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61 " To many people, I am no longer just myself. I am a reminder of a thought that is difficult for the rational brain to accept: our bodies might fail at any moment. "
― Kate Bowler , No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear
62 " No matter the temperature, I insist that all impossible decisions must be made outside under the uninterrupted sky. How else could you know you're still alive? "
63 " I have been all kinds of cheery, but positivity has become a burden. And it’s a burden I assumed when I decided that in the darkness of Advent I would save myself. "
― Kate Bowler , Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved
64 " I am, unfortunately, amazing at being miserable. "
65 " What would it mean for Christians to give up that little piece of the American Dream that says, “You are limitless”? Everything is not possible. The mighty Kingdom of God is not yet here. What if rich did not have to mean wealthy, and whole did not have to mean healed? What if being people of “the gospel” meant that we are simply people with good news? God is here. We are loved. It is enough. "
66 " Spiritual laws offer an elegant solution to the problem of unfairness. They create a Newtonian universe in which the chaos of the world seems reducible to simple cause and effect. The stories of people’s lives can be plotted by whether or not they follow the rules. In this world there is no such thing as undeserved pain. There is no word for tragedy. There was a moment in "
67 " Oh, my friend, that sounds so hard.” Perhaps the weirdest thing about having something awful happen is the fact that no one wants to hear about it. People tend to want to hear the summary but they don’t usually want to hear it from you. And that it was awful. So simmer down and let them talk for a bit. Be willing to stare down the ugliness and sadness. Life is absurdly hard, and pretending it isn’t is exhausting. "
68 " Before the baby, before the diagnosis, before the pandemic. Before. Before when I was earnest and clever and ignorant, I thought, life is a series of choices. I curated my own life until, one day, I couldn't. I had accepted the burden of limitless choices only to find out I had few to make. "
69 " But the truth is somewhere inside of me: there is no formula. We live and we are loved and we are gone. Tumors budded and spread across my colon and liver without my consent, and here I am. "
70 " The long dawn of Advent will soon begin, and now we are all learning to wait. Christmas is coming and the baby Jesus will be born, but for now we must sit in the darkness. "
71 " I think you meant that we just can’t know. And that our brains fill in all the details, for good or for ill. We want to tell ourselves a story—any story—so we can get back to certainty,” I reply. “You know me! I am so desperate to know what’s going to happen. At least so I can prepare. "
72 " I want to raise a tough softy. He will know the pain of the world but all will be better for it. He will be brave in the face of heartbreak. "
73 " There is a time to speak and a time to shut your piehole. "
74 " But no matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more. We need more. We are carrying the weight of caregiving and addiction, chronic pain and uncertain diagnosis, struggling teenagers and kids with learning disabilities, mental illness and abusive relationships. "
75 " The great triumph of the "best life now" paradigm was that it summarized the promises of an entire American wellness industry: everything is possible if you only believe. You can find this confident message everywhere from megachurches to Burning Man. It's expressed in the advertising around Peloton bikes and deluxe yoga retreats. Good vibes are big business. "
76 " A bucket list disguises a dark question as a challenge: what do you want to do before you die? We all want, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, to “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” But do we attain that by listing everything we’ve ever wanted to do? Should we really focus on how many moments we can collect? "
77 " It is not proof of anything. And it is nothing to boast about. It was simply a gift. I can’t reply to the thousands of emails with my own Five-Step Plan to Divine Health or series of powerful formulas, which guarantee results. I suppose I am like the man who wrote to me to say he had seen a friend swinging from a tree and felt the presence of God in the same long, dark night. Yes. That is the God I believe in. "
78 " We are grass, murmur the scriptures. Our crowns are just flowers. We are here and then gone in a burst of wind. "
79 " Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps. "
80 " I must accept the world as it is, or break against the truth of it: my life is made of paper walls. And so is everyone else's. "