I‘m sure I would have ignored it if it hadn’t reminded me of something I had experienced, something I felt uncomfortable telling anyone: that when I was sure that I was going to die, I didn’t feel angry. I felt loved. It was one of the most surreal things I have experienced. In a time in which I should have felt abandoned by God, I was not reduced to ashes. I felt like I was floating, floating on the love and prayers of all those who hummed around me like worker bees, bringing me notes and socks and flowers and quilts embroidered with words of encouragement. But when they sat beside me, my hand in their hands, my own suffering began to feel like it had revealed to me the suffering of others. I was entering a world of people just like me, people stumbling around in the debris of dreams they thought they were entitled to and plans they didn’t realize they had made. It was a feeling of being more connected, somehow, with other people, experiencing the same situation.

Kate Bowler from her TEDMED 2018 talk, “Everthing happens for a reason” — and other lies I’ve loved“

The idea that we are all stumbling around in the debris of dreams we think we are entitled to and plans we don’t realize we make is comforting. It is comforting in the way it releases us from the anxiety of expectation, the pressure of not yet, and weight of acting as if. Let me explain. I completely agree with Bowler in the comfort found in connecting. Our shared tears are salve for our common wounds. Our individual suffering is a window into the greater suffering of the world. Taking together, grief and anger and fear are held in the arms of love.

I have floated in that way. In floating, I simply hold a hand, or cry, or scream, or fall to my knees, or rest, or listen, or write, or pray. In floating, I stop looking for reasons. In floating, I stop grasping for logic and sense. In floating, I breathe. In floating, I am still and know. In floating, I feel the love of God.

Bowler gently questions the possibility of answers at all. She offers a vulnerable, honest, complex, and faith-filled response to fundamental assertions like, “everything happens for a reason”. She releases us from the need for reasons by connecting us with one another. She releases us from our need to have answers because answers, ultimately, look simply like love in action. I think that is what she means by floating. We float together. She does not offer an escape, because escape is not possible from finite, tragic, crushing experiences. Rather, she offers love and communion with all those who suffer. That makes sense to me.