New York Times besteller!! Kate Bowler, HAVE A BEAUTIFUL, TERRIBLE DAY!: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs & In-Betweens

[1:32]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, moms don't have time to read books. I am also a newly minted USA Today bestselling author of the novel blank. I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats, a book bookstore, and more. Learn more at zibbymedia.com or follow me on social at zibby owens or join the community at zibbyreaders.

[2:02]Kate Bowler: Kate Bowler is the author of have a beautiful terrible day Daily Meditations for Ups, Downs, In Betweens. This is Kate's second time on my podcast. Kate Bohler, PhD, is a three time New York Times bestselling author, award winning podcast host, and an associate professor of American religious history at Duke University. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether or not we're capable of change. She is the author of A History of the American Prosperity Gospel and The Preacher's Wife, The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. After being unexpectedly diagnosed with stage four cancer at age 35, she penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved, and No Cure for Being Human and Other Truths I Need to Hear. She has also co written with Jessica Ritchie Good Enough 40 ish devotionals for a life of imperfection and The Lives We Actually Have, 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days. Kate hosts the Everything Happens podcast, where in warm, insightful, often funny conversations, she talks to people like Malcolm Gladwell and Beth Moore about what they've learned in difficult times. She lives in Durham, North Carolina with her family and continues to teach do gooders at Duke Divinity School. Welcome, Kate. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss. Have a beautiful, terrible day. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. As a fellow podcaster, you know how this goes. You know how much fun it is to chat with people whose work you admire, and I have read all of your books and just love everything you have to say and do and follow along and sub sec I mean, all the things. I'm just, you know, so impressed by you and your authenticity and openness and just all of the ways that you've shared your, I hate the word journey, yourself and your experience. I have such it's so true. I find myself almost saying journey all the time, but it's so true. Like, we find each other on these weird roads Yeah. That are just, like, big surprises always around each bend. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So for this book, tell listeners a little bit about it when you came up with the idea for these sort of meditations, how you even narrowed it down to the ones you included. I was like, this is great. I was taking screenshots one after another. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna send this one to this person. I'm sending this one to that person. So Oh, that's nice. Last year, I really just got stuck in a loop. I was going around and around the same problem with chronic pain, and it really kinda brought me back to that feeling that you get sometimes, like, in a health problem or in a relationship breaking down. But, like, you you just like, you were having the same problem over and over again, and there's not a way out. And you're smart person. So if there was a way out, like, you probably would have figured it out by then. So I was stuck with this really narrow set of choices. I only had about an hour every day where my brain worked because I was so physically uncomfortable and the meds just weren't working. And so I thought, well, if this is how I need to practice living, which is inside of an hour, then how can if it's if it's probably gonna be maybe a terrible day, like, how could I learn to make it a beautiful, terrible day? And are there habits of attention or reflection or maybe things I need to get rid of that I can do inside of this inside of these sixty minutes? And it was as much for my own sanity as it was just to be able to hopefully be there with other people who also have problems that we get stuck inside of and can't always find our way out of. Are you experiencing that level of pain today? Yeah. It was that one was about a nine month problem. And one of the one of the, I mean, most ridiculous things about any, like, tar pit is that you're positive it will never end. Like, if we talked about this last year, I've been like, Zippy, it's it's genuinely impossible. There's no solution to this. And then just, like, little bit by bit, tiny little moments of possibility opened up, and I'm doing so much better. But at the time, I was I would have called you a liar. Okay. Well, I'm glad I'm glad you didn't have to do that. Thank you. For listeners who are unfamiliar with the backstory and why you ended up in pain and what you've Sure. Could you give the the short version of or the long version, whatever you want. I yeah. Well, I was a very lucky person for a while. Things were really going my way. I, got, like, my dream job at Duke University when I was just a little little baby grad student, and all I wanted to do was do this, which is be a historian about, like, cultural scripts. And and then I got very, very sick, and I had stage four cancer when I was 35 and really spent most of my thirties trying to stay alive, which is very time consuming as it turns out. And I'm doing so much better, but it's just one of those but because I had so many abdominal surgeries, I just had a lot of lingering chronic pain. So I guess that was kind of the mental shift I was trying to make between sort of life as a crisis where everything is sort of very bright and clear. And in a way, you almost become more wise when you're having these sort of apocalyptic experiences. And then you're like, oh, crap. Now I just have the garbage rest of my life where I have to sort through life as a chronic condition. And, like, what do you do with the things you can't solve? So those are the questions, I guess, I think a lot about, like, personally, emotionally, and historically. Oh my gosh. Well, you know, I'm so sorry that was your path, but the way that you have used it to sort of help humanity. David I don't know. Can I read a couple of these and, like Oh, sure? From or whatever? I particularly like for whatever is on the calendar. Let me read this one. Let's see. I'll just read, like, the first page. Every every time I do something really difficult, I make an award chart. I know it is completely ridiculous. Truly, it's so dumb. But picture me attempting to get a doctoral degree from a fancy university with a lot of stone gargoyles and leather bound books. But then I needed to read about 350 of those leather leather bound books in a short period of time. So what did I do? I made an enormous chart with a point system. Three points for a book I had never read, two points for a difficult article in a journal, one point if I could simply recite the argument without having finished the book. And then I bought reams of stickers shaped like stars and made each point a star. If I could have done something similar with chemotherapy when I was diagnosed with cancer, I would have. When life is hard, I secretly wish someone out there is keeping score and clapping. I wish you could get an award for everything you do for others. I would build the podium myself. We could have a whole point system. Make a horrible appointment, two stars. Loved an enemy, three stars. But instead, most of the difficult and painful choices we make to love others and get up again after being knocked down will have no audience, no clapping. At most, we will get a small sense that we are moving in the right direction. So today, let's consider the things we do and what they cost even though we probably won't get a medal for whatever happens. I love that so much. I love that. It's funny too, is I've started this thing at home just because of, like, the depths of my ridiculousness, which is I now have a wall called the wall of dubious achievement where, like, everything that I do, they're, like, probably in no way deserves to be celebrated. Like, when I was a very mediocre waitress at Perkins family restaurant, I, like, I put it on the I I make the award chart, and everybody else gets to be on it too. So, like, safe safely using the crosswalk? Do you want an award? I'm gonna give it to you. I need to. I remember this reminded me of my time in Weight Watchers, like, back in another lifetime where, like, I got a a you lost five pounds bookmark, and it, like, changed my life. I'm like, oh my gosh. I won something. Something. Like, Like, I actually got an award for doing, like, the hardest thing in the world, which for me then was losing five pounds, which seems so vain and stupid, but whatever it was, the thing I was trying to do. Yeah. And I put it on the fridge, and I'm like, wow. This is life changing. Like It's Oh my gosh. Could I get to 10 pounds? Do know what mean? Like Is it true? I feel like our phones know that about us because every time there's a sound that's like Yeah. We're just like, that's it. I could live for that sound. Did you know that in Instagram, there are all these badges that are just in there and you get badges for all these milestones? Yes. I found them. I am all about the badges. It's really exciting. Oh my gosh. You've opened up a new world for me. Yeah. I know. You're gonna be like, I need 16,000 more reels. I'm just gonna keep doing reels. No. I I think, though I mean, we're poking fun, but external rewards and some marker that, like, the effort is noticed because we are all expending so much effort every day, whether it is, like, in your case just to live or just to get through the day or whatever it is. And there are no external prizes for most of stuff. And, like, why the heck not? It's funny because, I mean, we have so little language for the feeling that we're all hoping for, which is like an experience of transformation in our lives. And, like, theologically, there is a lovely word for it. It's called sanctification, but we never use it because we never think about it that way. Because mostly when we're doing something lovely, those are especially the things that you like, there's very few. Like, trying to create a more loving relationship with a person in your life that's incredibly difficult. Like, it's unlikely that our culture is gonna say anything except for, like, well, I guess that's what's good for you. And you're like, no. No. The hard transformative, like, soul changing stuff, the things that make virtues, like, those are those are hard things to even, like, congratulate ourselves for because they mostly just feel awful at the time. Yeah. Pretty much. Okay. Let me read another one. You're being too productive. I like this one too. I'm like, oh, yeah? Okay. You even have a little poem here. God, it's time to call it. My productivity is out of control. I'm filling every second with the task that will make the next one work. And even my downtimes are planned so far in advance, they can't anticipate what life will actually look like. I was literally sitting here reading this at, two in the morning being like, Kate. Are you here? Having an issue. Here. Thank you. It's so funny. I think I yeah. I think I was ruined by my first reading of the book, Getting Things Done. Remember when it first explained to us that if something could be done in less than two minutes, then we have to do it? And it turns out that that's, like, 99% of available tasks. So then, like, what? What is what does that do? Who have I become? I know. I was doing something. I was like, oh, it's so much faster for me to just, like, pay this quick bill. It's only, like, $34 or something. Yeah. But if you're like Not that that's not nothing, but, you know, it's not like I'm, like, having to you know, it's like, can pay this bill. So I was, like, doing it, and then they they kept having more sections. And I'm like, this is I I looked at the clock on my computer. I'm like, oh, this can't take more than two minutes. I'm allocating two minutes for this. I start doing it. Okay. Now they need this. Now they need this other contact form information. Then they started asking me all these other things, and now I need invoice numbers. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Now it's, like, become, like, a ten minute thing. You know? Like, anyway, so it throws everything. I think that's that's definitely life. It's like the avalanche effect and especially too of I think we're hoping I feel like nice moments last about, like, ten to twelve seconds. You know, like, those mountain top, beautiful, everything is amazing. I can't believe I got here, like, seven to twelve, and it's over. But, like, the the the bad things or even, like, the things that will measurably help us, like, making the stupid health care, like, phone call. Yep. I mean, that that will be that will never end. I feel like it's just like if there was a quick cut montage of me being like, hi, Linda. No. I'll hold. Hey hey, Joanne. No. That's and that's the part where You should do that. That would be so funny. From now on, anytime you make an appointment, like, throw the phone up in the in the tripod. And after a year, put them all together. And I don't know what prize Instagram will have for that, but it'll be a big one. That's so funny. Yeah. The endless the sprawl the sprawl is so real. And I think we think that our lives are gonna be I don't know. I guess that's why most of those cultural stories that we hear really just they're really crowded onto the super positive side of the spectrum where we do imagine we should be having more mountaintop yoga experiences. I do think it's more like trying not to murder anyone in traffic, trying trying trying to keep a certain tone of voice when you're talking to your kid when they're complaining for the two hundredth time about a thing that cannot be changed. Like, these are the ways we're being changed. It's just really it's just difficult to see how we're being changed while we're doing it. When somebody like, some expert at one point said, if you're really furious, whisper. Try it. Like, when your kids are, like when you're, like, ready to, like, throw something, instead of like, you guys, I'm ready to kill you. You know? Like, just try it. It changes the mood. You. Because then they're so surprised. You know? 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[17:46]Kate Bowler: What's, like, your last mountaintop amazing eight to ten seconds that you've had? Yeah. Well, actually, to be honest, last night was really fun. Kids have this weird thing, right, where they can make time elastic, and I spend most of my time avoiding it because they're gonna make me super inefficient. Like, I got stuff to do. But last night, my son really, like, sucked me into his time vortex. And before before I knew it, like, drawing became a, like, a game of pretending to be Mario karts, became me throwing things at his head as hard as I could. And, like, that I I don't think I've laughed that hard in a really, really long time. So yeah. And I didn't know what time it was. And that's always how I know something is kinda magical is where I'm like, wait. What time? Oh, sorry. Bud. Buddy. Yeah. We forgot about bedtime. We gotta shut this down. Yeah. It doesn't happen to me that often because I'm just too I get too aggressive about trying to keep everything in order. You know? But it's always lovely where you kind of fall off the side and then to a big kind of bubble pit. And where do you where do you think you get that? Your need to have everything in order? I think it got worse with illness. I'm I'm sure I was a productivity monster before, but the tick tick of being scared kinda cranked it up. So I I kinda have to work against every time they're like, consider the lilies. And I'm like, I don't have time. So I'm really I think I'm just trying to work against my own nature, and it's like my my growth edge. I was on my way to, like, a book event or something, and I was in this car service. And the guy's like, well, we have, like, ten minutes. You wanna, like, get out here, walk around, kill some time? And I was like, kill some time? Who do you think I am? I know. Like that. What do you think I can't do with ten minutes, sir? I was like, that's, like, against everything I'm trying to do in my life. So you have these, like, fun not fun, but, like, you know, poking fun at the craziness of life things. But then also, like, very serious things, you know, when you're certain today will be too much, not drowning in other people's problems. And then you have this one, number five, when it's not fair, it really isn't. This is the one I was sending a few people. In the midst of the can I read one more thing? Do mind if I like nice. Sorry. In the midst of the worst things that have happened to me, I realized that no one was going to show up to apologize. People who have heard us rarely apologize. Natural disasters and disease will most certainly never say sorry. And even though it felt silly to say I want an apology about my cancer diagnosis, I really did. So if you need one too, here's a blessing for when life isn't fair. And for what it's worth, I'm really sorry that happened to you. It literally makes me wanna cry. It's so it's it's like oh my gosh. The, like, deep the deep need we have to, like for someone to be keeping track of what it cost. It's such like it's such a deep need in us, and that's part of the my favorite kind of love is sometimes I I have really scary friends. Like, just like, I find that I'm always friends with these terrifying people, and and it's because they're so formidable in their love. When they look at me and they'll be like, I am so sorry. And, also, I wish I could murder everyone that's ever anything that's ever hurt you. That it, like, confirms in me a thing that I didn't realize was was missing until they said it. It's like, thank you for thank you for counting what the loss. Oh my gosh. So how and when are you doing all of the things that you are doing? Like, you're a professor. Right? You're professor? Yep. You're a professor. You profess. You can constantly prepare a little bit for that. I think you can tell that I'm a monologer. So I'll be like, hey. Thanks for giving my forty minutes on this on this idea that I'd very much like to share, and you're contractually obligated to listen to. Yeah. I do have that job. You write best selling books. You host a podcast. You know I mean? Podcast. It has been a lot of jobs. And, also, I I probably have still about, like, ten hours of health appointments a week. And so that's that takes up a lot of my time, which I don't love. But the my favorite part is that the research and teaching part lets me stay really curious about new questions. Because the second I'll kinda give a lecture on something, I'll realize the 200 things I genuinely don't know and kinda made up in q and a. So I'll have to go back. And that's kinda created this, like, cycle then of being able to research and then test ideas and then talk about them with other people. Because before the podcast and before all the other stuff, I really didn't ever have a chance to talk to people out of my own expertise. And that has been, I mean, beautiful. Because it turns out that I'm always just interested in the same thing. Courage, how? How? Hope, How? Love? And then interdependence. How do we get out of this absolutely insane individualism we've been boxed into? So kind of playing around on those themes has sort of, like, fleshed out most of the ways that I work and think now, but it does I think it is probably too many jobs. Don't you need do you find you need to rest? I mean, I know from these, you are not letting yourself really rest, or it seems that way if I can read into things. You know? I do have I have I have pretty firm cutoffs for like, I stop work at a certain time, and I don't work on the weekends just because I gotta I gotta mom hard with that one. Yeah. Do you find solace in other books? Like, do you carve out time for that? I love yeah. Especially, man, memoir is memoir is just earth shattering. I mean, it's it creates awe every time. Mhmm. So and there's, like, such a bizarre intimacy of having read, like, 250 pages of somebody else's inner thoughts. So, yeah, I I read a lot of memoirs. I I'm a little topped up on because I read so much theology and spiritual thinking for my job. I'm like, oh my gosh. If this becomes one more lesson, I'm gonna throw my throw everything off a cliff. So I am a little bit more into the, like I love comedians. I'm obsessed with, like, comic memoirs. What's a good one? I need a comic memoir. Okay. Well, honestly, Samantha Bee's Okay. Memoir Mhmm. Is hysterical. She's probably the best comic writer I've ever read. It's upsetting. Her, like, granular attention to, like, the weird way her grandma does something will never leave me. It's she's perfect. She's God's most perfect creature. Wow. Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna get that. I have not had her on the podcast. I'm gonna read it. I feel like the gift of laughter is such a such a joy when I'm literally, like, laughing. I was laughing so hard on a plane, this book that was a submission or whatever. And I was, like, covering up my mouth, and I'm like, I am one of those people right now who, like, my shoulders are shaking because I'm laughing so hard, I'm, like, covering up. But but that's wonderful. Are you reading anything that I should read right now? Oh, what am I reading? Well, speaking of memoir, I am about to talk to Katie Arnold. I don't know if you've read any of her stuff. She's this is her second memoir. It's called brief flashings in the phenomenal world. Zen is running free. And her first book was called running home. And it's it's not just about running, but she lives, like, in, I think, Santa Fe, and it's very much about, like, the nature, but it's also about the loss of her dad. And in this book, she has, like, a whitewater rafting accident. But I love stories like that where people have to recover from something. Me too. Me too. Like, take me to the bottom, and I will rise with you up to the top. That is so true. Want to go. Yeah. I wanna see everybody in a Rocky montage. I really do. Yeah. Yeah. And then I will feel better. Then I'll close it and be like, okay. I can I can get through whatever? You did it. You did it. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Oh my gosh. Well, in all the people that you've met and the events and all the things because of the books themselves, what's been, like, the greatest gift of a moment? Well, I think there's always a moment in a conversation because, know, you do so much preparation. You kinda know what somebody's gonna say. But then there's always surprise. Like and that it's the same feeling you get in the classroom where you, like, structure a topic, and then two thirds the way through, you're like, oh my gosh. I genuinely don't know what's gonna happen. And I like, there's this little lift in my heart, and then someone just sort of punches me in the face with their idea. I mean, I remember the last time I felt that way was I was talking to this lovely pastor. His name is Jerry Sitzer. And he he was coming out with a twenty fifth anniversary edition of this book that people had that had been really formative for a lot of people, and it was it was the story of this tragic car accident that ended the life of his wife and child. And it's like an absolutely devastating story. And then and it was so beautiful to see him twenty five years later and to see the incredible the, like, truth of his life be played out in all these years. And then I was like, but Jerry, like, so how do you then think about, like, hope and like, what what does a miracle feel like for you? And he goes and he was like, oh, but Kate, like, I mean, the dirty little secret about miracles is that they never last. And when he said it, and he was like, like, okay, even Lazarus who was raised from the dead, like, he died again. It was it could have been the most depressing thing someone had ever said, but I felt the wind knocked out of me. And I was like, from a man who has, like, kind of come up from the worst, like, come up from the grave a bunch of times, I thought, you're totally right. Every beautiful thing is a flash and a gift. But, like, the idea that I could hang everything on some, like, durable, endless, everything's always gonna work out. Like, I I can't I I can't and shouldn't live that way, but only because he said it. I was like, I believe you. I I believe you, and I have changed my mind. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? I'm very clear about not being very special, and that really helps me. I don't think I'm I'm not wonderfully insightful. When I sit down, nothing incredibly magical will happen, and that is a okay. I just know that between certain hours, I think more clearly, and I just keep my bum in a chair, and I light a candle because I'm terrified of leaving an unattended flame. And so having a lit candle forces me to sit there and have my nonspecial thoughts, and then eventually, they will become better. But, like, having a low view of my own abilities and a fire hazard has probably been the key to my writing ability. Who knew? Yeah. Low low self esteem. It really gets you over the page. Yeah. It really if you think you're all that wonderful, gosh. I'm happy for those people. I just don't know how I would come up with something if the bar were that high. Yeah. So funny. Thank you so much. Thank you for talking to me today, for coming on Oh my gosh. Of course. Podcast, for all the books, and all the joy and, you know, just letting us go along the ride with you. And Oh, hon. I really love it. So thanks. I'm so glad to see you again. What a chance. You too. Okay. Take care. Thanks so much, hon. Okay. I'm sure we'll see each other soon. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[29:14]Zibby Owens: For listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy Readers.