Everything Happens for a Reason : : and Other Lies I've Loved

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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	362.196 Bo	4-week checkout	Due 05-20-2024
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Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Bowler, Kate	4-week checkout	Due 04-07-2024

Diagnosis -- Object lesson -- Magic tricks -- Seasons -- Surrender -- Christmas cheer -- Certainty -- Restoration -- Ordinary time -- Appendix 1: Absolutely never say this to people experiencing terrible times: A short list. -- Appendix 2: Give this a go, see how it works: A short list.
Thirty-five-year-old Kate Bowler was a professor at the School of Divinity at Duke, and had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart after years of trying, when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, chugged antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. As she navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, Kate pulls the reader deeply into her life, which is populated with a colorful, often hilarious collection of friends, pastors, parents, and doctors, and shares her reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must change her habit of skipping to the end and planning the next move. A historian of the "American prosperity gospel"--The creed of the mega-churches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough -- Bowler finds that, in the wake of her diagnosis, she craves these same "outrageous certainties." She wants to know why it's so hard to surrender control over that which you have no control. She contends with the terrifying fact that, even for her husband and child, she is not the lynchpin of existence, and that even without her, life will go on.

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A Powerful Reflection on Cancer submitted by mattster83 on July 19, 2020, 6:38am Bowler weaves her expertise as a scholar of American religion (particularly the prosperity gospel) into the story of her journey with cancer. It's a poignant and powerful critique of our tendency to want simple answers when faced with difficult challenges. Her raw honesty is profound, and the book is surprisingly funny at times.