Everything Happens with Kate Bowler · Everything Happens Studios

Third Annual Happy Crappy: Let’s End with the Happies

December 30, 2025·54 min·4 clips

What happens when you get honored by the same institution that broke your father's spirit for 30 years?

The excerpt opens in announcement mode. Kate recommends another theology-and-flourishing podcast, then talks about her forthcoming book and the odd way joy can arrive in the middle of logistical mess and emotional surprise. Then the tone shifts. She is back at the University of Manitoba, telling its leaders, plainly, about how her father was treated there. They do not brush it off. They listen with a humility she did not seem to expect. Her father's history is not background color. It is the tender, awkward center of the story: old institutional hurt meeting people who did not cause it, but still have to decide how they will answer it. Kate notices their sweetness. They thank her. They admit adjuncts have not always been treated the way they should. She lets that moment stay a little messy, because it is messy. Then comes the speech. Kate tells the room to become interested and interesting, a phrase tied to Kelly Corgan and made practical through curiosity. Curiosity, here, is not just being pleasant. It means getting curious enough about someone else's life that it can change your own. Thinking matters too, and she gives it some bite: check the footnotes, question what gets handed to you, build ideas on something solid. Her mother cries. The ceremony gets physical and a little ridiculous, with robes, hats, and a triangle hug between Kate and her parents. Nobody looks cool, which is part of why it lands. Three people in ceremonial clothes hold each other after something bruised has finally been said out loud. Even the party keeps that theme close to the ground, with friends showing up in work outfits to talk about strange jobs and what work can take from a person.

As heard by us

A warm year-end reflection that finds its clearest moments in work, family, and the cost of becoming yourself.

Kate Bowler spends the year-end episode on gratitude, work, family, and the relief of saying out loud what life costs. The strongest stretch is the University of Manitoba story: the generous welcome, the speech about being both interested and interesting, her mother in tears,…

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Why you'd press play

You want a New Year listen that can hold both a laugh and a lump in your throat.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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