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Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

By: Everything Happens Studios
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About this listen

Are you living your best life now? Not always? This is a podcast for you. Duke Professor Kate Bowler is an expert in the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. She had Stage IV cancer. Then she didn’t. And since then, all she wants to do is talk to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens. Find her online at @katecbowler.

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2026 Everything Happens Studios
Hygiene & Healthy Living Social Sciences Spirituality
Episodes
  • Listen Again: Life After Dark with Barbara Brown Taylor
    Jan 27 2026

    Author and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor is no stranger to darkness. After experiencing devastating loss, Barbara explores our culture’s pursuit of the sunny side of life. But perhaps there are things we learn in the dark that we can’t learn in the light. Kate and Barbara discuss the two halves of our lives and how to practice courage even in the scariest of circumstances.

    CW: Death of parents, tongue cancer

    For show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions, click here.

    Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful.

    This episode originally aired December 2022.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    32 mins
  • Listen Again: Loving Mercy with Bryan Stevenson
    Jan 20 2026

    Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable among us.

    In this episode, Kate and Bryan discuss:

    • The hope that motivates Bryan in this slow, sometimes frustrating work of justice
    • What it means to be a ‘stonecatcher’ (and why it serves both the one being condemned and the one doing the condemning)
    • The power of forgiveness, maybe especially toward those who don’t deserve it

    CW: discussion of slavery, lynching, and other racist violence, death row

    ***

    Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

    Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

    Subscribe to receive blessings in your inbox every week.

    No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) is now available in PAPERBACK. Order your copy, today.

    Looking for some short spiritual reflections and blessings? Check out GOOD ENOUGH: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection. Available wherever books are sold.

    Introducing THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (releasing February 14, 2023). Learn more, pre-order, and receive a free pennant, here.

    Leave us a voicemail and who knows? We might even be able to use your voice on the air: 919-322-8731

    This episode originally aired December 2022.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Listen Again: Living with the End in Mind with Kathryn Mannix
    Jan 13 2026

    What if you started thinking really concretely about small, hard choices? That’s exactly what palliative care physicians do every day. They help us think about what we really want—knowing that we have limited time and limited resources. You’re going to love our guest today, Dr. Kathryn Mannix, palliative care physician and cognitive behavioral therapist. She offers practical steps to help people and their loved ones make sense of what limited choices they have, navigate any pain and fear they may experience, and gives the most comforting speech on what the end of a life looks like that we’ve ever heard. (I promise this is not scary at all. It is perfect.)

    In this conversation, Kate and Kathryn discuss:

    • Why we want to keep a lid on the scary things of life

    • What even is palliative care

    • How palliative care-type thinking can help us live better

    • What happens to hope when facing end of life

    This is a masterclass in walking right up to the edge with people, in the most gentle, compassionate way.

    If you liked this episode, you’ll also love:

    • Sunita Puri on living in uncertainty

    • Rev. Tom Long on the importance of the rituals for death and dying

    Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts.

    Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.

    This episode originally aired October 2024.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    57 mins
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Kate Bowler's wisdom, humour and empathy are such a gift when you're feeling untethered. She's like your most open hearted, supportive friend - the first one you pick up the phone to, when all you want is to be seen.

A tonic for the soul.

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