So Kate, the title of your book is Joyful Anyway, which suggests a kind of determination to enjoy life regardless of what is going on in it.

I totally agree that people have basic predispositions to either optimism or we worry about diseases of despair.

Some people seem very bouncy.

There's always bounce back.

Other people seem to fall all the way down.

But the anyway for me is... is there joy out there no matter what? And then no matter what is, is like such a bold claim.

Like, can it come to us in moments of undoing? Can it come to us when we have very little? And in so many of the stories that I've heard and things I've experienced, it's sometimes when we're in a very precarious situation that we're actually more likely to to experience joy kind of as a grace, a thing that happens to us.

Kate, you are nodding away.

Mm.

But I had this weird memory of when I was very sick, and it should've been the worst week of my entire life, and my, e- everything that I loved was falling away, and we thought I wouldn't live through the summer, and yet I had this weird little stretch where I felt strangely bubble-wrapped with, like, this c- this, this sticky feeling of, like, love.

And it felt like, how could all this beauty and almost, like, heart-aching love for the world, it's like falling in love-

Mm.

Like, we will just have seasons where we, we will come undone.

But when we do, weirdly, it's changed something in us where, well, if that can happen, maybe other things can happen, too.

And maybe it can open me up to greater love and a greater sense of caregiving that I couldn't have received otherwise, a greater capacity for surprise, in particular.

I think uncertainty sounds horrific for most people, but it can carve out these new places inside of us.

Mm.

Um, "Oh, I'm j- I'm manifesting this." And usually people mean, "I spoke positive words," or, "I thought positive things, and I brought it into being with my own power." And man, I, so I wrote the first history of the prosperity gospel.

It's a book called Blessed, and it took me 10 years to write.

And at that time there was not one single inkling that I had that, that prosperity gospel would get rebranded for an entirely new generation under-

Mm-hmm.

And to want to really, like- ... engage in the harder parts of reality, but require things that sustain us.

And so we can't just, we can't just be fragile and, and demand that everybody around us be toxically positive.

We need life-affirming, deeply soulful things that will make this life not just, like, worth living, but worth loving.

Kate, who remains a practicing Christian, then went on to write another five books, and in the midst of all this came news that nobody had written into any version of Kate's story.

story.I spent about five years in active treatment, and then really shockingly, the immunotherapy that I was on held, and this new wave of immunotherapy drugs has been really wonderful at keeping people like me in remission.

Nobody, like, knocked on my door and was like, "Hey, surprise.

Remember when you thought you were gonna die? [laughs] You're fine." But it's been a very kind of gradual unclenching my fists and being like, "Oh, okay, whatever life is going to be is gonna be not a tragedy." I have ongoing health problems where I have to, you know, keep going back to the hospital every four months, every six months, but, like, nothing like before.

But acknowledging that truth is not the same as surrendering to it.

I think the most interesting question, at least to me, is, like, what can we actually promise people during difficult times? Can there be something more durable than happiness, which is actually quite fragile? [gentle music] Joy is one of those things that have popped up again and again and again in hospital rooms, in times of devastation.

Joy is temporary wholeness.

Temporary wholeness.

And I think

playfulness is like a wonderful entry point into joy.

And if you don't mind, if I just like separate out what joy is from happiness is for sex, we don't get confused.

Yeah.

Happiness is part of that homeworky feeling that we have all the time because really happiness is a sense of ease.

It will feel relaxing.

It will feel like things are going our way, that maybe everyone got up on time and was in a good mood and had a good sleep and you got coffee and your song is playing.

When you were going through your cancer treatment, what was going through your mind to try to grab those little nuggets of gratitude, joy, hope, looking towards the future, all of those things?

Yeah.

But I, I think every now and then when you're worried that your thoughts are not ordered, whether it's mental illness, whether it's memory loss toward the ends of life, I think, I think some traditions when they can step in can be very comforting in saying, "We are not primarily our thought world." I mean, in the, in the Christian tradition, we would say you're carried by a God who holds your understanding, so your self-understanding is...

doesn't have to tell your story from beginning to end.

But what, what do you think a person should be thinking about in terms of a response?

Well, I do remember the first advice I ever got was from a nurse.

This is my first chemotherapy treatment.

I didn't really know what it would feel like.

I thought maybe I'd be in a target and just pass out.

Okay, so tho- if those are the joy blockers, what can one do to put one's self in the way of joy even when things are, you know, pretty deeply suboptimal?

One thing you can do, which is really also counterintuitive, is, um, service.

There's, like, a really strange alchemy between giving- And getting joy.

It doesn't feel like that's very good math.

It should be that when you give, you have less, because [laughs] that's subtraction, and you put in all this effort [laughs] and wow, somebody else reaped the benefits.

But there is, like, just wonderful studies about, like, just the incredible emotional lift and connectedness you get through community service, by deep friendships, by...

And then partly that's because joy is highly socially contagious.

I have or learned over time to tune into that and, and realize that what I'm really thirsting for, but in the chanda sense, is better and fuller relationships.

did not know much about the mystical art of judo, I think.

But Chelsea and I have been friends, friends, friends, like witness to my life.

But we started doing something in a pandemic, I think, because there was just so much walk and talk that I have never done with another person, which is that I tell her the full thought, including all of the ugly parts, because we talk every day.

The feeling that she can see all the sort of like inside out, all the seams of every shirt for me, I've let her see everything.

the uglier part of my embarrassment.

It's just pre-filter.

I don't think I've ever really gotten that far with somebody before.

Yeah.

Like some sort of.

I, I, I, you know, and my mom was really a role model for me, because she was the first woman tenured at her institution.

She became a professor of music at the University of Manitoba, and I watched what it cost her to grow up with virtually no expectation that she would go to college, and then to get a PhD, and then to try to create maternity policies, and to try to realize that there's not an institutional commitment to you as a woman even if you make commitments to it.

And I saw how fulfilling and difficult it could be to reach for things that would then be quite painful.

And so when I went on my own PhD journey, I really thought, oh, I'm just walking a path that's been paved before, not realizing of course that I would be the first [laughs] woman to get pregnant at my own institution.

I would have to make my own maternity policies, and it's still not a very common thing to be a woman in that field.

But it really wasn't until I was very sick and the immediate assumption was, well, if you only really have a year max to live, shouldn't you just drop everything and just be at home with your family? And that sounds like a wonderful thing If there is not this churn inside, this, like, desire to have a pure, separate space for one's own brain to create.

Right, they're not all joy.

[laughs]

Uh, but I, I do th- like, I do think that the feeling that there are more and more people with any kinda comfort could come a greater community, and that I feel beholden to, like financially, emotionally.

Like, how many causes should I care about?

Uh-huh

... tempting him along the way, and then there are some people who help and some people who hold you back, and, uh, but the, the bit that always got me is in the first, like, three sentences of the book, he leaves his family.

Like, he, he's, he's going on a journey, and in the journey he leaves something behind.

And in that version, I could never imagine any form of growth that wasn't o- o- just not even, like, oriented by my loves, but just me trying to, like, carry all my loves-

Kate Bowler, a practicing Christian herself and a historian, spent a decade going to services, getting to know parishioners and their prosperity gospel preachers, investigating the relationship between the two.

I have met dozens and dozens and dozens of them, and I think the answer, uh, it really varies.

I have, um, met people who are likely at this moment defrauding a widow in, in Florida, and I have, um, met people who were really concrete and practical about how they imagined that this v- could very materially, uh, transform people's lives.

I'm thinking of a church I went to, um, an inner-city church, and the, the megachurch pastor who had a, a Rolex and a mansion and a all that also simultaneously believed that all the things he was teaching his parishioners would be the reason why they get that job and they are that partner that creates a stable family home.

So i- in one version you could say, well, it just robs people of their money, promises them things, and can't possibly deliver.

In other versions, we call it the redempt and lift effect, which is that when you stabilize people's lives, that you s- encourage them to, um, network, save, take care of their home life, and are able to redeem and lift is what they describe.

And why do the parishioners, seeing how well off the preachers are, keep giving them money?

Well, in the minds of parishioners, it doesn't matter if the preacher is sincere or not.

Maybe you're so glad to escape the grief for a moment.

Well, I think that there's a relationship there all the time between what joy is telling us.

And I think that's why I think it is a story.

It's not just a nice feeling.

Because there's so many forces in the world that convince us there's no good reason to hope, there's no good reason to... to face the day with anything other than reading the headlines out loud in a sad voice and despair.

And joy, because it feels like temporary wholeness, will suddenly delight us by whatever is actually happening.

Like, for example...

What is with paragliding?

Oh, so we all

had the same parents, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, every, like, take it down all the notches is so key to my personality.

I mean,

one, Canadian.

I mean, can we get lower? Can we get

How did you know that you wanted—what was the moment? Was there an epiphanous, like, point? My

And I think we can do it.

[laughs] I give you, I'll give you two months.

But I think it's, I, I don't know.

I, that's why I really like thinking about, um, i- instead of wanting to be part of a culture that just wants to feel good, I wanna be part of a culture that like has a couple virtues it really cares about and is trying to like walk a path to it.

Like, like mutuality, like just even thinking of ourselves as belonging to other people, or like a virtue that really matters to me is, um, is like courage, is-

Yeah

...

it was.

So we were delighted to have a reason to invite her back, and tell us how with such a harrowing diagnosis and arduous recovery she could still find time for joy, and of course, for storytelling.

Joy is an amazing feeling because it feels like fireworks or like a sudden burst of helium goodness, but it's also very fleeting, and at the same time it tells us a story.

And that's what's, why it's different than just like a positive emotion.

Joy somehow bubbles up from inside of us and isn't just a nice feeling.

It somehow expresses to us that it is so good for us to be here.

It is so good for us to be alive.

And there's not a lot of feelings we get that are also a story, that also kind of convince us of something.

[laughs]

Okay.

[laughs] One of those endless optimizers.

And he had a very, like, riddle me this kind of presence.

And he was like, "Hey, everyone, kind of play my game.

Um, would you, would you follow this formula to have this perfect life?" And everybody at the table immediately waffled, which is...

It feels like it should be an automatic yes.

Like, give me the answer.

[laughs]

... what does ambition mean to you at this point in your life?

Yeah.

Well, my, I'm, I'm repping hard, and I have a sweatshirt on that says Middle Province, because I love the fact that when you're from there, you might feel like you're the only people from there.

And whenever you want to feel...

Like, if you wanna just try on humility, just live in the States, and then they say, "Where are you from?" And you say, "Manitoba." And then they say, "Where's Manitoba?" And you say, "It's north of North Dakota." [laughs] And then they say, "Where's North Dakota?" [laughs] So it just, it leaves you in a very unsettled place.

[laughs] And then I just always end up saying like, "West of Drake." And then they're like, "Okay, that's good.

I got it.

Right

Can you say a little bit more about the ache?

Oh, man, it's, it's wild that we don't have more language for it since every culture has had a word for it since the beginning of time.

And I, I, I love the German term for it, which is sehnsucht, which is some kind of combination of longing and searching and unfulfillment and almost sweetness.

Like we know there's something out there for us, and we just can't find it.

And that longing creates a hunger, and then we think, "Oh no, I'm...

I must be defective.

I must not have found, been happy enough with my life.

And that feels like a message we need for our times.

It was just like, "What?"

"What?"That's right.

It's garish.

That's- We, we know who we are.

We know who we are.

We're not jingoists.

We don't need- Exactly.

[upbeat music]

... are you a hiker, or are you more of a, like, staying in girl?

I love a long, long walk, and we have these really beautiful forests.

But I also really like, and this works everywhere you are in Canada, but other than going out in, on the lake, my other great love is, um, pulling up an app called Roadside America, which also has Canadian stops, and it will be driving out to a remote location to see, like, the world's largest northern lake trout or something insane, like some historical oddity.

[laughs]

[laughs] Well, I do, i- that feeling, um, that has become, I mean, that's been one of the most powerful things I've really experienced as a, as a woman.

Like, someone who was so attentive to other people's needs, other people's happiness, and it was learning how to fall into a pit of research that really made me a feminist and has been one of the only ways I know how to quiet my own heart and mind and feel that, the power of it and the flow of it, and the, like, the d- I feel, I like to feel hemmed in by it.

But you characterize it really, really well, and I'd love to ask you a bit more about that moment itself and what it felt like for you.

Yeah.

I just had a stage four cancer diagnosis.

It was, I was 35 years old.

It was completely out of nowhere.

I don't have any cancer in my family.

And to go from having a life that I really, really loved to one in which everything had come apart, I was in the hospital and so angry and frankly just so heartbroken.

Yeah.

So the first is a person, someone close to you, someone who inspires you perhaps, who is the person you turn to when you need to keep going but have no fuel in the tank, so to speak.

I have learned so much from my old librarian at the divinity school named Roger.

Roger seemed like he had nothing going on, was like the quietest, possibly most boring guy in our historical division.

Turns out the whole time he was helping to rehab church basements for families experiencing homelessness.

He was just the guy that volunteered.

He took me to the, uh, all my health appointments every Wednesday until he passed, and he absolutely refused to let me even attempt to be charming.

He was just like, "Shh." So be a Roger is like an important part of my philosophy of service, that you're much more likely to be joyful if you can figure out how to be a Roger.

How do you unwind and find some peace?

Well, with everything, yeah, with everything that you've gone through, when did joy finally come to you?

Yeah.

Actually, it was in one of the worst moments I was having.

That's what's sort of weird

about joy is it pops in through the side door and you're like, no, thank you.

I was in the hospital.

I was coming off of a really difficult surgery and the doctor I hated most

But I want to know, how would you say joy differs from happiness?

Mm.

So I think it might be a nice time to just sort of allow there to be a little bit more cracks in the seams here, and let other kinds of emotions be frankly, like, as important.

And that gets us back to something, Priya, when you said, like, what's the purpose of this? Maybe one of the things that people could name is, "This holiday, I just want a minute to feel sad that my dad is gone."

(laughs)

And that happens so often for completely lovely, well-meaning people, that it might be worth just saying, "Are we a restaurant family?" If we're a family where there's gonna be no drama, then great, like, have the million meals all, like courses all in a row, and make sure that there's like a heavy ritual that goes with it.

But if you're not, maybe a buffet.

Maybe like take it down a notch.

I made a rule because I (laughs) I, I can't do Thanksgiving in the normal way this year.