Image Source: Amazon
Author: Kate Bowler
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Language:
English
About the
author:
Kate Bowler is an assistant professor at Duke Divinity
School. Graduated from Yale Divinity School and Duke University, Bowler is the
author of Blessed: A History Of The American Prosperity Gospel. She lives
in North Carolina with her husband and son.
Review:
Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God's disapproval.
At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward "blessing."
She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves
life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with "a surge of determination." Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you "can't do" and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure.
Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink
her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists
everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover
that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.
Frank and
funny, dark, and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an
account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue
of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything
Happens For A Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won
observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.
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My View:
Kate
Bowler’s Everything Happens For A Reason And Other Lies I've Loved: is
something beautifully raw. Think of the memoir as a sorrowful, and somewhat
satirical, depiction of dying, all of the fears, unmet dreams, and the people
Kate Bowler found herself forced to leave behind.
In 2015,
Bowler was just thirty-five when she was diagnosed with Stage IV Colon Cancer.
She was at what some would describe as the prime of her life–happily married
with a young son and excelling in her career. Despite her previous belief
in Prosperity Gospel or some version of it, Bowler still found herself
diagnosed with fatal cancer, given a few months to live.
By now you’re probably able to connect the memoir’s title to its content, centered around the mantra “Everything happens for a reason.” Bowler essentially destroys this narrative in her book, commenting that if everything truly did happen for a reason, then what did she do to deserve cancer? What did her son do to watch her waste away? What sin did her friends, family, and acquaintances commit to deserve such a punishment as losing a loved one?
There is no “reason”
perse that life is hard–believing so would mean believing the world follows a
system of consequence. Assigning such moral values to an ambiguous life is merely a byproduct of human projection (Though of course, God is an exemption
from this rule), Bowler’s perspective on these inevitable truths paired with
her traumatic experience with cancer is what makes this work so alluring, and
so worth the read.
There were
some unbelievable moments that brought the severity — in what was otherwise a
light-hearted book — back to the reader.
The moments
of vulnerability where she thinks of her husband.
I don’t want
this to be the end of both our lives.
Then there
is the will of Kate Bowler herself. And she is constantly fighting with this
question of fighting cancer or allowing yourself to surrender to the pain.
In her own words:
I continue
to work full days. I get up at 6:30 A.M. every day — no matter what — so I
won’t miss a moment with my son. When I stop taking the medication that
minimizes the numb feeling in my hands and feet, because I want to feel every
shred of what is happening to me, my friends practically stage an intervention.
When will I realize that surrender is not weakness?
Ask yourself
in this situation: What would you do?
And then
there’s the perspective from her family and friends. One of my favorite stories
is about health care and how her potential life-saving treatment might not be
covered by insurance. And it's costly.
A wonderful title that aches from a dying heart. The author shares her true cancer story.
The words of
the book is poetic and experiences real. I wish the book wouldn't stop
abruptly. Wish to know more about life. But then, maybe life isn't
prosperity gospel. There are no truths. I'd suggest this book to every book
lover.
My Rating
For The Book - 5/5
You can easily buy a copy of this book from Amazon: Everything Happens for a Reason
Written By -
Ishita Sharma
Edited By - Anamika Malik
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