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

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-Appendices

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Magical Thinking Versus Acceptance

In her discussions of the prosperity gospel, Bowler refers to magical thinking as “circular reasoning,” meaning it is an illogical, closed belief system that does not allow what does not adhere to its model. Bowler notes that prosperity gospel adherents lock into a simple, unquestioned syllogism: God wants worshippers to perfect their faith and will grant special favor in return. Bowler refers to this outlook with the simple formulation often used to describe such beliefs: “Name it and claim it” (83). According to this belief system, any achievement or benefit is “evidence” of God’s “favor,” while failure to experience positive outcomes implies a lack of faith, an unwillingness to claim what God wants to provide, or perhaps unconfessed sins.

When Bowler loses strength in her arms, many of the prosperity gospel believers she interacts with attempt to heal her. When she is not healed, these believers judge that she is imperfect in her Christian faith, that she has unconfessed wrongs, or that a demon might attacking her. Ultimately, the weakness turns out to be a congenital problem with her shoulder joints that she overcomes through physical therapy. After The New York Times publishes Bowler’s essay on her illness, she receives similar prosperity comments from the “Solution’s People,” people who chastise her for not accepting the healing God wants to provide. She writes:

There is a trite cruelty in the logic of the perfectly certain. Those letter writers are not simply trying to give me something. They are also, always, tallying up the sum of my life, sometimes for clues, sometimes for answers, always to pronounce the verdict (119).

Against the magical thinking of prosperity believers that tragedy does not happen to the faithful, Bowler posits acceptance as a more open, helpful perspective in the face of life’s hardships. Those who offer her the most hope, insight, and strength are individuals who come from the perspective of acceptance. For instance, Toban’s first words to her after her diagnosis are a promise that he will always care for Zach. Ray, the neighbor who happens to be an oncologist, helps Bowler and her parents develop a mindset that does not deny the reality of her illness but gives them strength to grasp and endure what is coming. Frank is a friend who empowers Bowler by encouraging her not to focus on the end of her life but on the current day. Bowler expresses that she experiences a real depth of understanding, the presence of the divine, and accepting love in what she endures, rather than believing she has failed to be faithful enough for God to heal her.

The Power of Shared Suffering

According to Bowler, the prosperity gospel cannot cope with notions of tragedy, surrender, and failure. She explores what she believes to be the impotence of this theological perspective when writing of attending the funeral of a famous prosperity gospel preacher who died in his middle years. His funeral bulletin, she says, included a separate theological statement dealing with his early death, since a shortened life implies that he lacked spiritual faith. On another occasion, Bowler describes listening to an attractive woman make a prosperity presentation in which the speaker glibly says she does not allow dying people to get near her. Prosperity adherents, Bowler states, cannot share suffering because it implies that someone has failed to tap into God’s healing power.

Against this perspective, Bowler repeatedly reflects on the Mennonite community of her youth. This group of people, she notes, share all aspects of their lives. In particular, they make a point of sharing their suffering. As she describes her first Christmas apart from her former Manitoba home, she talks of the rituals, celebrations, and hugs of friends she misses. She recognizes that this extended family, who welcomed her as one of its own, would accept and embrace her and her illness without hesitation. From her past immersion in this group, she learns how to endure her current hardships. Bowler writes of her old Sunday school teacher who is open about her own cancer diagnosis and views it as an opportunity for deeper spiritual insight.

Bowler recognizes the important principle, gleaned from the Mennonites, of sharing one’s suffering. Because of this, she communicates her diagnosis immediately with her friends and family members, who come to her emotionally, geographically, and physically. Bowler draws strength and perspective from them to face what at first seems to be an inevitable tragedy. As the possibility of survival lifts her, it buoys the entire group. Each positive step becomes a shared victory, just as her friends and family had been willing to share her grief.

Beyond this, Bowler indirectly invites a greater community to participate in her suffering through her New York Times essay. Though it yields inappropriate responses, it also connects her to a plethora of people around the world who express love and truth as they write of their own trials and sorrows. Through these interactions, Bowler shares the profound suffering of others as well.

Celebrating Life in the Moment

Bowler’s diagnosis comes when she is on top of the world. Her career and personal life achieve an acme when she is only 35. She publishes her well-received first historical monograph of church history. She feels happily married to a man who, in her view, embodies worthiness beyond anything she thinks she has the right to expect. Together, after struggling to conceive, they bring a son into the world who fills Bowler with such joy that she feels as if she has begun a new life. Apart from the excruciating, undiagnosed stomach pains that plague her, her life is nothing but a celebration.

The revelation of well-advanced colon cancer reboots her life once again. The planning for imagined decades ahead becomes a scramble to prepare for what doctors inform her is probably an imminent death. In the midst of working with her family to divest her voluminous library of books that Toban would not want, negotiating with her physician friend about his end-of-life care for her, and wrestling with what obstacles would impede returning her body to Canada, celebration breaks out again.

Bowler shows how even tragic moments can be imbued with joy. She jokes with her father candidly about her approaching death, and shares humorous benedictions with her multitudes of friends. She watches in gratitude as her parents, in-laws, and friends make decisions and care for her household while she recuperates. While she says that prosperity gospel adherents have nothing truly cheerful to offer—and she finds their enforced positivity enervating—the bustle of those about her speaks to her of joyful love. Preparing to die, Bowler celebrates life.

The unexpected news that she has the “miracle cancer,” one that might be amenable to an experimental drug treatment, adds hope to the mix of the emotions she shares with her loved ones. The treatments themselves are grueling and anticlimactic. Because her bi-monthly scans must show progress for her to remain in the trials, she says she continues to live 60 days at a time. Over the initial year of treatment, Bowler forms a close, candid relationship with her oncologist, a no-nonsense fellow whom she plies with cupcakes as they negotiate the next steps of her therapy.

Bowler’s celebration moves to its highest level when she acquires the ability to remain in the moment—not focusing on how her story will end but on how it plays out day-to-day. While Bowler and those she loves celebrate life joyfully prior to her diagnosis with cancer, her greater happiness, fulfillment, and celebration come in the face of her life-or-death struggle.