The TODAY Show’s Jenna Bush Hager sits down for a wide-ranging conversation with Kate Bowler. Together, they share about the importance of family and intergenerational relationships (Jenna shares such tender stories about her grandparents), how they hope to let their kids make mistakes and be met with grace, and how they both (try to) find beauty in ordinary, regular days and regular problems.

In this conversation, Kate and Jenna discuss:

• How to model openness and empathy across difference (even when people really, really disagree)
• Why they want to raise their kids to be curious and independent
• How the love of others makes us brave—brave enough to make mistakes (and why that’s okay)

Kate visited Jenna in New York City for this conversation. And Jenna is just as lovely and generous of spirit as you’d imagine.

CW: fertility issues; Alzheimer’s

Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too!

This episode originally aired September 2023.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every grocery store speaker is now officially blasting “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” And let’s be honest: sometimes it feels like a demand. The happiest Christmas music can feel like salt in the wound when life is heavy. If this season is not “merry and bright” for you, you’re not alone.

That’s why many churches will hold “Blue Christmas” services next week. It’s an American tradition that says out loud what so many feel quietly: the holidays can hurt. These services dim the lights, play gentler music, light blue candles, and make space for grief. They remind us that the story of Christmas itself is no stranger to darkness—Jesus was born into a world of oppression and fear. Joy didn’t arrive because the world was perfect; it arrived anyway.

I thought perhaps now, only halfway through the Advent season, it might be a good time to take a peek at the customs and traditions and plans that you’ve got on the calendar and see if you need to make any room for grief. Maybe the invitation of Advent is not to blast the cheeriest carol until we believe it, but to prepare room for joy by telling the truth. By letting sorrow breathe. By choosing practices that gently turn our hearts back toward joy without pretending the sadness is gone.

What might that look like for you? A quiet walk near some city Christmas lights. A playlist that mixes Bing Crosby with a hymn that actually makes you cry. A phone call to the person who understands the empty chair at your table.

Joy doesn’t demand we silence our grief. It asks us to make just enough room for God to slip in beside it. And sometimes, that tiny crack of space is all joy needs to return.

Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life is painful. Period. But are there some aspects of our faith or our posture toward the world that can change how we experience it?

Father Richard Rohr is everyone’s favorite preacher of love. Love for each other. Love from God.

In this conversation, Kate and Richard talk about:

• How great love and great suffering can move us into a new stage of life
• The spirituality of subtraction
• Making room for mystery of joy and suffering
• His secret to staying present to God

Together, might we all learn when to hold on and when to let go.

Subscribe to Kate’s Substack for blessings, essays, and reflections that hold what’s hard and beautiful. Join us for Advent over there, too!

This episode originally aired November 2021.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.