What a Life

Jeffrey Steen

The crossroads of Robert Frost, Eckhart Tolle, and Emily Dickinson — with a splash of J.D. Salinger. A series of "podbites" (5-10 minutes) with stories from my daily life, a touch of poetry, and reflections on the state of life as a spiritual gay man in Denver.

  1. 01/02/2025

    Episode 1: Trying Times, Thought(ful) Leadership

    Send a text 2024 was a doozy. In fact, I heard a lot of griping last year about the dire state of things. Yes, we're facing a lot of challenges. So what are we going to do about it in 2025? Where do we start?  With good, old-fashioned conversation, guided by three key principles...

    7 min

  2. 12/15/2024

    Episode 29: Heralding Joy

    Send a text This time of year, we spend a lot of off-key caroling on songs about joy. The savior is here, we sing! Let's celebrate!  But do we know what that joy really means? I'm not sure I do. Which is why I took a trip to the Bethlehem of Jesus' birth...

    9 min

  3. 12/01/2024

    Episode 28: The Labyrinth

    Send a text For C.S. Lewis, life looked a lot like a wandering path — one with twists, turns, and obstacles, but always open to the sun. I think, rather, that a labyrinth is a better metaphor. Visibility is poor, we're frequently lost, and there's little sense of what the "end" looks like.  So what keeps us going?

    6 min

  4. 11/17/2024

    Episode 27: There's No Such Thing As a Free Lunch

    Send a text I saw the word "free" bandied about often in my food writing days — free meals, free booze, free trips. Inevitably, restaurants took advantage of the old aphorism, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." They claimed that yes, in fact, free lunch was possible — and on offer, provided patrons bought something more expensive first. This has made me highly skeptical. I now struggle to believe the hawkers who say they have something for free — and I'm even more skeptical when I offer myself something for free, including the biggies: love, forgiveness, kindness.  Why is that? When did I become so cynical I couldn't even accept my own free-will love? ... and how do I begin again to see free-will gifts as the better part of our humanity?

    6 min

  5. 11/10/2024

    Episode 26: Let Us Not Please, Please

    Send a text Every so often, I think back to my days in the church. I examine the rituals and symbolism, and I consider them alongside the sometimes painful happenings in the world. There's so much juxtaposition it's — alarming.  In this episode, I shine a light on just one of those juxtapositions. How stark it seems if you take just a moment to unpack it...

    4 min

  6. 11/03/2024

    Episode 25: I'm Sorry, What's Happening?

    Send a text One of my faves, Robert Frost, once wrote, "A poem is when emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." You could say that was the genesis of this episode: A processing of election angst, global turmoil, and lack of purpose.  How do you find joy in all of that? You remember where you started before things got complicated.

    8 min

  7. 10/27/2024

    Episode 24: Stage Lights & Yesterday's Frights

    Send a text A young man make his way onto a stage. He tells a story, a gut-wrenching story of a best friend who suffered — because of him. And at the end... well, I'll let you decide how it ends.

    10 min

  8. 09/15/2024

    Episode 22: The Oldest Rubber Band In Existence

    Send a text As we age, we lose our "elasticity." Sure, we lose the ability to stretch ourselves physically and bounce back after a strenuous experience, but our mental and emotional selves become less elastic, too.  I don't know about you, but this is troubling to me. I don't want to be the old man shouting at kids to get off his lawn. I don't want to be so socially exclusive I end up lonely, brittle, stiff.  So how do I avoid it? How do I retain mental and emotional elasticity into my 50s, 60s, and 70s? Or can I?

    5 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

The crossroads of Robert Frost, Eckhart Tolle, and Emily Dickinson — with a splash of J.D. Salinger. A series of "podbites" (5-10 minutes) with stories from my daily life, a touch of poetry, and reflections on the state of life as a spiritual gay man in Denver.

Information

  • Creator
    Jeffrey Steen
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 What a Life
  • Show Website
    What a Life