Kate Bowler on the Ache That Makes Us Human—and the Joy That Makes Us Whole

All right, everybody. Welcome to the For the Love podcast. Welcome back, everyone.

We got a banger today. Banger. We have Kate Boller, and she's just the best.

Here's what I love about her. Yes, the best.

If you looked at her resume, her CV, Kate on paper is one thing.

So impressive. So impressive. So credentialed. So credentialed. So serious.

Academia. Like Duke. Yeah. Kate in real life is all of those things.

No, she is, but she's also the weirdest little weirdo.

But hilarious. So funny. That's what I was telling her. It's not fair.

Like she's got, she's greedy. You don't get to be that smart.

And also that funny and also that weird. And then show up in like a bright yellow

peacote outfit. I know. Adorable. She's adorable. She is truly not kidding.

Not hyperbole. She is one of a kind.

She really is. She is an original in a way that I just

maybe two books ago when she sent me a copy of her book in advance.

You know, how sometimes they'll send them to authors and they have a little gift in them and whatever.

So I get my copy of her book and my gift inside is a Catholic tall Catholic prayer candle.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. With my face on it. Like a saint.

She pulled some picture of me off the internet.

And I've got my little hands in prayer. And I mean, I howled.

I howled with laughter. It's on my desk. Yeah.

That's just Kate. I'm going to send you a prayer candle, but it's going to be your face on it.

That's like quintessential Kate.

She is so, so, so funny. And she's a good friend.

And I feel like I want to say that because

she just is a she checks in with me and like has my back in our like world that we both swim in online.

Just as authors and we, you know, we've got our crossovers really high in a way that is like killer.

Yeah. It is killer. Like she never misses, never.

And so I love her so much. I was thinking about her today because her book is called Joy anyway.

And we're obviously about to talk about it everybody, but she is talking about joy in the middle.

Just joy all the time. Joy even when life is terrible. Joy when the things not fixed. Joy when you're in the middle of it.

Joy when nothing's resolved because that's what life is. Yeah.

Anyway, I was laughing because I forgot to tell her about my lips.

I meant to, I meant to nudge her to not be looking at me weird because just this very morning.

Well, first of all, I had a mammogram this morning. So talk about like I'm having a day.

Yeah. And then yesterday I put on some lips, some chapstick from a brand.

And I'm not going to say it because I'm a Christian, but it's a brand that has historically been terrible for my skin.

Like I threw a head to throw away all their skin, car products, everything burned, everything was terrible.

It's not a terrible product. It's terrible for your skin. So I'm not going to say what it is.

You've reacted. I read so badly to all of it.

The whole line of products. And yet.

But I put the chapstick just like in a chapstick drawer away from all the other products.

So I grabbed it yesterday because my lips were dry.

I didn't really look at which one it was because I had like 40 in there.

And I just grabbed one, put it on fine. I woke up this morning and my lips were triple their size.

I look like one of those pictures that sometimes you see on the internet where somebody gets like 30 straight years of plastic surgery.

And their lips are so like they've done so much crazy shit to their face that their lips are like the size of like two huge sausages.

That's what I look like this morning. You can see them right now. And I meant to tell Kate in case she's like what's going on with your face?

They're better now. The two been in when you first got here.

The two Benadryls have done their job.

Two Benadryls. They feel really weird still.

Yeah.

And my whole face is tingling. I think because of the Benadryl.

Maybe.

Anyway, I had to be joyful anyway because my lips are all swollen. I look so insane.

And then I'm like, well, guess what I get to be on camera today.

I know.

I guess what I did had a great time because Kate's so damn funny.

We did. We pulled it out.

I think I compared myself to a rabbit raccoon earlier.

Like it was just one of those mornings where everything I touched, I dropped my coffee cup, my water bottle, the shampoo bottle,

my laptop, the dog food everywhere.

Like some days I just have like my brain does not just tweaked out, send complete messages to my muscles.

Don't worry. Don't send me suggestions about seeing a neurologist.

I've got to under control.

Just some days are like that.

And I was like, I don't y'all are getting like me 37% today.

And then you said, well, I'm saying I've got these big.

I was like Carolyn Levitt and I am a disaster.

And so you and I limped into the studio.

What happened was we laughed for a solid hour because we had Kate.

Because Kate, like Kate has that like magic secret formula about her.

So if you are don't know Kate, I've had her like, she's been on the show numerous times.

Like, I just, I'm always trying to find a way to get Kate into our little world over here.

Because she's so smart, so interesting, so funny and so good.

So Kate is a historian.

She's also a theologian.

She's a professor at Duke Divinity School.

No big deal.

She's the host of everything happens podcast.

And then she's the best selling author of several books that people love all.

Because they tell the truth about suffering.

Without ever, ever reaching toward easy answers or shallow answers.

That's kind of like her whole deal.

So in her new book, which is called Joyful Anyway, which is out April 7th.

She is just challenging the idea that joy is something that we earn, first of all.

And that we earn it after the hard part is over after the healing, after the clarity, after the resolution,

after the thing is fixed or solved.

So that's just not how any of it ever works.

We'll just be waiting forever.

And so instead, she is inviting us to imagine just kind of a more honest joy that is accessible always.

Available to us always in the before, middle, during and after of any sort of circumstance we find ourselves in.

And that joy can and does live right alongside grief all the time.

So this conversation is so lovely.

We talk about all sorts of things about what does this mean in a faith context.

Why are we so resistant to this sort of work?

What sort of narratives are we playing off of?

It's all in here.

You're going to feel sane and understood.

And I think you're going to feel hopeful.

So yeah.

Glad you're here for this one.

Let's welcome the incredible and comparable Kate Boller.

This is so exciting.

You've written a whole book.

You've written a whole book.

It's so good.

It's about to come out.

So let's do it first.

Like, let's do a little body scan.

Like, how are you feeling because I uniquely understand the weirdness of book release, release season?

It is not the same as book writing season.

It is not the same as living the story season.

The release season is its own monster.

They mean that nicely.

How are you feeling coming up on this release particularly with this book?

These stories that you included, everything that you decided to be just like, you know what?

I'm saying this.

You know, it's so funny.

Is it feels like it's the first time where my evil heart makes complete sense.

Like in every previous book, every publicity tour is like, I sat down with this really fancy journalist.

And in front of everyone, this enormous audience, she goes, okay, this book really is unbearable.

I just feel like chill now.

Everyone's been like, she's really sad.

She must, she has a dark take on what it means to be a faithful person.

And I'm like, jokes on you.

The apocalypse has come.

And guess what?

I was ready for it the whole time.

So I do feel like this is the great reveal in which I'm like, yeah, I did say that the world was fragile.

And now optimization doesn't seem so great.

Now does it?

Who's laughing now?

To be honest, like, it's a laugh cry.

But you are entitled to it.

Yeah, this is coming.

It's coming in the world.

It's so good.

And look, I'm going to start here because also to go back to Amy's disclaimer, for people who don't know you yet,

which I can't imagine somebody who might ecosystem doesn't.

I have put you in front of my community at every turn for as long as I can remember.

But just in case they're like joyful anyway, is this like a, is this a book about happiness and sort of magical positive thinking?

And because you like to do a little play on words.

I'd like to talk about what kind of book this is not.

What kind of book that it is.

And what you are sort of.

Hoping I guess to disrupt if that's a fair thing to say.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Well, I think that anyone who's had before and afters in their life and I have.

I spent my 30s with a stage four cancer diagnosis.

I've had seasons of tremendous luck and then seasons of tremendous unlock.

And now I think all of us, whether we're experiencing like, Jen, I love the way you talk about the transitions and disruptions and the needs of middle age.

What different kind of person we need to be.

And then for all those of us who just feel undone by the headlines over and over again.

Like, what do we do now that we feel our own fragility?

And I think having just like, first of all, at the very basic level,

like the sense that you are a reliable narrator.

Like it is, it's, it does sort of feel like the end of days all the time.

And that there are horrors everywhere.

But that they're kind of unevenly dispersed.

That they're happening to some of us.

And yet all of us are watching.

So it really does feel sort of like a diet apocalypse.

Like it's all the apocalypse, half the calories.

Like how is it that I can get, you know, see democracy beyond done.

But I can get acne patches, same day shipping.

I mean, it really is a very confusing kind of end of time.

It really is.

It is.

It throws me off multiple times a day.

It's so true.

It's such a weird whiplash.

That is so also I real quick snaps for the cover.

Well done.

Well done.

Thank you.

How many tries to take to get to this?

Because it's so it just says a million words into like it's so good.

I love it.

So what kind of book is this not?

And what is it the core of it?

Yeah, it's not a book about the things we already tried to fix our lives and make us joyful

every time someone screamed.

Choose joy as they ran past us throwing a live laugh love pillow in our faces.

It's not it's not one of our many attempts to be more try harder.

The kind of person we always hoped we would be by now.

This is not for New Year's Day feelings where we have that resolution.

I can just fix my yoga practice, my morning routine, my green drink.

I mean, this is this is the story for after that.

After we realize that we have all kinds of things that went wrong and yet so many ways in which

we have to be the emotional walls that keep up our house.

So given that we're living like this, what is left for us?

That's good.

And I think this is a very telling moment when we want to say like,

is this all there is, this undone, unfinished feeling?

And do I then just have to like pivot hard to all the like quick five step plans?

And I just, I think there's a great mystery at the heart of the human experience

where we can find these internal, gorgeous spaces of more.

And I wanted to explore joy as one of those unbelievable places.

You write as someone who deeply understands theology and history,

but also someone who has lived in a body that you've had to suffer with and reckon with.

How did those two voices, the scholar and the human find a place together on the page?

Well, I guess I mean, I've had one very strange specialty most of my life,

which is that I study cultural stories about health, wealth and happiness.

It started with interviewing televangelists where I was like always on some private jet

asking someone with beautiful hair about how they fixed their life.

And then I spent all kinds of time with people in the pews who had been praying for a miracle that never came.

And I, I feel tremendous compassion for both versions of that

because I feel them in myself all the time.

I am the ready consumer of the, of the, of the fixed it life.

I constantly watch these Instagram reels of women who have morning routines.

Yeah, yeah. They are just.

I mean, they're crushing it. They're killing it.

I fast saw one the other day.

It was like a women's fashion brand that was trying to sell like this optimized life

and I was really watching like three times in this woman.

It was like watch her morning routine, watch her get ready.

She got up, she did yoga, she worked out aggressively after that.

She had her red light therapy.

Sure.

Then she went rollerblading with her twins who were matching outfits.

Then she had her green drink.

And then in the comments section it was like, is it 4 p.m.?

What is this morning routine?

Ending.

Wow.

That is always what I feel inside of me is like I have this cultivated scholarly approach

to like interest in curiosity.

But at my heart is this deep wish that I could have been a Ferrari the whole time

and then keep finding that I am still stuck in a, you know,

I have to still go to the hospital every few months to do kind of cancer related things.

I have to take like 18 medications in a day.

I've just been about 15 hours a week doing like chronic pain related therapies.

I don't get to feel like it will ever be over.

And so this hunger inside of me really made me want to look at that hunger more carefully

and just say like, does this hunger mean that I'm never satisfied

or that I don't know what to do with all of this ache?

It's so interesting reading it because you're a gifted writer.

You put, you put into words that ache that's actually kind of hard to describe

because I just kept reading it going, God, yeah, that's, I hate that feeling.

I live with that feeling all the time like that, like I've got this imaginary pen on the board

just ahead of me that I'm about to get to.

I don't even actually know what it is.

I just know that when I get there, I'll have a better feeling.

Like all things will all settle nicely down on the desk.

And I don't know what it is.

I can't even really describe it.

What I feel like I'm missing or what I feel like I'm waiting for.

But what you did help me explain was the feeling of that.

Of like, I'm living in the days that the last iteration of me penned this one to the board

and went, when I get to there, then I'm going to feel a way that I'm going to feel

and I'm just here I still am with my weird little thoughts

and my weird little hang-ups and my things aren't how they're going to be one day when it gets right.

And somehow that word salad that I just gave you,

you wrote cohesively in this book.

And made made by diagrams.

Like that helped me understand it so much.

Like the ache is the center of grief and guilt and longing.

And I know that all three of those actually serve me like in the grand scheme of things.

And the ache is like right there.

It's core of it.

So we just have to figure out what to do with it.

I know. Talk more about that.

Fix us, Kate.

I didn't real, yeah.

I think this more and more language for the ache gets us somewhere

that just pretending that it's a glitch in us doesn't.

So if the ache is that combination of like longing and searching and not quite finding

and it has like a almost a sweetness to it,

there's it's first of all it just helps to know that from Augustine to Aquinas

to I think my favorite term for it was from Friedrich Schiller.

He called it Zen-Sugd which just meant like this like achy stabby want.

And the question then is what if we've been told all our life

that that ache makes us defective in some way.

It makes us a bad Christian.

It makes us definitely a bad woman.

Yes.

Don't we have kids who've worn matching denim?

That should be it.

I had Valentine's Day plans this year.

I ache no more.

I had the child I always wanted.

Congratulations.

I'm never homicidal about Crazy Sock Tuesday.

That's right.

I just like yeah.

I should have.

I really felt like there's something wrong with me.

I felt like I should have, especially I'm just like, especially me.

Like I almost died.

I got back everything I would have done anything to get back.

And now I have it.

So why do I still feel this unfinished awful longing?

And I, I teach it in a divinity school.

I mean, I really should have liked.

So I had this lovely conversation with this priest named Father Ron.

And he really gave me lovely language for it.

By first saying, look, this is a spiritual condition.

It's, but spirituality is what not just a feeling of completeness.

It is the ache.

And it's what we do with that ache.

So how can we channel that feeling into a frankly like into a true or story?

Because my ache says, is this it?

Is this it?

Is this it?

Is this my fault?

Is there something wrong with me?

Like, what should I have done by now?

And, and to be able to just get a little more like air in it, I think let's us realize.

And this is a very, very, what you guys encourage your community all the time is like, get a second.

To reexamine how that feels in your body and in your lives without questioning it.

Bring your honesty to it.

And then ask, where can I go?

Where can this take me?

That's lovely.

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That's so good.

And to kind of that end, one of the through lines here in joyful anyway is permission.

That is you dull that out in heavy doses.

And whatever it is, like permission sometimes to grieve, permission to be disappointed.

Of course, you know the one that's being me, permission to stop performing resilience.

I appreciate that.

And it makes me, I sit with that a lot.

And I think you do too as a teacher and a leader of so many people.

Why do you think, why do we need so much permission to just be this human people with these feelings?

Like, what is it that is driving us to this like performative or even the guilt?

Like, I feel bad for being sad.

I feel bad for being tired.

I feel bad for being bored.

We really struggle with the human part of our human lives.

I could not agree more.

I think we have so much genuine confusion around whether we're allowed to feel this way.

And I think even before we can get to any kind of like joy as a soul clearing moment,

I think we do need to like square up to it.

And one of the ways that I have tried to do that in my life, especially recently,

is I've tried to find a way to get past how quickly I will clean up for other people

in terms of my, especially like my resentments.

Or like at this point, I think in our lives, we have a whole stack of things that have happened to us.

Or had that we've done that have left a lasting mark on our lives

and we would do anything to make it different except it can't be.

And so some of that I just, I have my best friend long time ago suggested like,

well then let's make a list.

And the list became our way of saying, this scarred me, this remake me, this counted.

And we make these hilariously specific lists of our grand resentments

in a way that feels deeply un-Christian, even though I think it's unbelievably faithful.

So let me give you an example.

I love it so much.

I'm something that is currently on my list.

When I was, when I was dying, I needed to like make preparations for where I would be buried.

And I was like devastated at the thought of being apart, especially from my family.

And so we have this family farm at home in Canada.

And I picture that there's this family grave plot next to the family farm

and that there's this lovely tree and I could be buried under the tree

and that I would never be apart.

And I would be part of this story that goes on and on.

And I also was like, also please don't leave me in America.

Right.

Like, we can at Bernie's me take my passport, do not leave me in this place.

Let's figure out a different plan.

That's right.

So I found out that there was this guy named Abe, who lives in the nearby town.

And if you just write a Canadian check to Abe for $250, he will appear with a backhoe,

which is very, it's a very straightforward process.

I'm from a men and a background.

And we do cheap like nobody's business.

Just like picture a field, a scoopy backhoe.

Okay.

And you bring your own coffin.

Bring your own coffin.

It's the great, the great is.

I mean, you can pay for a coffin if you don't want to like,

you want to throw your money in the garbage.

Sure.

But like, if you have a good family, they will make you lunch.

If you're just privileged.

I have just.

Yeah.

Exactly.

His whole plan.

It was like, I'll figure out my own coffin.

I'll call Abe.

Okay, sure.

Like, done deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Then I continued to live, which I've thrilled about.

And cut to, my father-in-law calls me.

And he's like, the way I've recreated what happened is that someone had told him about how

unbelievably affordable cremation is.

And he remembers that he had bought two plots in the family graveyard, which immediately

made him think of me.

So he calls me on the phone.

He was like, hey, I just have all this space.

What about, what if you bought your mother-in-law's grave?

And you pay me, in fact, you can just pay me the 250.

The price has actually gone up to 350.

So it's a pretty good deal for you.

And I was like, whoa, whoa.

Your grandfather didn't hear me.

Let me see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Deal.

Meg that I was deal.

And I was like, okay, I'm not sure what this was part of my plan, but let me just stop.

Okay.

Let me just wait to like go home again.

I can like take a lay of the land, so to speak.

Some home blast time.

I go to the family farm.

Guess what?

No curb appeal to this grave.

It's aesthetically displeasing.

No pizzazz.

Yeah, yeah.

It's effectively like a drainage ditch.

Sure.

And then the chance to rest down my moral coil for all eternity.

Sure.

Next to my mother-in-law.

I mean, it's the best-to-back hope you do, I guess.

You know, that's the height of it.

No.

But that's not true.

There was a tree over there.

So I was like, why can't I just be buried over there?

I see what you're saying.

And they were like, absolutely not.

We don't want to mow around that.

We don't want to mow around you, effectively, is what they were saying.

And I was like, look, look.

I can't, so I immediately start arguing.

Because I mean, I'm like, what about a zero-turn mower?

And they're like, no, no, no.

You got to use a weed blocker.

Sure.

And I was like, I am having none of it at this point.

I'm like, fine.

I got money.

I can buy all the graves beside for $250 or $350.

Like, I'm going to get this whole row.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's fine.

I'll plant my own tree right in the middle.

And they're like, no, no, no, no.

We just mow that down.

Yeah.

So my new plan is I'll creep in at the dead of night.

Pulling an enormous, unbelievably expensive tree.

Yeah.

Because there is something that men and nights cannot do,

which is to violate their own financial principles.

So, yeah.

When I think about the things that profoundly create resentment in my heart,

not being able to rest in eternity in a manner of my choosing,

that's definitely unbelievable.

I mean, if it wasn't on the list,

I'd question your integrity, to be honest.

And I hope your father alone knows that he's on it.

And that he is not too late for him to rethink his position.

Like, it's not too late.

He can make this wrong right is all I'm saying.

Like, I've also, I'm very inspired to make my own list.

Oh, yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

I was texting you about him this very week, Kate.

I got a resentment.

Damn.

So, I love those resentments.

So, we make our lists.

They...

Yeah.

We work hard on them.

We deserve it.

Sure.

Yeah.

But also...

What did you do?

But also, you touched on it earlier.

We're expected to have perspective at this point in our lives,

especially if we've dealt with, you know, a terminal illness that you escape.

And frankly, by our fifties, I don't know someone who is not reckoned with something really hard.

Right.

Like, I don't think I know anybody.

So, we're supposed to be grateful and grounded and evolved.

But also, we deserve to make our...

Our hate lists.

Our hate lists.

Our burn books.

Yes.

How does all of this wrangling all of this interfere with our...

capacity to find joy?

Yes.

Let's make this link again.

Well, I...

I think that one reason why having more language about the ache

and practicing telling the story,

because I think that if we find that we write down our list, that we will realize,

and I think the fastest way to figure out if you have a list,

is just think about the stories that you repeat.

The ones that you might, like, quickdraw, tell somebody on an airplane.

If they ask about your sister or something, you're like,

well, let me have a story for you.

Yeah.

And I think that feeling like we get...

We find ourselves kind of buried sometimes in these stories.

I find that when I write it down, that one story stops feeling like it's the whole story.

It can just be a chapter.

And a chapter can turn.

And that is a...

It happens every now and then where you can feel it.

You can just feel it sort of get unstuck.

And I had a really strange but very powerful experience of feeling like my chapter was turning.

Just pretty recently.

And it really had to do with...

If I look at the long list of the things that have been awful,

a lot of them, frankly, have been medical traumas.

They've been moments in which I wasn't listened to.

The very reason I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in the first place.

I really felt like one of my barriers to moving on or moving forward

or really joy was that I felt very overwhelmed by the things that had been done that weren't fair.

And, okay, can I tell you about the really weird thing that happened?

Yeah, yeah.

Because it was very odd.

I don't think I would have looked at that experience and be like, wow, that was actually really positive.

But it was really weirdly positive.

So I was walking in my suburban neighborhood.

And I was walking on a sidewalk and I moved slightly off the path for an old man with his dog,

because I'm an amazing person.

And while on the grass, I felt like a little pinch.

And I thought it was like a mosquito or maybe one of those horrible southern ants that bite you.

And then I was like, it's fine.

We don't need to look at it.

Two blocks later, I realized I was hopping and not walking anymore.

So I hopped home and I took out the magnifying mirror.

And I realized that it was two puncture wounds.

Oh, geez.

It's a snake bite.

And I was like, mubbly.

So I casually went to the closest walk-in doctor.

And then they screamed so loudly that they, if I didn't leave immediately, that they would call an ambulance.

Because apparently a snake bite is not easy, Gracie.

So the truth is I was avoiding doing the thing they wanted me to do, which is to go back to the hospital.

Because I would have to go back to the same emergency room where I was turned away with Pepto-Bismolano sick.

I'd have to have the same intake process.

I'd have to sit for hours and hours.

And I could just tell that it was going to rehearse the worst moments of my life.

And with another bizarre experience of pain and helplessness.

And snake bites are weird.

Every pain has flavor.

But this flavor goes into your bloodstream because it cycles.

So it feels like a labor.

As it like kind of like create, like just sort of like contract through your body.

So on the way to the hospital, I was just sort of like, okay, how do you want to do this?

Sure.

So I just decided a little bit of an opportunity.

So I like went through the metal detector.

Because what they said at the walk-in doctor was like, you need to tell everybody.

So I was like, mission accomplished.

I've been poisoned on my way.

Every time they tried to give me minor paperwork to sign, I was like, I've been poisoned.

I screamed.

They brought me back to backstage.

And they took out all their very best equipment.

They took out a sharpie to circle the puncture wound.

And then they called the snake bite guy who explained that it was probably a baby copperhead

that is just chock full of more poison.

And was it okay that it was going to be $100,000 per dose?

And by the way, it might be multiple doses.

Hope that's okay.

Did I really want to keep my house?

Yeah.

Hope that's okay.

And then I was like, well, now we're back.

We're back with me being scared about, you know, because the, you know, the first time around,

I was terrified of medical bankruptcy, which was a very real,

this reality in my life.

I was scared of feeling powerless and, like, freighted with really, frankly,

even some of the same intake doctors.

And then I just thought, wait a minute, do you guys have to, how long is this going to take?

And I'm like, well, sometimes it takes, and only it's like 12 to 24 hours for this

in-venomation process to take place.

And I was like, well, if we are going to spend all this time together,

I think I have some thoughts about how I might want to spend this time.

And I basically, in my mind, I just took out my list.

I was like, I'm going to tell you every medical feeling I have ever had,

because you have to sit with me.

That's right.

And I just complained.

I complained for hours and hours and hours of everything I've never said about how awful it's been,

because you're sitting there with the same smells and sights and sounds,

and I was like, and then this happened, and then you guys did,

oh, wait, no, go ahead, check my chart.

And in terms of complaining and complaining until I eventually passed out,

because of the drugs, but when I woke up,

there was this sweet little nurse moving around the room.

It was 2 a.m.

And she looked at my chart and she said, I'm sorry, I can see you've been a bit of a frequent flyer here.

And I was like, look, I just, I told her about the monologuing.

I told her about how I was trying to do it differently, but I didn't know how.

And she told me she was like, I never, you know, I don't tell my patients,

my own business, but I'll be real.

I just lost my husband a month ago.

She was so young, she had two kids at home,

and then she sat down next to me and she took my hand and she was like, look,

all the things that happen, like no one's ever going to say they're sorry.

And a hospital is never going to say they're sorry.

So just let me be the one to tell you that I am so sorry this happened to you.

And I'm so sorry we should have taken better care of you

and we didn't.

And in that moment, I felt such a free feeling from all the resentment

and all the, just like the fear of it happening again,

and it felt like grace.

And I realized that in that rush of like what almost feels like wholeness

as we both just sat there with like tear streaming down our faces,

that is how joy comes in the side door.

It was a rush of joy.

And then I realized the faster we can move from the ache to the freedom of wholeness,

like man, our lives can in these brief and gorgeous moments feel completely full.

That's such a good example.

I've known this about you for years, what you've talked about and written about,

and certainly in this book as well, how a lot of your joy moments,

particularly, are very embodied.

You're a person who gets in your car and drives to see something weird.

You put your body in a scenario in which you are going to experience bizarre joy.

You've got rituals.

I'd love to hear you talk more about what you have learned about

how joy often finds us, usually finds us through our bodies,

and in these embodied moments and places and experiences,

as opposed to just thinking our way through it.

I wish that was how it works.

Yeah, that's so true, Jen.

Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?

We just look into middle distance and we're like,

oh, there it is.

That's my old friend.

Joy is very sneaky and can't be scheduled, which sucks,

because we're all on a tight schedule.

What's very frustrating and confusing for a lot of us

is that most of the things that make us successful in life,

like having routines, like being predictable,

knowing that at 4pm you have to pick up so-and-so,

all of that schedule and all of those expectations

actually make it really hard for us to be surprised.

But there's two preconditions to joy.

If you're going to make it more likely to show up,

and the first is a general awakeness,

that awareness that you are so good at,

and how do we chin up, begin to look at our lives,

and then that second is, can we let ourselves be surprised?

Can we make a condition in which we are just more likely to notice?

And some people will do it through beauty,

those are the people who love a sunset, and we love them.

I find one of the side doors to joy is absurdity,

because it's just like so dumb,

and it's for no reason.

Please give some examples,

because that's me.

Yeah, nobody will ever believe the kind of examples

you have amassed of absurdity.

It is so uniquely caked.

World's largest landlocked loon,

made of recycled tires.

I drove the hours to see an abandoned nuclear facility

in North Dakota,

which will be the stuff of my nightmare.

What I normally do is,

I'm called this app on my phone,

called Roadside America,

and it just has these local oddities

where a lot of world's largest,

they'll do a lot of world's largest world's small replica

of a nearby lighthouse.

I've seen world's largest and world's small with Paul Bunyan,

world's largest ball of twine.

I'm just like, what do you have there?

Yes, yes.

What were you looking up?

Oh, the,

your next Venn diagram of joy

being at the center of gratitude and delight and hope.

And sometimes those are kind of hard to access

when we're in our,

but we look at broken bodies,

bodies that we feel like have betrayed us maybe,

or just been so much work.

And I'm wondering how,

how we access that center joy point

that's in the middle of gratitude and delight and hope

when our bodies feel so weary.

And I mean, you talk some about it.

It's not about resolving the ache.

The ache doesn't go away.

The ache is actually like integral to the process,

but how can we,

how can we leave this side door open for joy in a body

that feels joyless?

Yeah, yeah.

And I,

because it's funny,

we got taught that the way to do it.

Okay, so the truth is,

I think mostly the way we were taught to get there

is actually a path to happiness and not joy.

Because happiness is a sense of ease.

It's the ability to stack up small things.

That's why we get stuck with like,

oh my gosh, I made my gratitude journal

because there's been a study of the relationship

between making gratitude lists

and a minor improvement in happiness.

We think that if we just tie up

all of these minor correlations between things

that we will have a big enough story

about how we made our life.

And unfortunately,

happiness is incredibly fragile

because it can be toppled over by reality in life.

So your question like,

how can we do it inside of the lives we actually have?

Our aching bodies are in completeness.

For most of us happiness,

we were sold happiness,

but happiness is unavailable to a lot of us,

a lot of the time.

We can be happy sometimes,

but we get often be happy a lot

because of see also reality.

That's right.

So I think joy is like a part of the way we can't do it then

is to be like,

okay, well now I have to reconstruct.

I have to be like the most grateful,

the most hopeful,

the most delighted,

then I will become joyful.

I think what's amazing about

sort of these cousins of joy,

which is gratitude and hope and delight,

is that if we keep ourselves

eggs essentially open to the feeling like there is more for me,

joy is made for me,

then we will find that when it comes,

when it like surprises us,

when it descends on us like a grace, like a gift,

that it in fact enlarges our capacity to be joyful,

to be hopeful,

to be delighted for no reason except that we are good

and it is so good to be alive.

And what's so wonderful about joy's relationship

to the ache is that when it shows up,

like for the moment when you were joyful,

because it is fleeting,

but for those moments,

it like doesn't even matter that you're in pain.

It doesn't even matter that you miss him or her

or that this other thing didn't work out.

It's this big yes,

in which you feel like all the way down

that your life is good.

And I think that just like knowing that that is out there for us

and that it will happen to you

and it will happen more than you think,

makes us more likely to be like,

all right, then let me go put myself in the way

because that person that can allow joy to happen to them,

will almost make it like a personality trait,

even though they can't,

they can't will their way into it.

Yeah.

That's my crazy voice.

I love that so much.

I also, I just like,

no, I'm just like really,

I'm just like really believe it.

Because you have to believe in it.

It's like believe that it's for you.

And I just, I love that about it.

I do too.

And also the good news is it's self-fulfilling

because you're not just, you're not selling a mirage.

Like it really is real.

There is, that joy is real and it exists

and it's accessible in the middle of pain,

not just in that like fake after theory

that we never get to.

And like that's, that's the good news,

is taste and sea, you know?

Like here it is and this is possible

and I, it would,

I certainly would be remiss

if we did not talk to you about a faith element here

because you've been such a good,

trustworthy guide

through the intersection of faith

and suffering for a long time.

Yeah.

Which historically has been a collision course

because, you know, we, we were sold

that faith is something of an inoculation

or could be if you're praying right

or I don't really know what the formulas are.

But like if you're doing the things right

and then good things are going to happen to you

and so you very kindly and firmly dismantle

any notion that faith guarantees outcomes.

Yes.

And that there's a way to do faith

that's going to curry some sort of divine favor

and so you and yours will be better off than them and theirs.

And so my question,

I'd like to hear you talk about that.

And then I think I'd like to hear what you think about

what kind of faith remains

when those are gently pushed off the plate.

What do we have?

What is that?

What is that faith?

Yeah, that's so good

because the reason I did this book is honestly

I didn't really know what joy was

other than that it was probably really nice

and happens sometimes.

And certainly I didn't know what Christian joy was.

Oh sure.

The version that I imagined was the way

you're supposed to feel on Easter morning

when you're wearing your English rose dress.

You know, everybody gets there

their sort of proper church feelings

and then we sing all the best songs.

And I just, I realized though that the more I thought about that,

the more I had confused that Sunday expectation

that there will be no more tears

that God has risen

and therefore death is conquered

and our God is here, hallelujah.

I thought that that feeling

should be the feeling I'm supposed to feel all the time.

And it really helped me to realize

that like Christian joy

is not the ability to say

well then we're going to feel like that all the time.

It's the gift of saying

we have to live inside of a paradox.

And a paradox isn't just saying

two things are true at the same time.

Isn't that interesting?

It's saying if you put two mysteries really close together,

how can they each of them stand the other on its head

and even be more true

than it could have been on its own?

And Easter joy, Christian joy says

the kingdom of God is here and not yet.

I mean Christian theology is full of very annoying paradoxes

and we actually truly, in our heart of hearts,

we hate paradoxes.

We do not like mysteries.

We like resolved feelings.

Why can't it just be instead of like

when I am weak I am strong.

Why can't it just be like when I am strong?

I am strong.

We're exclamation mark.

You're just wishing complete.

The kingdom of God is here.

I know I don't have to read the newspaper anymore.

We did it.

We got it done.

And instead we get the world that isn't and is not yet.

And God asks us to sit in an enormous contradiction

of like believing that God's story for us

is love and salvation.

And yet we have to live in this tarp it.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think Christian joy is more real to me now

than it ever was because it says like,

we are given like,

I think that we're given joy honestly

so that we can live like this.

So we can still live in an unfinished world.

We get these glimpses of totalizing love

and like and gratitude into light.

Like we get to really know what that

eschatological the end of time

when we're finally with God and everything is great.

We get to feel it for a second.

But then but then back to life.

And I just thought that a church feeling

was supposed to feel like Easter all day

for the rest of my life.

And it never did.

And it made me feel like just such a crap Christian

until I felt like no.

The truth is joy is asking us to step

up to the edge of a mystery

where we get momentary fulfillment.

And then we get life.

And God is asking us to say

that this somehow is holy.

For someone listening

who feels quietly undone

who's thinking about their list

who doesn't know how to

how they're going to access joy

on their commute home.

What do you hope this book

gives them permission to do?

Like either release something

or you write a lot about

actually grieving the thing

and holding the ache

at the same time

as keeping the door open for joy.

Yeah.

Well, I guess I would.

There's in my life

I have been almost unable

at every turn to live in reality

to say like this is what happened

and this is what it is.

And to somehow let that be

like the furniture in the room.

I kind of just picture like

we all live in our emotional house

and our house is typically full of things

that we have chosen to love.

And then all the mess

and mistakes along the way.

So maybe a practice might be

and this is just borrowed

from something attributed

to a manual comp

which is this like

lovely little three-part thing

of like how to be joyful

and I really think it's kind of lovely.

It says find something to do.

Find someone to love.

Find something to hope for.

And the way that I see this

very practically

in somebody's life

if they feel like they've got

this big fat list

of this stuff they wish

were not so.

Something my best friend

kind of helped me

in my own emotional

and physical house.

She was like maybe just take

it room by room.

So like stand in your kitchen

and say and just like

just like what blessing is

blessing just says this is

what it is.

This is this is the furniture.

This is this is where everything is.

This is not just what I wish

it were be.

This is this is what it is.

And just say like

bless all the times in which

you know we made meals

for others.

Other people came and

gave meals to me

that this was this

and this horrible fight

I had God bless this

all.

And I think that both

in the permission of that

and then getting a little

getting a little

sort of like

a little wholeness under it.

A little like that

fairy dust feeling

where like the story

of your life is still good.

I just think it oxen

adjacent the room a little

and it just reminds you

like in every room

this is your life.

And guess what?

This is your life.

You beautiful person.

This is your life.

Your life is so good.

You are so good.

Like what else is there

for you?

And that's that little

whisper of joy right

that's like there's more

for you than just

whatever happened in these

rooms.

And full of everybody

in their obligation

and the noise.

And in every woman's

house, they're just like

a web of needs of

everyone else.

But I think it just makes

a little more space that

says there's more for you

here.

Let's just like first.

Let's just bless it all.

Beautiful.

I love how at the end of the

book you write about, you

are a song.

Like maybe really think

about the fact that you are

a song and you can sing it.

Like with the egg.

Like with everything that

is how you feel about it.

I like that.

With the egg.

Like with everything that

is how it is.

And all the things you

can't change.

And the longing that is

never going to go away.

In the midst of all that,

each one of us is a song.

And singing it will bring

us joy.

Like that.

I do too.

I like that.

You are the one who wrote it.

I know.

So good on you.

You know what?

It was from when I was

really sick.

My friend came by and he

said it was something his

uncle said who was

like the magical person

his life who always

gave him lobsters on

Christmas.

He said too many people

die with a song still in

them.

And it just made me think

gosh, well then we got it.

We got to sing it.

We got to sing it.

Yeah.

This is out on April 7th.

Immediately.

Immediately.

You're you're hitting the

road with it too.

With a lot of friends.

Yes.

I'm a friend.

I'm going to be on the road

with you.

Yes, you are.

Oh my gosh.

We're going to be in

Charleston together.

And it will be.

It will be a cut out.

We're sorry in advance,

Charleston.

I don't know.

I'm so happy about it.

It's going to be so

fun.

I'm so excited.

And I'm so excited for

everybody to read it.

Do you have a preferred

place for people to get

it?

No, I think I mean everybody

has their local indy and

like at capelor.com for this

tour.

They can find links to all

those different places.

If that's more useful.

Yeah.

Also probably over on your

website.

There's your tour screen.

There's a lot of things

you can do.

You can find links to all

those different places.

If that's more useful.

Also probably over on your

website.

There's your tour schedule

right.

And folks can grab

tickets.

How many cities are you

going to?

I think I'm going to like

15 or 18.

It's a lot.

Whoa.

This is my first time I've

done a big tour.

So I'm very excited.

I'm going to be a

candidate for bed.

I'm going to be in a UK for

bed and all of America.

Amazing.

Nice.

Amazing.

I just.

It's it's going to be fun.

You're going to have fun on

it.

Like I decided on this last

book tour.

Yeah.

I'm going to have fun.

And you looked like

you were having a very

good time.

And I did.

It was like.

It was kind of that

decision that is sort of at

the heart of your book,

which is I'm going to look

for it.

I'm looking for joy.

I'm looking for delight.

I'm paying attention to

the little small things at

every room I get to sit

in with these incredible

people.

And then what do you know

there it all is?

What do you know?

It's weird.

Hey.

Yeah.

You get to be surprised

that's right.

That's right.

It's so crazy that

feeling.

Yeah.

And then just true.

And then just true.

Like how big it can be that

people are magic.

And then they're

everywhere.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Is there any chance you

have read the

You Have Golden?

I haven't.

Is it good?

Oh my gosh, Kate.

Is it good?

It should be the

companion novel to this

book.

Well, that's a fun thing.

Okay.

Don't buy it.

I'm going to send it to you.

I want to.

And I want you to read

it and go.

Oh my gosh.

There it is.

There's the story.

Enjoy any way on a

page in fiction form.

It's so beautiful.

And it just has helped me

re-member what it means to

notice and pay attention and

slow down and see people

and love life.

Which is successful to all

of us.

Even when life sucks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the

weird secret.

I think that's so

important.

So important to know that

joy is free.

Happiness isn't.

But joy is for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's a mic drop.

Okay.

I love you.

And I am so excited for

the world to have this offering.

It's good.

It's timely.

We need this right now.

You know that we need this

right now.

Yeah.

We need someone to tell us

there's joy still.

And there's a way to find

it and have it.

So, okay.

Okay.

Cheers for you.

Love you.

Love you.

Okay.

Everybody.

Thank you for spending that

hour with us and learning

something from Kate.

I especially love.

She touched on it.

But really digs deep in the

book.

I'm talking about.

Reconciling with the

ache.

Grieving the things that have

happened.

and its being okay.

And understanding that

that longing that you thought

was tied to the bad thing or

the longing that you thought

was tied to something you

didn't get.

It's just human nature.

The longing will always be

there.

We can grieve what has

happened.

And then we can't get that

long.

And we can't get it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it.

We can't do it.

then we can leave so much room for joy.

That's so good.

Oh, it's a good message right now.

I love the book.

I love talking to her.

If something resonated with you

and you wanna leave us a voicemail about it,

you can go over to the website.

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And of course, please go subscribe.

So this just ends up in your little library.

So thanks for being with us

and we will see y'all next week.

See you next week, everybody.

Bye.