Best Theeffect Podcasts (2025)

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Meaning of Resurrection 23:01

10d ago23:01

23:01

Dave Brisbin 4.20.25Cross and resurrection form the crux of Christian tradition, but whatever these events were historically, if we merely revere them from a distance of two millennia, we are missing the point of the gospels. These events realigned every detail of the lives of Jesus’ closest friends and followers, but as long as they remain histori…

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Threat of Clarity 50:49

17d ago50:49

50:49

Dave Brisbin 4.13.25Very few of us live in the real world. Like avatars in a gamescape, we live in a world created by our own thought patterns, which are in turn created by our core beliefs—deeply held, fundamental assumptions about ourselves, others, and the world. Hiding in our unconscious, core beliefs are as unquestioned as the air we breathe, …

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Doing Our Forty 50:16

24d ago50:16

50:16

Dave Brisbin 4.6.25Just when you think the world can’t get any crazier, each week we get a whole new view of crazy. And the more the world pounds on our door through news and social media, the more our grip on spiritual reality can loosen. The silence and solitude of contemplative practice, the wordless knowing of God’s presence can feel impotent, …

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Burning Bushes 51:46

1M ago51:46

51:46

Dave Brisbin 3.30.25Burning bush is our cultural meme, idiom for a peak experience, a vision of God or from God. But for all its power, one burning bush is not enough. Standing on holy ground in front of the original burning bush, Moses argued with God, doubted God’s word right there, and for the rest of his life, oscillated between boldness and do…

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Showing Our Work 54:48

1M ago54:48

54:48

Dave Brisbin 3.23.25Remember taking math tests in school? Remember how you had to show your work? Remember how you hated that? Wasn’t enough to get the answer, you had to show how you got to the answer. Yes, a right answer, or at least a functional one, is important. But showing your work signaled that you grasped underlying principles that would g…

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Marching and More Alive 47:42

1M ago47:42

47:42

Dave Brisbin 3.16.25Mid-century dancer Martha Graham said that no artist is ever satisfied with their work at any time. That there is a strange, “divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest” that keeps them marching and more alive than others. This is a blueprint for excellence and recipe for disaster depending on whether a balance can be maintained. …

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The Gift of Doubt 42:42

2M ago42:42

42:42

Dave Brisbin 3.9.25Years ago, at the lowest point in my life, a friend invited me to her church, marking a return to Christianity after fifteen years away. First thing, I booked a lunch with the pastor, and halfway through, across my untouched plate, he said he saw “divine dissatisfaction” in me. Strange phrase. I didn’t see anything divine in my d…

1
Empowered 44:31

2M ago44:31

44:31

Dave Brisbin 3.2.25Jesus doesn’t save anyone passively, in spite of themselves, beyond their willingness to actively engage a way of experiencing transformed life he calls Kingdom. If we’re waiting for a savior, no one is coming. If we’re waiting for anything, we’re not in Kingdom. Waiting is passive, not yet; Kingdom is always in motion, herenow. …

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The Purpose of Life 48:58

2M ago48:58

48:58

Dave Brisbin 2.23.25Do people really change? Seems maddingly rare, especially the older we get—the way is narrow and gate constricted—but it does happen. Why are some of us able to make fundamental, personal change, beat the odds that imprison the rest of us?Joseph Campbell introduced the monomyth, the hero’s journey, the one plotline we use over a…

1
Balancing Act 54:30

2M ago54:30

54:30

Dave Brisbin 2.16.25Life is big, loud, in your face. Like an over-the-top extravert, life can suck all the oxygen out of the room, leaving little energy or attention for anything else. And against life’s overwhelming physical realities—whether personal or political, socio-economic or relational—the spiritual can seem like a whisper we’re not even s…

1
All We Know 48:51

3M ago48:51

48:51

Dave Brisbin 2.9.25Quote from a movie priest: There comes a time in man’s search for meaning that you realize there are no answers. When you come to that horrible, unavoidable conclusion, you either accept it or you kill yourself. Or you simply stop searching...I remember how obsessively important it was to get answers to the big theological and ex…

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The Real Enemy 49:45

3M ago49:45

49:45

Dave Brisbin 2.2.25Would Jesus have been a Republican or Democrat?What seems like the setup to a joke is being asked in all seriousness. Two weeks into a controversial administration, I’m hearing people ask how a good Christian could possibly vote… How a Christian pastor could possibly support… An Episcopal bishop and a sitting president both state…

1
Keeping The Faith 52:14

3M ago52:14

52:14

Dave Brisbin 1.26.25One of the best-known stories from the gospels, one that has seeped into collective consciousness, is the story of Jesus walking on water. This and turning water to wine has become shorthand for divine power. It’s natural for us to focus on the literal, but all Jesus’ miracles have spiritual meaning as well, and since most of us…

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More Big Words 1:06:03

3M ago1:06:03

1:06:03

Dave Brisbin 1.19.25From someone going through a perfect storm of difficulties: I see no evidence of God, but plenty of evidence of the devil. Despite years as a devout Christian, she’s hit the point we all do, over and over in life, the point Karl Jaspers called a limit situation. The moment we realize we’re gonna need a bigger boat. Hitting the l…

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The Big Words 53:58

4M ago53:58

53:58

Dave Brisbin 1.12.25I’m often asked about the big words... The words of Christian doctrine that seem to contradict the nature of God that Jesus called Good News, love itself. Degreeless and indiscriminate love that can’t be altered or avoided, showering on everyone equally—just and unjust alike. Yet Christianity feels exclusive…acceptance withheld …

1
Reward And Punishment 55:07

4M ago55:07

55:07

Dave Brisbin 1.5.25An angel was walking down the street carrying a torch and a pail of water. When asked what he was going to do with torch and pail, the angel said that with the torch he was burning down the mansions of heaven, and with the pail, putting out the fires of hell. Because only then would we see who truly loves God. With no promise of …

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Through The Needle's Eye 38:33

4M ago38:33

38:33

Dave Brisbin 12.29.24When a rich young man asks what he must do to experience eternal aliveness, and Jesus tells him to sell all he has, and the man walks away with head hung, Jesus tells his friends how hard it is for wealthy people. Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter aliveness. The Aramaic word for ca…

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We Magi 54:48

5M ago54:48

54:48

Dave Brisbin 12.15.24What is it we’re supposed to see in Christmas? Talk about a mixed message... Only two gospels mention Jesus’ birth at all, and the few details given depict a birth so ordinary to parents so poor that those closest didn’t even make room for them in the inn. Enter shepherds and Magi...here the gospels spend a bit more time, becau…

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Growing Small 48:41

5M ago48:41

48:41

Dave Brisbin 12.8.24What does the story of Job have to do with Christmas?Any story is a story about risk. We’ve all been at risk from our first breath, but we don’t like to think of ourselves balanced on a razor’s edge of circumstances we can’t control. We work really hard to manage risk, grow as big as we can, accumulate money and materials so ris…

1
Enoughness 48:08

5M ago48:08

48:08

Dave Brisbin 12.1.24Long ago, many people came to seek counsel and wisdom from a great Zen master. One day, a very important man, used to giving commands, came to him, “Teach me about Zen. Open my mind to enlightenment.” The master smiled and said they should discuss the matter over tea. When the tea was ready, he poured and the tea rose to the rim…

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Arriving Where We Started 51:45

5M ago51:45

51:45

Dave Brisbin 11.24.24To ancient Hebrews, the number twelve signified the completion or perfection of earthly systems, rule, government. More than a literal number, this is the meaning being transmitted by the twelve patriarchs, tribes, apostles, every detail of the New Jerusalem. It symbolizes a complete cycle—twelve lunar orbits creating the twelv…

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Circles Within Circles 47:08

5M ago47:08

47:08

Dave Brisbin 11.17.24The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Eliot’s iconic line reminds that time is not a line, but a circle. Beginning and end one and the same. That any authentic journey is a journey of awareness, bringing us back to ourselves expanded. And knowing…what?Step 11 tell…

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Grateful And Amazed 39:49

6M ago39:49

39:49

Dave Brisbin 11.10.24What do you think of as a miracle? Seas parting, walking on water, healings? Dictionaries tell us miracles are events not explainable by natural or scientific laws. But what if an event is not explainable to or by you personally? Or leaves inexplicable space between data points? When you raise your hand, can you explain that? W…

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As Forgiven As We Wish 40:17

6M ago40:17

40:17

Dave Brisbin 11.3.24I’ve tried to make amends to people I’ve hurt in the past. Sometimes I felt reconnected. Sometimes my apology was flatly refused. Sometimes the words of forgiveness were spoken, but everyone knew nothing further was exchanged. In all of them, there was no reconciliation. We’ve not spoken since.The 9th Step of AA tells us to make…

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Beginning Of Shalom 44:56

6M ago44:56

44:56

Dave Brisbin 10.27.24When we hear the Hebrew word shalom, we think of peace, as in the absence of conflict. And when we hear the word forgiveness, we think of pardoning or excusing, even condoning a person’s harmful action. But shalom—selama in Aramaic—means the greatest amount of unity, wholeness, health, and prosperity possible. And sebaq, forgiv…

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Asking Humbly 49:06

6M ago49:06

49:06

Dave Brisbin 10.20.24Ever try to give someone a compliment who couldn’t accept it? I like your shirt. Oh this? I got it on the clearance rack. Good job! I could have done better, just got lucky. Or next level: It wasn’t me; it was the Lord. All glory goes to God. Maybe we feel unworthy…or think we’re being humble or more spiritual by deflecting pra…

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Supposed To Be Happy 54:43

7M ago54:43

54:43

Dave Brisbin 10.13.24When I went skydiving for the first and only time, I didn’t want a tandem jump—strapped to a jumpmaster—so that meant a full eight hours of training, and that the decision to jump was all mine. Fear grew all day through classes and videos; fitting for jumpsuit, helmet, goggles, pack; walking out to board the silver prop plane w…

1
Unaloneness 45:03

7M ago45:03

45:03

Dave Brisbin 10.6.24Longtime friend sent a text just long enough to tell me that his wife had died and could we set up a time to talk. I was shocked—knew she was fighting cancer, but no idea so advanced. On the phone, he didn’t want to talk about her death as much as what it had stirred up. Any death raises awareness of our own, but the death of a …

1
A Personal Ghetto 52:43

7M ago52:43

52:43

Dave Brisbin 9.22.24If the first three Steps of AA are a serial surrender of the illusion that we can manage our lives isolated from the greater power of community and God, then Steps 4-7 are a serial healing of the damage those illusions have done. Just as surrender is too big to happen in one step, so is our emotional and psychological healing. S…

1
A Short Fall 52:34

8M ago52:34

52:34

Dave Brisbin 9.15.24Made a decision to turn our lives and will over to God, a power greater than ourselves…Step Three of AA…sort of a let go and let God. Sounds so easy, but it’s only as easy as our grip on whatever we’re holding on to. And if we believe we’re holding on to the only way we’ll ever experience security and survival, affection and est…

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Centurion Moment 47:34

8M ago47:34

47:34

Dave Brisbin 9.8.24Looking at the 12 Steps of AA as a rite of passage: separation from the now too-small world we knew, to a disorienting transition, to reincorporation—a changed person returning to community. It’s the shape of every human life, but the trick is to make it conscious, our steps intentional. The danger is substituting the ritual for …

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Betwixt And Between 53:52

8M ago53:52

53:52

Dave Brisbin 9.1.24Think of this election as the extension of a collective rite of passage into which we were plunged with the pandemic. A rite of passage is a three-part experience that grows us from one stage of human development to another. Being separated, by life event or ritual, from the world we knew; thrown into a difficult, even traumatizi…

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Power Of Powerlessness 56:49

8M ago56:49

56:49

Dave Brisbin 8.25.24We don’t have real rites of passage in our culture anymore. At least not conscious rituals that take us through the three essential stages of separation, transition, and reincorporation. In true rites of passage, we are taken from the familiar world we know and plunged into a transitional experience that is betwixt and between t…

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Healing Happiness 51:38

8M ago51:38

51:38

Dave Brisbin 8.18.24Woman tells me her daughter just left to go back to college after the summer home. How’s she doing with that? Sad, but ok. Truthfully, she’d gotten used to the freedom of an empty nest. Missed that freedom with her daughter back at home. But when daughter is away, misses her as well. We all do this. Mourn things missing to the p…

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Happiness Is 46:50

9M ago46:50

46:50

Dave Brisbin 8.11.24Moving days are always stressful, but our last move was off the hook. My wife sick, cleaning and packing until 1:30A, then up again at 6A to pouring rain that lasted all day. Delays at the new house meant they were still laying floor on moving day. The moving crew showed up, men in their twenties with tats and knit caps, seemed …

1
Graduating Certainty 51:20

9M ago51:20

51:20

Dave Brisbin 8.4.24When Christians fight, you can bet it’s going to be over the book. No matter the issue at hand, it will always come back to the book, or more specifically, interpretation of the book, which is all we really have. No matter what a text was meant to say, all that survives our reading is interpretation. To be certain of our interpre…

1
Jesus' Rudiments 46:01

9M ago46:01

46:01

Dave Brisbin 7.28.24A friend sent me a link to a podcast interview that rambled, but was mostly concerned with end times prophecy. Confused and concerned, he wanted to know what I thought. In one of their tangents, the interviewee flatly stated: God doesn’t love everyone. Now that’s often implied, but rarely declared, and in case there was any doub…

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Unreasonable Meaning 47:52

9M ago47:52

47:52

Dave Brisbin 7.21.24I’ve said that Jesus’ teaching is not meant to give data, but point to an experience that changes everything. But what is the everything that changes? If we say our very understanding of life—how things are or should be—next morning, making coffee, what has changed? Life is same mix of work, pain, respite that we share with ever…

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System Reboot 46:46

10M ago46:46

46:46

Dave Brisbin 7.14.24We’ve all had to reboot our computers, phones, pads, anything with an operating system. Sometimes they just get so cluttered and confused, they slow to a crawl or freeze entirely. When in doubt, reboot, yes? Hit escape, control-alt-delete, shut down, restart, pull the plug, or if the system is sophisticated enough, restore to a …

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Spiritual Albedo 47:24

10M ago47:24

47:24

Dave Brisbin 7.7.24Very few of us know the word albedo, yet we use it every day, and it’s a huge factor in climate change. From the Latin word for white (think albino), albedo is the amount of light reflected off any surface. We all know that light colors reflect sunlight, a cooling effect like those impossibly white houses on seacliffs in Greece. …

1
Growing Down 42:24

10M ago42:24

42:24

Dave Brisbin 6.30.24Ever wondered what Jesus would have been like growing up? People have been wondering that ever since the generation who grew up with him died out. One of the many gospels that didn’t make it into the bible, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, assumes Jesus had all his powers from birth, but had to grow into them. Portrayed at age five…

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Road Not Taken 50:37

10M ago50:37

50:37

Dave Brisbin 6.23.24When we were kids, my sister did a paint-by-number of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. You know, where the image is preprinted as numbered areas you fill in with the matching-numbered paint. It looked ok squinting at it from across the room, but imagine the difference between painting by numbers and the original master, creating and mixi…

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Finding Father's Face 47:16

11M ago47:16

47:16

Dave Brisbin 6.16.24Years ago, I remember thinking that if I could just have one burning bush moment, that would be enough. Talking with God like a friend, face to face as Moses did, would answer everything. Yet that wasn’t enough for Moses. He begs to see God’s glory, just as Jacob asks for God’s name and Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father. …

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Falling To Heaven 42:49

11M ago42:49

42:49

Dave Brisbin 6.9.24Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Yeah, that’s a country song, but Joe Louis, the great boxer, said it first. Death is the moment everything we can think of as ourselves, our entire sense of self, falls away. It’s the moment our minds stop thinking, stop imagining ourselves as individuals, separate from ev…

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Clinging Not 48:02

11M ago48:02

48:02

Dave Brisbin 6.2.24One of the most cinematic scenes in the gospels is at John 20 where Mary Magdalene is sobbing by the empty tomb, and the risen Jesus asks why she is weeping. She whirls to confront the voice but not until he calls her name does she recognize. She calls out to him, and Jesus immediately replies, stop clinging to me. We don’t need …

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Release And Catch 45:30

11M ago45:30

45:30

Dave Brisbin 5.26.24Carl Jung said that the first half of life is dedicated to forming a healthy ego; second half is going inward and letting go of it. We spend our first half looking for meaning, purpose, identity through accomplishment and acquisition—outward performances that mean less and less over time. We enter our second half when we realize…

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The Whole In The Part 43:09

12M ago43:09

43:09

Dave Brisbin 5.19.24So easy to lose the forest in the trees. Especially with scripture. We dig deep into the weeds of each verse, pull it apart, imagine meaning that may not have anything to do with the larger passage or chapter, let alone the whole book.A famous writer says unless you can describe the whole of your book in one sentence, you won’t …

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Both Sides Now 50:29

12M ago50:29

50:29

Dave Brisbin 5.12.24It’s heartbreaking that many women in the second halves of their lives would be expressing remorse, but after dedicating their first halves to child and home, they find no concrete way to calculate the value of their life’s work. No degrees or trophies, certainly no pensions or even social security payouts. Our society doesn’t r…

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Savior Complex 38:47

12M ago38:47

38:47

Dave Brisbin 5.5.24Do we ever change another person? Save them? Sometimes people thank me or our community for saving them, placing them on a lifesaving path. It’s wonderful to be recognized as part of their journey, and I thank them, but if the conversation goes on long enough, I’ll remind that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. That …

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Judging Not 44:48

1y ago44:48

44:48

Dave Brisbin 4.28.24When Jesus says do not judge so you won’t be judged, that your way of judging will be used on you, we modern Westerners hear that in predictable ways. First, we think of judging in the sense of condemning or criticizing others, and we think of it punitively—that if we do wrong (judge), someone (God) will wrong us back as punishm…

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