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The Season of Waiting (And Waiting...And Waiting) with

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KATE BOWLER Author. Professor. Incurable Optimist.

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Hello! If you’re looking for more information about how to book me as a speaker for your event, contact my speaker's bureau. It would be lovely to meet you. Or stop by one of these events:

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Kate Bowler and Lisa Kalanithi

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Dec 5

Bless the lives we ACTUALLY have (not just the ones we want).
Are you looking for a Christmas present of very medium-sad feelings? Perhaps you want to remind someone you love (passive-aggressively or just aggressively) that their ACTUAL life is worth blessing? Then maybe you want to give them the gift of our new book and free pennant! The book of blessings doesn’t come out until Valentine’s Day, but if you pre-order a copy of THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE, we’ll send you a free pennant. Then, you can give them a gift for now, and one to come.Submit your pre-order receipt to the link in my bio by December 7th and you’ll get the pennant by Christmas.

Dec 2

This is from a blessing is all about TEACHERS. You beautiful people, you. As you near the final weeks of kids at their desks before a (much-needed) holiday break, may you remember this: so much will seem like it doesn't stick. Lessons need repeated. Tough dynamics persist. They are still turning things in late (if at all) THIS far into the semester.But whatever is done in love will remain.Bless you, my dears.🎨: @dianaweymar for @tinypricksproject

Dec 1

After twenty years—TWENTY YEARS—I was back at Yale. My old classrooms. A zillion feeeeeeeelings. But Yale Divinity School (bless them) gave me an award for Distinguished Service to Theological Education. (Is there an emoticon for so much surprise that it’s medically alarming?)I was a little baby student and every single room seemed enormous and every single professor seemed completely intimidating. What I was missing in the moment, though, was how much people were pouring their best words and ideas into my developing brain. And now that I get to repeat them back AS PART OF MY JOB, I am looking back on this with a totally different kind of awe. For all those who teach and pour into others, bless you. You are teaching us how to teach. And made our lives a million times richer.Thanks @yaledivinityschool for making this dream come true.

Nov 29

Whether it is the 1st or 4th or 22nd year without someone you love, the holidays can be especially difficult. We need practical ways to bring their memory into our special days. We asked this question on today's podcast episode and your answers undid us. (Seriously. Go listen.) Making family recipes. Playing their favorite song. Putting their ornaments on the tree. Traditions that keep their love alive year after year after year.What traditions does your family practice to honor and remember your loved one each year?Thank you for sharing your heartbreak and hope with us all. Bless you as you navigate another year dear one. You aren't doing it alone.Hit the link in my bio for today’s episode.

Nov 27

A blessing for when you want to wake up to wonderI stand, stone still, at the edge of disheartenment.
I have nothing but this certainty:
nothing changes, nothing lasts.
I feel hollow.God, this world you made is full.
Warm earth pushing up new seedlings,
unfathomable oceans teeming with mystery,
and the miracle that our clay bodies
bear even the possibility of creating new life.We are all swimming in wonder
so, God, why can’t I feel it?I feel my own blood turning cold
with each tiring loss.
Good things, beautiful loves,
pried from my fingers
make them seem empty to me now.But still.Even if, today, I am sure
that hope is not knocking at my door
let the lights at the neighbor’s house
glow like a Jack-o-lantern.
Let the sounds, wafting through the window –
someone’s barking dog and kids running amok,
the buzz of someone’s television
rehearsing the day’s calamities –
remind me that we persist somehow
under a distant shadow but happy anyway.Let the sun come down the sky and touch me,
and I will walk out to greet it
feeling the low murmur of the ground beneath my feet.And as the earth makes its creaky turns toward night
let the day fall in behind us
“What next?” we will say to the night sky,
before we close the door and consider its answer
tomorrow.

Nov 26

I like to think that people within 100 miles of my dancing will say: she has a lot of arms…. that woman had at least two arms.One of the greatest, dumbest joys of my life is precious kids who think all dinners end with dancing. And they have MOVES.Please tell me you have a move. And the last time you used it.

Nov 25

“Christmas isn’t just a day. It’s a state of mind.” —Kris KringleLet’s prepare our hearts and minds together, shall we? Advent begins this Sunday, November 27th. Download our free Advent Devotional at katebowler.com/advent or hit the link in my bio.

Nov 24

A blessing for around the table
from our NEW book of blessings, The Lives We Actually Have (releases on 2/14/23)God, awaken us to the everyday miracle of a simple meal.
Whether it is take-out that took a phone call,
a recipe that took an entire afternoon,
or the cereal-for-dinner again feeling this meal creates,
bless it all.So blessed are we, sharing a meal today.
May we recognize God’s goodness
in the thoughtful preparation,
in the delivering,
in the eating together,
savoring something that tastes like love.May our time around the table be a gift.May we be present to one another
engaging all our senses
as an act of thankful worship
to the nourishment that’s before us
with the people we love. Or are trying to.God, bless the hands that prepared this,
those with us now,
and the ones we wish were.
Bless us, oh God.
in all of our eating and cooking and gathering and sharing,
our jokes, talking-with-our-mouths full,
and elbows on the table,
may we taste and see the love that multiplies.Amen.Click the link in my bio for more information on The Lives We Actually Have.

Nov 24

Happy American Thanksgiving, my dears. I know many of you all are about to be with people who might see things—religion, politics, whether or not cranberry sauce should be eaten on mashed potatoes—different from us. Here's a blessing for loving someone when differences divide us. Bless you, my soft-hearted friends.A blessing for loving someone when differences divide us
From our new book of blessings, "The Lives We Actually Have" (2/14/23)God, this is a hard one.
How do I begin to love or even connect
with someone so different from me?
How do I bridge this gap?
It feels just as wrong as the beliefs I abhor.Blessed are we who want to be a part
of the wild and beautiful experiment
to find a common humanity.
Who desire to come willingly into the gap
that separates human from human,to love the stranger—especially
the one we really don’t understand
and secretly want to set straight.Blessed are we, willing to stay in the gap,
in the contradictions of what we can’t understand.
To actively work on disproving
our own intuitions about another,
in order to begin to see what they see.Blessed are we, swimming upstream
against the current of our own human frailty,
our fears and emotions,
and willing to be wrong for a second.
To reconsider. And hold to our integrity
with kindness.Desiring to see the lay of the land
and play the course,
instead of the one we wished it could be.
And to discover that humility
is what makes change possible.Grace is never neutral.
It works backwards and forwards in time,
conspiring to make wrong right.

Nov 23

This Thanksgiving might be one full of gratitude. You are able to count up the lovely things that make life bright and beautiful. When I am really having an awful time, I often use gratitude as a way of paying attention to details that can re-fill me.BUT. BUT. BUT.We are often surrounded by The Gratitude Police. The people who need us to be grateful. People who demand we be grateful. Maybe we do that to ourselves.   In this Thanksgiving season set aside for gratitude, try to give yourself the gift of knowing that you may not always *feel* gratitude. You might always feel lucky. YOU MIGHT BE THE UNLUCKIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. And on a clear morning, you’ll feel gratitude rushing back.But if that day is not today, bless you my dear. You can be grateful (and not grateful) and the beauty of your life can still carry you.

Nov 22

Today, I’m bringing you back to a moment from my tiny baby self when I was absolutely in love with a television show host and musician named FRED PENNER (@fpenner5).Fred Penner is Canadian gold. He had a television show called, obviously, Fred Penner’s Place where he would show up in the woods and crawl through a log and BEHOLD HE WAS SOMEWHERE VERY INTERESTING. And he would sing songs with gentleness on his guitar and he made you feel like you, tiny you, were being loved into something. Sung into something or someone.Even if it was very very silly, like his song THE CAT CAME BACK which every Canadian child can sing (please quiz them on that).But what I didn’t know was how much he was sung into being some very tender moments in his childhood.What do we do when we want to stay soft and curious and kind?Fred Penner knows. And you’re going to love him.Search for EVERYTHING HAPPENS wherever you get your podcasts or click on the link in my bio.

Nov 21

Life is made of paper walls. Sometimes for all of us. This is the story of a time I went into a small, roadside chapel in Arizona, graffitied with people’s deepest longings, prayers, and unmet hopes. I was so struck by the stark honesty. There is no cure to being human, I thought. But we need each other to tell the truth. Life is so hard. And life is so beautiful. For everyone.
I wanted a way to hold our deepest longings and prayers and unmet hopes as a community. So I asked my friend @larartstudio to make us something. And of course, she created a beautiful Reliquary of Complicated Truths, born of her own story of grief. Listen here. And add your complicated truth by clicking the link in my bio.

Nov 20

A blessing for when your family disappoints you from our NEW book of blessings, "The Lives We Actually Have" (coming 2/14/23)God, I am angry and hurt and so incredibly sad.
The very people who were supposed to love me and know me best
have let me down.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to let this go or find a way forward.
I am losing my sense of home.
And the reality of it all fills me with a kind of fear.
However big, however small,
this pain always feels… unforgivable.
I know they are only human (really, I know),
but their mistakes feel like they echo through me.
They strike a painful chord that rings on and on.
I feel convinced, all at once,
that I am not loved, not known, not safe.
I feel small, all over again.
So bless me, God, when tears prick at my eyes,
and I feel lost to myself.
Bring me home.
Remind me of the places you’ve brought me,
the person I’ve become, when I feel your light and peace.
Forgive them for me when I can’t
and send some grace for this moment,
to keep my heart from breaking
or my temper from rising,
or any sentence from starting with “YOU ALWAYS…”
You remember me when I am a stranger to myself,
and an outsider at my own address.And a huge thank you to @juliasamuelmbe for offering us such wisdom and grace for how to navigate complicated family dynamics. That conversation is a must-listen (link in bio).

Nov 17

Expert facilitator @priyaparker gave us some of her tips for creating meaningful gatherings we will actually *want* to be apart of on the podcast last week. We asked you all what were some of your most meaningful gatherings and why.We heard from Savannah who threw a grapefruit party for her friends and family after they supported her through treatment for her grapefruit-sized brain tumor. And from Faith who went to a friend's 80th birthday where people came from every decade of her life. And Marsha who taught us the table blessing. But there were so many more voicemails that made us laugh and cry as we reflected on the ways our togetherness helps us heal.I hoped you might share some of them in the comments below.

Nov 16

I told @priyaparker about the time I hosted a Christmas Party where everyone had to sing Christmas Carols together. But what I left out was that I had asked everyone to come dressed as their favorite Christmas album cover.Yes, that is me as Dolly Parton and Toban as Kenny Rogers. (Swipe for our inspiration.)

Nov 15

So often we can feel overwhelmed by our histories—our family histories. It’s so hard to confront dysfunction, speak the truth, and find trusted people to help us look back and look forward. If you need some encouragement, @juliasamuelmbe is a gift. She is a psychologist who specializes in working with families who have experienced complicated stories of loss and love.
This conversation is a much-needed reminder that you in all your actual problems and actual pain are far better than any idealized version of you. And maybe that is the exact honesty that might offer us and our families the freedom we long for.
Listen to our full conversation. Search EVERYTHING HAPPENS wherever you get your podcasts.

Nov 14

Oh boy. Yet another year that probably didn’t turn out like we expected it would (it never does). We need a minute to get ready for another Christmas. So we’ve created a totally free Advent guide for just that. Daily reflections and questions to help you orient your days and ground your hearts and minds in what this season of waiting really means. Want to wait together? Grab a friend and join me.Download your free guide at katebowler.com/advent or hit the link in my bio.

Nov 13

A Blessing for an Unfinishable Day
from our *new* book of blessings, The Lives We Actually Have (coming 2/14/23)God, it seems that stopping is impossible.Dishes need to be washed.
Kids need to be fed.
Aging parents need to be cared for.
Deadlines need to be met.
Medicines need to be administered.
Diapers always need to be changed.
(They multiply if I sleep, after all.)Can you ease the burden of perfection?Free me from this fantasy
of the better me—my
new exercise regime,
my sumptuous (healthy!) new recipes,
the way the perfect placement
of my living room furniture
would flatter the afternoon light
on my social media feed.God, make me more than perfect.
Make me more than a job or role,
or what I had planned for my golden years.Make me something less predictable
than my to-do lists
and daily calendar.In this culture of more, more, more,
make me less.Less tidy and afraid,
less polished and buttoned up,
less prideful and judgmental.Turn down the volume of my expectations,
and let me hear the birds sing
another lovely truth:I am deeply and wholly loved.
I am beautiful and somehow delightful
even as I am unfinished.

Nov 11

Admitting we are lonely is a really hard thing to do. It can be Peak Embarrassing. But when terrible things happen to us, that is usually the time in which we are MOST LONELY.
It’s a terrible loop. Bad thing —> feeling lonely —> but wait, how am I going to get through the bad thing when I feel so alone?
This week, we’ve been talking about nurturing our relationships by getting people together for no great reason. Throw a dumb party. It doesn’t have to be fancy AT ALL (thank you for this permission, @priyaparker). Breakfast for dinner (bonus points if it’s cereal)! A game of charades on Zoom! Go to Costco with someone and catch up over samples!
We need each other more than we are willing to admit. So don’t let fanciness stop you from putting something on the calendar.
What’s your plan for this weekend? Any fun or easy-entry ideas to build relationships?

Nov 10

U.S. Surgeon General @drvivekmurthy embarked on a listening tour to find out more about the major health issues that Americans face. And I think he was expecting to find something like, I don’t know, HEART DISEASE. But the crisis that struck him most was loneliness.
Americans reported being painfully lonely. And that loneliness has a real effect on people’s physical and mental health.
And all that was even BEFORE the loneliness we all experienced during the pandemic. But he has great advice. You don’t need 200 friends or even 10. You just need to find 3. Who are your three?

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