Everything Happens with Kate Bowler Duke University

How do you live knowing life can just come undone at a moment’s notice? In the span of a few months, Tig Notaro received three life-threatening illnesses, unexpectedly lost her mom, and went through a breakup. Tig is a brilliant comedian whose real life informs her comedy and has a lot to teach us about living honestly in the face of reality. 
In this conversation, Kate and Tig discuss: 

Tig’s “hands-off” parents and her journey of self-discovery, eventually uncovering her talents in the entertainment industry and making her a respected figure in comedy

How Tig Notaro's family of “real characters,” served as an abundant source of comedic inspiration in her life (including the best graveyard story ever)

How to live alongside fear of what you know could actually happen?


CW: cancer, death of parent
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Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

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What makes a good life? How would you answer that question? Not just life in the abstract… but what makes YOUR life good? Professor Miroslav Volf teaches a popular class at Yale University which guides students through these kinds of questions and might help us all think a little more deeply about what our lives are adding up to be.
In this conversation, Kate and Miroslav discuss:  

Why just practicing the habits of a good life doesn’t make a life meaningful (hint: we need to be thinking about the ends)

Importance of asking questions we don’t always have the answers to

How to define joy

What does flourishing look like when we feel like we’re “losing” 

How joy and suffering can coexist

 
On a personal note, this is a special interview for Kate because Miroslav was also her professor at Yale and someone she looks up to with joy and admiration.
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Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.
Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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Our most precious relationships are often our most complicated, aren’t they? Poet and bestselling author Kwame Alexander wrote an honest book of poems and essays that name the difficult and beautiful and heart-wrenching conversations we have (or should be having) with the people we love and with the ones who love us. 
In this conversation, Kwame and Kate discuss: 

How we can’t outrun our grief

How our own parents love us in the ways they want to be loved, but maybe not in the ways we need—and how we find our ways back to each other

The desire to share with our kids how we love, where we fail, where we tried, and who we were before we were their parent

 
CW: death of parent, divorce
***
Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.
Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do we stay soft in a world that has taught us to be tough? Actress Minka Kelly is known for her roles as Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as Samantha in HBO’s Euphoria. Despite her fame on the big screen, one might not realize the chaos that surrounded her childhood. Being raised by a single mom who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka had to learn how to take care of herself and the adults around her, and, eventually, to forgive her mom. 
In this tender conversation, Kate and Minka discuss:

How we can be built from the outside in through our friendships and how our friends become our chosen family

How anger tells us that a boundary has been crossed

The unfinished ways people love us—reconciling our complicated childhoods with the love we feel for each another

How Minka has processed her difficult childhood through a lens of love and grace

The way Minka’s mom was changed by her cancer diagnosis, and how once they found their way to one another again, there could never, ever be enough time

 
CW: colon cancer, death of a parent, brief mentions of abuse and neglect
***
Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.
Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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Some people are the LEAN IN sort. They lean into your unsolvable problems, show up on your impossible days, and walk with you all the way to the end. How do we become them? How do we create belonging when the people we love experience such uncertainty? Practical theologian and mental health nurse John Swinton knows a thing or two about this kind of love.  

In this conversation, Kate and John discuss: 

The importance of learning to be present for people with intellectual disabilities, dementia, or in mental health crises 

How two places that should be known as places of belonging—the church and the hospital—have become difficult for fragile people… and how we might begin to make these institutions better

A theology of hope we might all be able to sign up for (Spoiler: Hope is a long story.) 

How love moves at a certain speed, so we all might need to slow down a bit


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Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.
Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Maggie Smith (poet and author of books like Keep Moving and You Could Make This Place Beautiful) chronicles the aftermath of a painful divorce she didn’t see coming. How do we raise our kids in the wake of such change? And how do we reconcile who we are and who we are becoming? 
In this conversation, Maggie and Kate discuss:

How to support someone going through divorce

The metaphor of nesting dolls as how we contain who we were before (and how our befores and afters might not be as dramatic as we thought)

Speaking honestly with our children about the beauty and tragedy of the world

Why tragedies are not worth the “lessons” that we might learn from them


CW: divorce
***
Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.
Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.
THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days is out now. Learn more, here.
Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices