Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants where Mary is very sweet and demure and she is wearing a tablecloth pulled from the church dining hall. Sometimes it’s hard to remember how much impossible courage Mary had from the beginning. She finds out that she is pregnant in a completely scandalous way. But what does this divinely-prepared, teenage girl do when an angel crashes into her life with an announcement guaranteed to upend all her best plans? She sings.

But not a sweet lullaby. Mary belts out a protest song:

“He has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52–53).

This is not the peace of spa music and chamomile tea. It’s the kind of peace that rearranges the furniture of the universe. That scatters the arrogant and topples the unjust. God’s peace doesn’t politely avoid conflict; it writes the soundtrack for a revolution.

And somehow, Mary holds all of this—terror, disruption, and hope—in her own body. She sings peace into a world that did not ask for it, but desperately needs it. And here we are, centuries later, humming along too.

Well, here we are. December has arrived (shudder). And with it, the great cultural sprint: decorations, office parties, and the annual anxiety dream about whether you will accidentally forget someone on your gift list (spoiler: you will). Some of you already finished your shopping over Thanksgiving and have a freezer full of perfectly labeled Christmas cookies. (Who are you?! Come to my house and fix my life!) The rest of us are still trying to remember where we put last year’s wrapping paper.

It’s easy, this time of year, to let December carry us away. The shopping carts, the streaming playlists, the endless events. Advent, though, asks us to live by a different rhythm. The early church saw this season as one of watching and waiting—not just for Christmas morning, but for the whole story of God’s redemption. They began the year not by rushing, but by slowing down.

The prophet Isaiah describes this posture well: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). The church fathers loved this verse because it sounded like Advent: strength found not in frantic activity, but in patient trust.

So maybe the invitation this December is not to do more, but to intend more. To decide, amid the cookie dough and to-do lists, that this month won’t only be measured in packages mailed or tables set, but in moments of return. Little pauses of prayer. A fat candle lit on the dining room table that makes you take a breath. A quiet reminder that God is coming, and we don’t have to hold the season—or our lives—together by ourselves.

So welcome to December, friends. Whether you’re ahead of the game or already behind, you are exactly where you need to be: at the beginning.

In this conversation, Kate and Anna discuss:

• How conversations might engender the intimacy we need to get by
• Fostering the right interpersonal and listening skills it takes to approach a difficult topic (especially when you’re feeling nervous)
• Best practices for responding to someone’s hard news
• How learning to listen might bridge differences of all kinds

What do we lose when we don’t talk about hard things? And what might we gain if we do?