The Daily Edify
Get spiritually grounded and aligned with the flow of love each weekday morning with The Daily Edify. Each episode focuses on a spiritual practice, a poem, a book, a sacred text — something that can empower us to be more fully alive to the gift that is the day before us. Jeff Lehn is a pastor in Chicago, and has a heart for all people to live authentic, joyful and compassionate lives.
Episodes
80 episodes
Finite and Infinite Games
Today's episode is about the concept of finite and infinite games. It was developed by religion scholar James Carse, a longtime professor at NYU. He wrote a book of the same title in the mid 1980s and the idea is really generative. In a finite ...
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10:46
They Are With Us Still
Today's episode is about the changing of seasons and the remembrance of All Saints' last Sunday. We recite Kathleen McTigue's poem, "They Are With Us Still," and wond...
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10:53
The Greatness, the Sweetness, the Tenderness
Today's episode is about a lovely blessing from Julian of Norwich, entitled "God's Love for Us." A friend shared it with me during my sabbatical and reciting it as becoming part of my morning routine. It has helped me relax into the bigness and...
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8:58
Our Only Home
After a long hiatus, we're back with a new episode today about home. I share a bit more about my sabbatical during spring/summer and a visit to Holy Wisdom Monastery (Madison, WI) in particular. While there, I learned a beautiful rendition of t...
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9:41
Grace
Today's episode is about grace. We read Denise Levertov's lovely poem, "The Avowal," and reflect on a mantra I've come to cherish recentl...
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9:27
The Great Story
Today's episode is about the juxtaposition yesterday of Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day. I mention a
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11:17
In Light and Darkness
Glad to be back after a hiatus, friends! Today's episode is about light and darkness. They are not oppositional, but complementary forces with a symbiotic relationship. It's the Advent theme our church focused on in December and is...
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9:27
The Practice of Blessing
Today's episode is about the spiritual practice of blessing - especially with our words. We begin with the most famous blessing in the whole Bible from Numbers 6:24-26 - "The Lord bless you and keep you..." We need to receive this blessing ours...
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10:46
A Thanksgiving Prayer
Today's episode, in anticipation of the Thanksgiving holiday, features a prayer by Ted Loder, "My Words Can't Carry All the Praise," from his book, Guerrillas of ...
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6:44
Flow
Today's episode is about the concept of flow developed by Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. A flow state is when you are so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose all sense of yourself, and time seems to fall away,...
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9:26
The Cushion of the Sea
Today's episode is about a concept I first heard Arianne preach about several years ago in a sermon at the church we served together in Fort Wayne. The concept is "the cushion of the sea," and it comes from Arthur Pierson. The gist is that ther...
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7:54
Tend to Your Pain
Today's episode is an invitation to tend to your own pain, as we reel from terror and war in Israel and Gaza in these very difficult days. We talk about what is ours to do, Richard' Rohr's line about pain ("If we don't transform our pain, we wi...
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9:48
The Eight Wonders of Life
Today's episode is about the "eight wonders of life" that Dacher Keltner articulates in his new book, "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can T...
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12:09
Unconditional Positive Regard
Today's episode is about something I've learned from my social worker friends: unconditional positive regard. As my friend and colleague Allison Bengfort writes, "It's an intentional, emotional posture that the best therapists extend to their c...
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9:26
Deep Gratitude
Today's episode is about the spiritual practice of gratitude - in particular, deep gratitude. We touch on a retreat I attended last week, a line from the apostle Paul's letter, 1 Thessalonians ("Give thanks in all circumstances") and Diana Butl...
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10:54
I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
Today's episode features a short poem by Dawna Markova, "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life." It reflects on how to inhabit our lives, risk our tender significance, and set aside the voi...
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9:24
Practicing Forgiveness
Today's episode is about the practice of forgiveness - I primarily draw from my experience with the Christian tradition, but the act of forgiving is part and parcel of what it means to be human. And, in recent years, many other discipline...
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11:29
In Praise of Failure
Today's episode is about failure, and the invitation to keep doing it in our life, our work, our faith, and our relationship. Failure is human. Failure is healthy. Failure is how we grow. We share stories about James Dyson, Dr. Norm Larsen, the...
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8:17
Criticism Like Velcro, Praise Like Teflon
Today's episode is about something neuroscientists are teaching us through their research: negative and critical thoughts are like velcro - they stick and hold. Whereas positive and joyful thoughts are like teflon - they slide away. These...
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7:52
For the Traveler
Today's episode features is blessing by the inimitable John O'Donohue, "For the Traveler." It's drawn for his book, "To Bless the Space Between Us," which is one of Arianne and I's all time favorites - chock full of gorgeous and evocative langu...
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9:54
Blueminding
Today's episode is about the concept of blue minding, first popularized by the marine biologist, Wallace Nichols. The basic idea is that being in or near blue water reduces stress a...
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6:51
Calling In
Today's episode is about Loretta Ross and her courageous and brilliant work that invites us to "call in" instead of "call out." Ross is an activist, public intellectual and professor of women’s studies at Smith College. I find he...
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12:14
Ubuntu
Today's episode is about the African concept of "ubuntu," inspired by my reading of the spiritual biography of Desmond Tutu. The basic idea is this: "a person is a person through other persons." The myth of the isolated, self-sufficient individ...
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11:28