time I have. This is the amount of energy I have. Like, how do I spend. How do I spend my life? But the metaphor of spending is really corrosive. So then I find it much more difficult to actually focus on some of the really lovely things that I actually need in my life that are not very measurable. Like, I don't read not useful things very often because I'm always trying to put in the time it takes to make the thing I want to make. And so the only way I'm. I have. I think a lot of growth in that area is friends I can spend. Like, I will waste my life with my friends all day long, but when it comes to me, I would love to have more. Just, like, uncounted, completely wasted. Doesn't matter. Time. And I am so judgy, so judgy with myself. I wouldn't. I don't have. I have only hopeful feelings that other people will waste their time. But I find it almost impossible for me to waste my time. And I think just, I got worse like this when I got sick, and now I'm an efficiency monster, and I can't undo it.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, but that's a time, especially if you're facing a diagnosis like that. Time becomes this. It's just. You're thinking about it all the time.

[Kate Bowler]

Three more cards.

[Rachel Martin]

This is the last one in this round.

[Kate Bowler]

1, 2. 3. 2.

[Rachel Martin]

Is there anything you long for?

[Kate Bowler]

All right, young lady. I pick the. You have to answer it.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh.

[Kate Bowler]

For liberty, for flippers.

[Rachel Martin]

I liked. I like this card because I like to say the word long for the two words together. I like the. What it evokes. I haven't quite mapped out what that means for me in my answer. Here's the truth, Kate. I am pretty longing free right now.

[Kate Bowler]

Hey. All right.

[Rachel Martin]

I have gone through chapters of deep, deep longing. But, you know, I'm okay. I don't. I'm like, I. I've gone through some grief. I've lost both my parents, and I had for years a deep longing for that not to be so. And. And I've had deep longings about, you know, having a family, and I got to do that. I've had deep longings on behalf of other people, wanting other people in my life to be happier. So I feel like I've gotten on the other side of a lot of what. What I defined as longing in my own life. That feels pretty good, right? Now, I mean, I can also. I can always, like, spin off into the existential. Like, what do I long for? A peaceful world? What do I long for? For people of different opinions to get in a room and, like, hug. Yes, I long for these things, but just on a deep, personal level, I am. I'm not longing right now. And that feels nice. So thank you for asking me. I clearly needed to vent about that because I got, um. And now. And now you still have to answer it.

[Kate Bowler]

Oh, shoot. Okay. I had a very embarrassing situation happen a couple weeks ago, which I think answers this question. I had, like, a marketing company come and look at all this stuff that me and my team makes over at everything happens. We make a lot of, like, curriculum and, you know, podcasts and we. But we make a lot of stuff. And we were like, could you help us focus and create better public language around what we do? And they were like, yeah, totally. We'll do a huge deep dive on who you are and blah, blah, blah. And then they put together this absolutely beautiful presentation about it in front of my entire team. And just picture, like, a very large room full of everyone, including everyone's friend and mom and et cetera. And they go. They're, like, welcome. And they're. They're so good. And they're so good at what? They do this. And they go, welcome. Weaving. People come to you, and it was like a picture of me. And it was like, because you are. And it wasn't they are. It was you are, because you are. Next slide. Lonely. What?

[Rachel Martin]

That was the marketing takeaway.

[Kate Bowler]

That was absolutely spot on. It was like, you are, quote, deeply lonely. I have never seen my own longings and existential angst set to a PowerPoint before on a screen. Just on the one slide. It was enormous. And everybody looked at me, and I was like, damn. They.

[Rachel Martin]

Wow.

[Kate Bowler]

So horrifying about it. It was like, because you seek next slide. Belonging. And I was like, screw you. And they were like, is that right? And I was like, oh, can we do this? Can we do this in private? This is so funny. And this is, I think, partly why I love Vivec. You know, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's stuff on loneliness. Because I'm, like, one totally. I am a really lonely person, and, I mean, I have wonderful friends and blah, blah, blah, but, like, that deep things happen, and will I be able to have what I need in the worst moments of my life? Why does my life continue to stay hard? Aren't I too much when I go through the terrible thing. I mean, that heartbeat of ache and sadness that really, really has gotten pretty loud during diagnostic stages of my life. I just thought it was absolutely wild that strangers doing a survey could look at me and be like, we see you. Oh, they were right.

[Rachel Martin]

That's your number, girlfriend.

[Kate Bowler]

They were right. And so I'm trying to, I guess maybe be a little more comfortable with being honest about that.

[Rachel Martin]

Thank you for sharing that.

[Kate Bowler]

Well, that was my trey honest answer because it was on a PowerPoint.

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[Rachel Martin]

We're moving into the last round. Three new cards. 1, 2 or 3?

[Kate Bowler]

3, please. 3.

[Rachel Martin]

Have your feelings about God changed over time?

[Kate Bowler]

Do you? Do you ask everyone this?

[Rachel Martin]

That's a real question in the deck.

[Kate Bowler]

I love it. That's okay. New favorite question. Yes.

[Rachel Martin]

I asked Seth Meyers and he said no.

[Kate Bowler]

He did that.

[Rachel Martin]

He remained incredibly consistent, never believed, still don't. End of story.

[Kate Bowler]

That's amazing. That's great. Yes. I used to think of Christianity as an answer factory, and I always loved those books that were like, do you have questions? The Bible has answers. I was like, oh, how satisfying it was. Probably my favorite thing about my parents becoming Christians a little bit later in life is they were so smart and really thought of their faith as an extension of their curiosity. So I thought, man, this is just the right place for questions, but also answers and most importantly, answers. I Think when I got sick and I didn't and my life was coming apart and I couldn't come up with a single reason why it would be me and not somebody else, or conversely, why I would be special enough at all that that was even the right question, I started to feel like my Answer Factory version was just. I mean, I started to think of it. I started calling it like another prosperity gospel. Like the idea that you think your life should be happy, healthy, wealthy, and that God's always going to create a moreness, even if the moreness is the kind of an emotional or intellectual satisfaction. And instead, sometimes what you mostly just get is love and mystery. So love and mystery have gotten me farther, I think, down the road than certainty did. But I do miss certainty. It was a lot more fun, and I was better at Trivial Pursuit.

[Rachel Martin]

Wait, how is certainty? It feels reassuring, but it actually doesn't sound that fun.

[Kate Bowler]

Totally. Also, like, are there great mysterious questions of the universe? Would they be good questions if someone had already answered them, we just hadn't looked it up? No. Did you know the problem of evil has been solved?

[Rachel Martin]

Boom.

[Kate Bowler]

Right?

[Rachel Martin]

That's not fun at all.

[Kate Bowler]

I wouldn't have a show. It'd just be Rachel Martin answers, period. It's a very short.

[Rachel Martin]

But in all, I just want one more tap on this, because people who do not prescribe to a religion or spiritual tradition or don't believe in a higher power or deity. How do you explain why the mystery gives you security? How does not having the answer to things make you feel better?

[Kate Bowler]

Yeah, well, I would say there's no security is pretty low on the list of things that faith will give you. I mean, because if you just. I mean, you think about any analogy for love, like you love somebody, it's. It's the most unsafe thing in the world. I mean, you love, you love and you love and you love, and they'll never be enough. And you're loving in the face of knowing that you will always, in every version, lose them or they will lose you. So there's nothing safe about love. And I think that's just as true about God as it is about other people is we can have a great experience of the adventure of feeling like, made for love and released out into a dangerous world with the purpose of loving others. But none of it, I think, will feel secure. And I really understand why people want to turn to faith as a source of comfort. Sure. But safety, security? No. We're stuck with the same questions as everybody else. So I feel deeply loved by God. And also deeply confused by most of what happens on this earth. And that seems probably like sanity.

[Rachel Martin]

Now I'm wishing there's a card I wish had come up, but I feel like you would have. What confuses you in a wonderful way. And I feel like you would have had good answers. Answers to that question.

[Kate Bowler]

Sporks.

[Rachel Martin]

Sporks.

[Kate Bowler]

Okay.

[Rachel Martin]

Three more cards. One, two or three?

[Kate Bowler]

Three.

[Rachel Martin]

Do you think there's any part of us that lives on after we die?

[Kate Bowler]

Yes, 100%. Absolutely.

[Rachel Martin]

Which part?

[Kate Bowler]

The eyeballs, mostly. They're the last to decompose. I mean, it's so funny. There's. I have. Do you have a. If you're ever interested in having a favorite poet. Mortician. I have one. His name is Thomas Lynch.

[Rachel Martin]

A poet mortician.

[Kate Bowler]

Yeah. By day, mortician by night. Very good poet.

[Rachel Martin]

That is a fascinating combo. I need to hear it.

[Kate Bowler]

He's a lot of fun to talk about this question with about, like, what remains and the like. And even a way because, you know, there's all the stuff. Ness of our bodies, but there's this, like, incredible durability to how we think about the soul. And really it's even in just how we remember people. Like, what made them this and not that. Like, what odd specificity, like, made that person's laugh and made that, like, wicked part of their sense of humor, like, shine or. Or pissed you off like nobody else. And I just think there's this delicious distilled absurdity, this, like, tragicomedy that is us. And I think that pressed into the rare diamond that is our soul, we just. That gets to. That just gets to live forever.

[Rachel Martin]

Do you. Have you had close people die and how do you feel them? How do you sense that soul? Is that what you. Do you. Do you.

[Kate Bowler]

Constant hauntings? Constant hauntings.

[Rachel Martin]

Are you being serious?

[Kate Bowler]

I truly don't believe in hauntings.

[Rachel Martin]

Some people, I don't know.

[Kate Bowler]

Rachel's like, this took a weird turn.

[Rachel Martin]

I'm happy to go there with you.

[Kate Bowler]

No, I. Yes, I've had close people die, and I really am. Like, my belief in heaven is that we are just the. The truth of us is carried forward in love. And we get to. And we get to. I mean, we can talk to them whenever we want to. We can feel their love shine on us. We can. But I. I don't know how much.

[Rachel Martin]

Does your son know about your diagnosis and. And do you talk to him about death and what that looks like and what happens after people die? What would happen after you died?

[Kate Bowler]

I always tried to be really. I mean, Zach is like the bullseye of my heart. He's like the. The core of the core. And I think I was most nervous about anything related to my illness or death or even just other people talking about heaven because I really wanted to be super careful about how he under. Yeah, I mean, kind of what we believe as Christians, but also whether he should be scared for me, his mom. And so I always bought these little, like, dolls with, like, anatomical organs. And I was like, right, now I have a mistake in this one. And then we'd, like, take it out and be like, this is a colon. It is God's food tube. I found that the more like, concrete and physical of. And specific I got, it would feel like just death being a failure of your organs. All those things would feel a lot easier for him to understand, because when I was the sickest, he was the littlest. And as he aged, I was significantly better. And so I've always been really careful about how sick he believes that I am at any time. But I've always wanted him to know. In every version like this, God we love means that when it comes to love, we will never be apart. We will never be apart. And also, I don't want to go anywhere in which I can't smell your skin and feel your ridiculous. This chubby hand on my face and watch you accidentally lock yourself in handcuffs and walk past my office 200 times while I'm working like, there's. Heaven is. Heaven is nothing compared to you. So I've always been so disappointed by stories of the afterlife, because it is not. It's not a story of putting Zach to bed. So, yeah, that's been always the hardest because I keep having health problems. And in every version, I have to be the one that decides how scared everyone is. So I've tried to take it really slow.

[Rachel Martin]

Yeah, that's also a lot of pressure, though, because it doesn't allow you to just be scared, because you have to think about how your own fear is gonna then trickle down and affect everybody.

[Kate Bowler]

And I'm, like, really resentful of the way most people of faith talk about heaven as a solution to the problem of pain. And we say it to kids, and I just think it's wrong. It's not a solution. It's an ultimate story of togetherness and the restoration of the world. It is not a comfort. Is not a comfort to people who are told that it will solve every problem. It won't. Pain isn't solved by love. It's not. It's not.

[Rachel Martin]

Oh, God, no. No, it's not, is it?

[Kate Bowler]

I just want to. I just want to, like. Like, I want him to know the story of faith as one where kind, reasonable people learn how to love each other better. And also, ultimately, he will always be known and loved by God and by me. So that's usually the best I can do.

[Rachel Martin]

So we end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine where you go back in time and you pick one moment that you would not change anything about. A moment from your past you would not change anything about. You would just like to linger there a little longer. What moment do you choose?

[Kate Bowler]

Well, I have a. I have a photograph of it, which is my very. Because you never have a photograph of the exact moment that you would never want to leave. But it's the moment that my son asked what his plans were gonna be after he graduated, but he meant kindergarten. And he thought after five and a half, he was gonna be fully let off the hook to live as he pleased. A man about town, go free. A man of leisure. And I have an exact. I have frozen in my mind the look of life. Like, what the what? That spread across his face when I was like, dude, you've got 12 more years of this indentured servitude. Because my life is endless. School. And just watching the true horror show of me being like, you're stuck with me, kid, while he ate cereal in his dinosaur pajamas. That is. He is. He is the most absurd person I will ever meet. And I like, I like being his co conspirator.

[Rachel Martin]

That's a good one. And it's also a little devilish, Kate, that you wanted to revisit the moment of your boy's pain.

[Kate Bowler]

But he looks. Why I want the look of loving. Why have you done this to me? Why? Why? Why? To just be a part of all my relationships.

[Rachel Martin]

Kate Bowler is a New York Times best selling author, professor at the Divinity School at Duke, and she is the host of the podcast Everything Happens. Kate, thank you so much.

[Kate Bowler]

Oh, my gosh, My pleasure.

[Rachel Martin]

If you liked this episode, you should listen to the episode I did with author Ann Patchett. She was funny and wise and I still think about what she said about being able to sort of curate her Catholic faith. Check it out for Wildcard this week. Kate Bowler tells me why jokes feel like prayer to her.

[Kate Bowler]

I think to me, that is like anything that combines honesty with humor is my very favorite thing.

[Rachel Martin]

You can hear that answer by signing up for Wildcard plus, which is a great way to support our show and public radio and listen. Sponsor free. Find out [e-mail] npr.org wildcard this episode was produced by Lee Hale and Romel Wood and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez. Wildcard's executive producer is Beth Donovan. Our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to [e-mail] we'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. See you then.

[D]

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