No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp
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253: Unabridged Interview: Sonja Lyubomirsky
20 maart 2026 · 1 uur 6 min
This is our unabridged interview with Sonja Lyubomirsky. Lees meer
What if the secret to happiness isn’t success, status, or even positive thinking, but the simple act of letting yourself be known?
Psychologist and bestselling author Sonja Lyubomirsky has spent more than three decades studying human happiness. She shares from her new book, How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, about what science reveals about gratitude, kindness, hedonic adaptation, and the surprising limits of life circumstances. Her newest research goes even deeper: happiness flourishes when we feel genuinely loved, and that begins not by impressing others, but by becoming known.
Key Ideas:
Rethink What Happiness Is: Happiness is both feeling good in your life and feeling satisfied with your life—an interplay of emotion, meaning, and progress toward what matters.
Don’t Chase Circumstances: Beyond basic needs, new cars, promotions, and bigger houses bring only temporary boosts because of hedonic adaptation.
Practice What You Can Control: Gratitude, acts of kindness, and intentional habits can measurably increase well-being—even influencing immune health.
Lead With Curiosity: The first step to feeling loved is helping someone else feel loved—through genuine questions, deep listening, and real presence.
Choose Vulnerable Connection: We feel loved not when we impress others, but when we allow ourselves to be seen in our full humanity.
Adopt the Multiplicity Mindset: No single behavior defines you—or anyone else; compassion grows when we remember we are all complex, unfinished quilts of strengths and flaws.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Sonja Lyubomirsky
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The Subtext: Multi-Level Marketing
18 maart 2026 · 30 min
Let’s talk about the billion-dollar industry that turns friendship into a sales funnel, and women into its favorite target. Lees meer
They show up in your DMs with compliments before they show up with a pitch. They promise community, purpose, and financial freedom. But behind the glossy before-and-afters and the "girl boss" energy, multi-level marketing companies have a darker history, and a devastatingly predictable math. This week, Savannah and Lee trace the origins of MLMs from a vitamin salesman in the 1930s all the way to your Instagram inbox, unpack why women have always been the primary target, and ask the harder questions: what happens when community gets weaponized for profit, and what does it mean that 99% of recruits lose money, and keep recruiting anyway?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Strangers by Belle Burden
Savannah's new album Songs of Peace in Times of War Apple Music | Spotify
Humoresque by Antonín Dvořák
AI Series on No Small Endeavor releases on April 6th!
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253: Sonja Lyubomirsky: How To Actually Feel Loved
16 maart 2026 · 52 min
What if the secret to happiness isn’t success, status, or even positive thinking, but the simple act of letting yourself be known? Lees meer
Psychologist and bestselling author Sonja Lyubomirsky has spent more than three decades studying human happiness. She shares from her new book, How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, about what science reveals about gratitude, kindness, hedonic adaptation, and the surprising limits of life circumstances. Her newest research goes even deeper: happiness flourishes when we feel genuinely loved, and that begins not by impressing others, but by becoming known.
Key Ideas:
Rethink What Happiness Is: Happiness is both feeling good in your life and feeling satisfied with your life—an interplay of emotion, meaning, and progress toward what matters.
Don’t Chase Circumstances: Beyond basic needs, new cars, promotions, and bigger houses bring only temporary boosts because of hedonic adaptation.
Practice What You Can Control: Gratitude, acts of kindness, and intentional habits can measurably increase well-being—even influencing immune health.
Lead With Curiosity: The first step to feeling loved is helping someone else feel loved—through genuine questions, deep listening, and real presence.
Choose Vulnerable Connection: We feel loved not when we impress others, but when we allow ourselves to be seen in our full humanity.
Adopt the Multiplicity Mindset: No single behavior defines you—or anyone else; compassion grows when we remember we are all complex, unfinished quilts of strengths and flaws.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Sonja Lyubomirsky
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through con…
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252: Unabridged Interview: Ronald Rolheiser
13 maart 2026 · 1 uur 1 min
This is our unabridged interview with Ronald Rolheiser. Lees meer
What if the final chapter of your life could become your greatest gift?
In this deeply wise conversation, Father Ronald Rolheiser joins Lee C. Camp to explore the spiritual invitation of aging. Drawing from his latest book Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, Rolheiser reflects on loneliness, diminishment, forgiveness, and what it means to give not only our lives—but our deaths—away. This episode offers profound wisdom for anyone seeking authentic human flourishing in the final seasons of life.
Key Ideas:
Give Your Death Away The final stage of life invites us to offer our vulnerability and diminishment as a gift, leaving behind a spirit of peace rather than resentment.
Choose Your Old Fool Aging makes us all “old fools”—but we can become pathetic, angry, or holy, depending on whether we cling, resent, or receive with grace.
Grieve So You Don’t Grow Bitter Unhealed wounds harden into anger over time, but grieving what cannot be undone allows the soul to mellow.
Live from the “Above Mind” Jesus’ call to metanoia invites us out of defensive paranoia into open-handed trust, courage, and love.
Practice Gratitude and Forgiveness In the wisdom years, the spiritual vocabulary simplifies. Two words remain: gratitude and forgiveness.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Ronald Rolheiser
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the socia…
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The Subtext: WAR! What Is It Good For?
11 maart 2026 · 48 min
What happens when dispensational theology or Christian nationalism directly informs foreign policy without critical reflection or moral accountability? Lees meer
In this episode, we get to hear from the Professor himself, Lee C. Camp, as he takes the podium to trace the historical roots of Christian nonviolence, exploring how followers of Jesus have wrestled with war and peace across the centuries. Savannah and Lee examine reports that more than 200 complaints have been filed by members of the U.S. armed forces regarding commanding officers invoking “God’s divine plan” to justify military action. These stories raise a pressing question at the intersection of faith, power, and policy: War—what is it good for?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Jemar Tisby on No Small Endeavor
Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace by Roland H. Bainton
Christian attitudes to war, peace, and revolution: a companion to Bainton by John Howard Yoder
Who Is My Enemy? by Lee C. Camp
With God on Our Side by Bob Dylan
Also: pre-save Savannah's album!
Some of our sources!
US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges (The Guardian)
MRFF Inundated with Complaints of Gleeful Commanders Telling Troops Iran War is “Part of God’s Divine Plan” to Usher in the Return of Jesus Christ (MRFF)
Jemar Tisby on Threads
Why Would Some Christians Be Excited About War With Iran? Benjamin Cremer on Substack
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252: Ronald Rolheiser: How to Grow Old Without Growing Bitter
9 maart 2026 · 52 min
What if the final chapter of your life could become your greatest gift? Lees meer
In this deeply wise conversation, Father Ronald Rolheiser joins Lee C. Camp to explore the spiritual invitation of aging. Drawing from his latest book Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, Rolheiser reflects on loneliness, diminishment, forgiveness, and what it means to give not only our lives—but our deaths—away. This episode offers profound wisdom for anyone seeking authentic human flourishing in the final seasons of life.
Key Ideas:
Give Your Death Away The final stage of life invites us to offer our vulnerability and diminishment as a gift, leaving behind a spirit of peace rather than resentment.
Choose Your Old Fool Aging makes us all “old fools”—but we can become pathetic, angry, or holy, depending on whether we cling, resent, or receive with grace.
Grieve So You Don’t Grow Bitter Unhealed wounds harden into anger over time, but grieving what cannot be undone allows the soul to mellow.
Live from the “Above Mind” Jesus’ call to metanoia invites us out of defensive paranoia into open-handed trust, courage, and love.
Practice Gratitude and Forgiveness In the wisdom years, the spiritual vocabulary simplifies. Two words remain: gratitude and forgiveness.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Ronald Rolheiser
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and pur…
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251: Unabridged Interview: Kim Stanley Robinson
6 maart 2026 · 1 uur 11 min
This is our unabridged interview with Kim Stanley Robinson. Lees meer
Do you feel the weight of climate dread—and wonder whether hope is still intellectually honest?
Acclaimed science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson joins Lee C. Camp to name our shared fear about the future without surrendering to despair. Drawing from The Ministry for the Future, Robinson offers a sober, deeply hopeful vision of change, one rooted not in heroics or denial, but in ordinary people, communal action, and the slow work of making things better. Together they explore how science, faith, and moral imagination can help us live well, even in a warming world.
Key Ideas:
Hope Without Illusion Robinson shows how genuine hope can coexist with fear, grounding optimism in science, collective action, and moral resolve rather than denial.
Ordinary People Matter History often turns not on heroes or villains, but on everyday people, bureaucrats, scientists, neighbors, who do the right thing at critical moments.
Utopia as Process A better future isn’t a flawless destination, but a continual movement toward less suffering, greater justice, and deeper solidarity.
The Sacredness of the Biosphere Care for the planet is not just technical or political work, but a form of devotion rooted in humility, wonder, and reverence for life.
Community Over Individualism Human flourishing depends on shared systems, food, labor, science, and governance that remind us how deeply we rely on one another.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Kim Stanley Robinson
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what i…
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The Subtext: When did U2 Get So Political?
4 maart 2026 · 51 min
With their new EP Days of Ash, U2 turns up the volume on grief, protest, and hope. What exactly are they trying to say? Lees meer
This week on The Subtext, we dive into U2’s new Days of Ash EP. From Holocaust memory and lament in “The Tears of Things,” to Iranian resistance in “Song of the Future,” to questions about politics, rights, and God’s power in “American Obituary,” we explore how theology, politics, and art intertwine in U2’s latest offering to the world.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
Surrender by Bono
Days of Ash - U2
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr
With God on Our Side - Bob Dylan
Stream Savannah's new single "God Have Mercy" (it's beautiful!)
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251: Kim Stanley Robinson: A Novelist Imagines a Livable Future
2 maart 2026 · 52 min
Do you feel the weight of climate dread—and wonder whether hope is still intellectually honest? Lees meer
Acclaimed science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson joins Lee C. Camp to name our shared fear about the future without surrendering to despair. Drawing from The Ministry for the Future, Robinson offers a sober, deeply hopeful vision of change, one rooted not in heroics or denial, but in ordinary people, communal action, and the slow work of making things better. Together they explore how science, faith, and moral imagination can help us live well, even in a warming world.
Key Ideas:
Hope Without Illusion Robinson shows how genuine hope can coexist with fear, grounding optimism in science, collective action, and moral resolve rather than denial.
Ordinary People Matter History often turns not on heroes or villains, but on everyday people, bureaucrats, scientists, neighbors, who do the right thing at critical moments.
Utopia as Process A better future isn’t a flawless destination, but a continual movement toward less suffering, greater justice, and deeper solidarity.
The Sacredness of the Biosphere Care for the planet is not just technical or political work, but a form of devotion rooted in humility, wonder, and reverence for life.
Community Over Individualism Human flourishing depends on shared systems, food, labor, science, and governance that remind us how deeply we rely on one another.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Kim Stanley Robinson
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leadi…
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250: Unabridged Interview: Paul Rosolie
27 februari 2026 · 1 uur 8 min
This is our unabridged interview with Paul Rosolie. Lees meer
He’s been dragged through the Amazon on the back of a giant anaconda, stood in seventy-foot flames trying to save burning animals, and slept on jungle floors for decades to protect a forest most of us will never see.
Conservationist and author Paul Rosolie joins Lee C. Camp to tell the extraordinary story of how a dyslexic kid from Brooklyn followed a calling into the Amazon rainforest — and gave his life to protecting it. From near-death encounters and viral moments to faith, sacrifice, and hope, this conversation explores what it truly takes to change the world and why the future of human flourishing is inseparable from the fate of the wild.
Key Ideas:
-Answer the Call: Paul’s life shows how vocation often begins not with credentials, but with saying yes to the next faithful step placed before you.
-Love What You Protect: Conservation, Paul argues, is not driven by ideology but by intimacy — knowing rivers, animals, and people well enough to fight for them.
-Stay Human in Crisis: Facing ecological collapse without despair requires resisting cynicism and choosing hope as a disciplined, courageous act.
-Courage Is Costly: Following a true calling often demands sacrifice — financial, relational, and personal — but meaning grows precisely in that cost.
-The World Is Connected: The Amazon is not “out there”; it regulates climate, water, and life everywhere, binding New York, Bangalore, and the jungle canopy together.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Paul Rosolie
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what…
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The Subtext: America’s Next Top Model
25 februari 2026 · 43 min
What does it actually look like to take responsibility when you’ve shaped a culture that harmed people? Is saying “I’m sorry” enough? Lees meer
This week on The Subtext, we revisit the cultural reckoning around America’s Next Top Model and ask what meaningful accountability looks like for those who shaped, and benefited from, harmful beauty standards. Is acknowledging harm enough, or does repentance require repair? Turning to the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, we explore a biblical model of costly repentance that doesn’t just confess wrongdoing but restores what was taken.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Ben Cohen on No Small Endeavor
(don't forget to leave us a review!)
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250: Paul Rosolie: Riding Anacondas and Saving the Amazon
23 februari 2026 · 52 min
He’s been dragged through the Amazon on the back of a giant anaconda, stood in seventy-foot flames trying to save burning animals, and slept on jungle floors for decades to protect a forest most of us will never see. Lees meer
Conservationist and author Paul Rosolie joins Lee C. Camp to tell the extraordinary story of how a dyslexic kid from Brooklyn followed a calling into the Amazon rainforest — and gave his life to protecting it. From near-death encounters and viral moments to faith, sacrifice, and hope, this conversation explores what it truly takes to change the world and why the future of human flourishing is inseparable from the fate of the wild.
Key Ideas:
Answer the Call Paul’s life shows how vocation often begins not with credentials, but with saying yes to the next faithful step placed before you.
Love What You Protect Conservation, Paul argues, is not driven by ideology but by intimacy — knowing rivers, animals, and people well enough to fight for them.
Stay Human in Crisis Facing ecological collapse without despair requires resisting cynicism and choosing hope as a disciplined, courageous act.
Courage Is Costly Following a true calling often demands sacrifice — financial, relational, and personal — but meaning grows precisely in that cost.
The World Is Connected The Amazon is not “out there”; it regulates climate, water, and life everywhere, binding New York, Bangalore, and the jungle canopy together.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Paul Rosolie
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thi…
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249: Unabridged Interview: Alexandra Solomon
20 februari 2026 · 1 uur 4 min
This is our unabridged interview with Alexandra Solomon. Lees meer
Is your love life in need of a tune-up? Just in time for Valentine's Day, renowned relationship expert Dr. Alexandra Solomon joins us to share powerful insights from her book, "Loving Bravely." Discover how self-awareness and understanding your past can dramatically improve your present relationships. Dr. Solomon unpacks the secrets to thriving intimacy, from mastering the art of apology to staying truly present with your partner. Plus, get practical tools for navigating the inevitable challenges of long-term love. Tune in for this insightful conversation that will empower you to build stronger, more fulfilling relationships.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Alexandra Solomon
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.
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Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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The Subtext: The Moral Line: Can We Separate Art from the Artist?
18 februari 2026 · 35 min
When the artists, authors, and celebrities we admire disappoint us, where’s the line between appreciating their work and endorsing their behavior? Lees meer
After the Grammys reignited the “stay in your lane” debate, we revisit the question: Do we tell celebrities to be quiet because we don’t want to wrestle with what they believe? A listener email pushes us deeper, prompting us to ask what we do when artists we admire act immorally or hold views we reject. From Philip Yancey’s recent confession to pop culture figures like Andrew Huberman and Brad Pitt, we explore whether moral failure cancels insight, whether grace eliminates consequences, and how social media tribalism intensifies the dilemma. Can we separate art from the artist? Or are we always participating in what we platform?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
Hunter Biden on the Shawn Ryan Show
You've Got Mail
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For Your Consideration: Lee C. Camp on Theology in the Raw
16 februari 2026 · 1 uur 1 min
This week, we’re sharing a conversation originally recorded for Preston Sprinkle’s podcast, Theology in the Raw. It’s a wide-ranging, thoughtful dialogue that digs into political theology, Christian nationalism, just war theory, technology, and the deeper question underneath it all: Lees meer
What kind of people are we becoming?
Lee joins Preston for an honest and at times searching conversation about the pressures facing the church in our current political and technological moment.
Key Themes:
Christian Nationalism — Then and Now
Why Christian nationalism is not just a “right-wing” problem
The surprising history of progressive Christian nationalism (Woodrow Wilson and World War I)
How allegiance to a nation can distort allegiance to Christ
The church’s temptation to baptize political power
Recovering Forgotten Christian Traditions
The pacifist roots of the Stone-Campbell movement
How World War I reshaped American Christianity
Why most Christians have never actually been taught the Just War tradition
The difference between claiming Just War and being morally formed by it
Violence, War, and Christian Witness
Why the Just War tradition is far more rigorous than most assume
The danger of defaulting to state power without serious moral discernment
What it might mean to “bear witness to the way of Christ” in a violent world
Why the church’s formation matters more than hypothetical “what would you do?” scenarios
Social Media, Anger, and the Business Model of Outrage
How the ad-revenue model rewards anger
Why social platforms amplify division by design
The spiritual consequences of living online
Why disengaging can sometimes be an act of wisdom
Technology, AI, and Moral Formation
Drawing on Jacques Ellul’s concept of “technique”
Why the real question isn’t whether technology is a tool
The deeper question: What kind of character is being formed in us?
Why Christians need to think more seriously about AI and moral responsibility
A Life Without a Cell Phon…
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The Subtext: A Valentine's Day Special
14 februari 2026 · 22 min
Do we have to change something fundamental in ourselves to make a marriage work? In this Valentine's Day special episode of The Subtext, Savannah and Lee discuss the show Couples’ Therapy and the balance between self-betrayal and people-pleasing. And as Stanley Hauerwas says, “Love is not all you need.” Lees meer
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Curt Thompson: The Work Beneath Lasting Love on No Small Endeavor
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248: Unabridged Interview: Curt Thompson
13 februari 2026 · 1 uur 6 min
This is our unabridged interview with Curt Thompson. Lees meer
What if the deepest work of love isn’t finding the right person, but becoming someone who can truly be known?
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Curt Thompson joins Lee C. Camp for a Valentine’s Day conversation about desire, shame, and suffering, and how each shapes our capacity for authentic relationships. Drawing from neuroscience, theology, and lived experience, Dr. Curt Thompson invites us to consider not just what we want, but who we are becoming as we pursue it. This episode explores how being seen, staying present, and walking together through pain can open the way to healing, beauty, and human flourishing.
Key Ideas:
Desire Shapes Us Our longings are not just about what we want, but about the kind of people we become in the pursuit of those wants.
Learn to Be Seen The human need to be known and soothed never disappears, and our healing begins when we risk letting others see the parts we try hardest to hide.
Name Shame Honestly Shame thrives in secrecy, but loses its power when the truth of our lives is spoken and met with presence rather than abandonment.
Heal in Community Transformation happens when others see the worst of us, and remain, helping us reconnect to ourselves and one another.
Suffering with Meaning Pain does not have the final word. When shared and honored, suffering can become a crucible that forms wisdom, compassion, and courage.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Curt Thompson
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers a…
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The Subtext: Super Bowl Official Playlist
11 februari 2026 · 47 min
This week on The Subtext, Lee and Savannah break down the rival Super Bowl halftime shows. From Bad Bunny’s vibrant homage to Puerto Rican culture and global pop influence to an “All American” showcase filled with country anthems and faith imagery, these events turned into a mirror for something much bigger. Beneath the spectacle, they explore what these shows say about who we are, who we think we are, and who gets to define what “America” means. Lees meer
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248: Curt Thompson: The Work Beneath Lasting Love
9 februari 2026 · 51 min
What if the deepest work of love isn’t finding the right person, but becoming someone who can truly be known? Lees meer
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Curt Thompson joins Lee C. Camp for a Valentine’s Day conversation about desire, shame, and suffering, and how each shapes our capacity for authentic relationships. Drawing from neuroscience, theology, and lived experience, Dr. Curt Thompson invites us to consider not just what we want, but who we are becoming as we pursue it. This episode explores how being seen, staying present, and walking together through pain can open the way to healing, beauty, and human flourishing.
Key Ideas:
Desire Shapes Us Our longings are not just about what we want, but about the kind of people we become in the pursuit of those wants.
Learn to Be Seen The human need to be known and soothed never disappears, and our healing begins when we risk letting others see the parts we try hardest to hide.
Name Shame Honestly Shame thrives in secrecy, but loses its power when the truth of our lives is spoken and met with presence rather than abandonment.
Heal in Community Transformation happens when others see the worst of us, and remain, helping us reconnect to ourselves and one another.
Suffering with Meaning Pain does not have the final word. When shared and honored, suffering can become a crucible that forms wisdom, compassion, and courage.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Curt Thompson
Thank you to our sponsors:
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the so…
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The Subtext: Rent Free: All is Fair in Love And (Culture) War
6 februari 2026 · 52 min
This episode has been living rent-free in our heads leading up to the Super Bowl, so we're dropping it back in your feed. Lees meer
What does it mean when the Super Bowl Halftime Show has become a front line in the latest culture wars?
When Turning Point USA launches an “All-American Halftime Show” to rival Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance, it’s more than a musical critique; it’s a signal of a culture war. In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack why something as ordinary as a halftime show can feel like a referendum on faith, family, and freedom. From the backlash that followed Reconstruction to Reagan’s alliance with the religious right, to today’s debates over gender, race, and education, the culture wars have always been about who stays in power. How can we interact with culture wars better? How should we treat “hot topic” issues?
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Revisionist History: The Alabama Murders
The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton
James by Percival Everett
All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
Awake by Jen Hatmaker
The Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi
The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin
Bad Faith by Randall Balmer
Mere Discipleship by Lee C. Camp
All the Buried Women podcast
Ed Larson on No Small Endeavor
Randall Balmer on No Small Endeavor
Garrett Graff on No Small Endeavor
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247: Unabridged Interview: Judith Moskowitz
6 februari 2026 · 1 uur
This is our unabridged interview with Judith Moskowitz. Lees meer
Judith Moskowitz didn’t begin her research career to prove people could thrive in the middle of devastating grief. But that’s where her work led.
In the 1990s, Moskowitz was part of a research team studying men caring for partners dying of AIDS. As expected, participants described the overwhelming stress and sorrow. But then something unexpected happened: they asked why no one was asking about the good things in their lives.
Judith Moskowitz has spent decades studying the emotional lives of people under intense life stress. In this episode, she joins host Lee C. Camp for a deeply practical conversation about emotional nuance, the science of positive psychology, and eight research-backed practices anyone can use to increase positive emotion and foster flourishing relationships, even when life is hard.
Key Ideas
Hold Joy and Sorrow Together Even under extreme stress, positive emotions can coexist with grief and fear—and this emotional diversity strengthens our capacity to cope.
Let Emotions Inform You Negative emotions are not enemies to eliminate but signals that offer information about what matters and where change is needed.
Notice What Still Shines Learning to notice small positive events—even fleeting ones—can meaningfully increase well-being during difficult seasons.
Practice Gentle Awareness Mindful, non-judgmental attention to emotions helps people recognize their inner life without shame or suppression.
Choose Compassion Daily Small acts of kindness and self-compassion can interrupt stress cycles and reconnect us to the common good.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Judith Moskowitz
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Dr. Lee Warren: You’re Not Stuck With the Mind You Have
4 februari 2026 · 18 min
You’re not stuck with the mind you have. Lees meer
In this episode of No Small Endeavor, Lee C. Camp speaks with Dr. Lee Warren, neurosurgeon, Iraq War veteran, and author of The Life-Changing Art of Self Brain Surgery, about a hopeful but challenging idea:
your mind and your brain are not the same thing.
Drawing on neuroscience, faith, and his own experience with trauma and grief, Dr. Warren explores why change is still possible, even when old patterns feel permanent, and what it looks like to reclaim agency over how we respond.
This episode is a preview of a longer conversation.
The full discussion is available in the NSE+ community.👉 Join NSE+ HERE
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The Subtext: Bet on It
4 februari 2026 · 41 min
What happens when betting, profit, and addiction blur into everyday life? Lees meer
Sports betting has moved from the margins into everyday life. It is dominating our phones, our sports, and even our teenagers. In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack how legalized gambling and prediction markets are shaping culture, forming us, and turning everything from sports to politics into a commodity.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Against the Rules Season 5 with Michael Lewis
More from Michael Lewis
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247: Judith Moskowitz: How to Flourish Amidst Stress (Best of NSE)
2 februari 2026 · 52 min
Judith Moskowitz didn’t begin her research career to prove people could thrive in the middle of devastating grief. But that’s where her work led. Lees meer
In the 1990s, Moskowitz was part of a research team studying men caring for partners dying of AIDS. As expected, participants described the overwhelming stress and sorrow. But then something unexpected happened: they asked why no one was asking about the good things in their lives.
Judith Moskowitz has spent decades studying the emotional lives of people under intense life stress. In this episode, she joins host Lee C. Camp for a deeply practical conversation about emotional nuance, the science of positive psychology, and eight research-backed practices anyone can use to increase positive emotion and foster flourishing relationships, even when life is hard.
Key Ideas
Hold Joy and Sorrow Together Even under extreme stress, positive emotions can coexist with grief and fear—and this emotional diversity strengthens our capacity to cope.
Let Emotions Inform You Negative emotions are not enemies to eliminate but signals that offer information about what matters and where change is needed.
Notice What Still Shines Learning to notice small positive events—even fleeting ones—can meaningfully increase well-being during difficult seasons.
Practice Gentle Awareness Mindful, non-judgmental attention to emotions helps people recognize their inner life without shame or suppression.
Choose Compassion Daily Small acts of kindness and self-compassion can interrupt stress cycles and reconnect us to the common good.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Judith Moskowitz
Join our subscriber-only community called NSE+ BY CLICKING HERE
Get ad-free listening, great member-only bonus content, and early access to tickets for our live shows. AND, you're helping make NSE sustainable by becoming a member!
No Small Endeavor: An award winning podcast exploring what it means to live a good life, with thought provok…
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245: Unabridged Interview: Rumman Chowdhury
30 januari 2026 · 1 uur 8 min
This is our unabridged interview with Rumman Chowdhury. Lees meer
What if the greatest danger of artificial intelligence isn’t what it might do someday, but the power it already wields today?
Social scientist and AI ethics leader Dr. Rumman Chowdhury joins Lee C. Camp to challenge popular narratives about artificial intelligence, arguing that the real story is not superintelligence or apocalypse, but power, incentives, and responsibility. Drawing on her work at Twitter and her nonprofit Humane Intelligence, Chowdhury explores how systems of surveillance, corporate profit, and moral outsourcing shape our technological future and what it will take to build AI that serves authentic human flourishing.
Key Ideas:
Learn to Ask “Who Benefits?”Behind every AI system are incentive structures and power arrangements within for-profit companies. Cultivating the habit of asking who gains and who pays the cost helps us see technology more truthfully.
Refuse to Blame the MachineCalling harm “the AI’s fault” allows humans and institutions to evade responsibility, so ethical clarity begins by keeping people accountable.
Pay Attention to What’s Already HereFears about future AI apocalypse distract us from the real effects already shaping culture, labor, democracy, and community right now.
Be Wary of Convenience That Watches YouSurveillance almost always arrives disguised as safety or ease, but recognizing how data collection concentrates power helps us protect human dignity and freedom.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Rumman Chowdhury
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The Subtext: Celebrities Should Stay in Their Lane
28 januari 2026 · 51 min
Should celebrities “stay in their lane” when it comes to political or moral matters? Who gets to speak in public, and why do we only object when it makes us uncomfortable? Lees meer
When Mark Ruffalo spoke out at the Golden Globes about American politics, some applauded his honesty while others told him to “stay in his lane.” In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack why celebrity activism is celebrated by some and condemned by others, exposing the double standards around fame, faith, politics, and who we think is allowed to speak in public.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Down There by the Train by Tom Waits
Come On Up To The House by Tom Waits
Tehran on Apple TV
Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ by John Bunyan
The One On The Right Is On The Left Live at the Ryman Auditorium by Johnny Cash
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245: Rumman Chowdhury: Why the Real AI Crisis Is Moral, Not Technical
26 januari 2026 · 52 min
What if the greatest danger of artificial intelligence isn’t what it might do someday, but the power it already wields today? Lees meer
Social scientist and AI ethics leader Dr. Rumman Chowdhury joins Lee C. Camp to challenge popular narratives about artificial intelligence, arguing that the real story is not superintelligence or apocalypse, but power, incentives, and responsibility. Drawing on her work at Twitter and her nonprofit Humane Intelligence, Chowdhury explores how systems of surveillance, corporate profit, and moral outsourcing shape our technological future and what it will take to build AI that serves authentic human flourishing.
Key Ideas:
Learn to Ask “Who Benefits?”Behind every AI system are incentive structures and power arrangements within for-profit companies. Cultivating the habit of asking who gains and who pays the cost helps us see technology more truthfully.
Refuse to Blame the MachineCalling harm “the AI’s fault” allows humans and institutions to evade responsibility, so ethical clarity begins by keeping people accountable.
Pay Attention to What’s Already HereFears about future AI apocalypse distract us from the real effects already shaping culture, labor, democracy, and community right now.
Be Wary of Convenience That Watches YouSurveillance almost always arrives disguised as safety or ease, but recognizing how data collection concentrates power helps us protect human dignity and freedom.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Rumman Chowdhury
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
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246: Unabridged Interview: Amishi Jha
23 januari 2026 · 1 uur 11 min
This is our unabridged interview with Amishi Jha. Lees meer
Is it possible that for half of our waking life, we are not paying attention to what we’re doing?
In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, many of us are coming to terms with the fact that our capacity for paying attention is laughably weak. Our work, mental health, and relationships suffer because of it. But what if there was a tried-and-true way to change this, something like “push-ups for your brain?”
Neuroscientist Amishi Jha has dedicated her career to studying this question, and the results are in. In this episode, she describes the practice of mindfulness meditation - why it can work for everyone (not just the spiritual folks), and how it only takes 12 minutes each day to reach one’s “Peak Mind.”
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Amishi Jha
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
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Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at piperandleaf.com
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.
Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host L…
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The Subtext: If You’re Not Terrified, You’re Not Paying Attention
21 januari 2026 · 43 min
When fear becomes the price of being “informed,” how do we tell the difference between paying attention and being emotionally hijacked? Lees meer
After a trio of viral Threads posts seem to declare that terror is the only appropriate response to our moment, we dig into how social media turns unprocessed fear into a public spectacle, and why outrage and panic are increasingly treated as signs of intelligence or moral seriousness. Drawing on mental health research, media studies, and theology, we ask whether constant distress actually helps us engage the world more faithfully or quietly numbs our capacity for compassion and action.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Books + Articles:
We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat
Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Night by Elie Wiesel
A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly
Media and compassion after digital war: Why digital media haven't transformed responses to human suffering in contemporary conflict by Andrew Hoskins
We Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi
Shows + Movies:
Run Away on Netflix
Stranger Things on Netflix
The Prince of Egypt
Songs + Podcasts:
If You Believe by Rachael Lampa (A Walk to Remember Soundtrack)
Dare You To Move by Switchfoot (A Walk to Remember Soundtrack)
Musa al-Gharbi interview on No Small Endeavor
Munther Isaac interview on No Small Endeavor
Follow No Small Endeavor to be notified when Lee's episode with Kim Stanley Robinson drops!
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246: Amishi Jha: Push-ups for Your Brain (Best of NSE)
19 januari 2026 · 52 min
Is it possible that for half of our waking life, we are not paying attention to what we’re doing? Lees meer
In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, many of us are coming to terms with the fact that our capacity for paying attention is laughably weak. Our work, mental health, and relationships suffer because of it. But what if there was a tried-and-true way to change this, something like “push-ups for your brain?”
Neuroscientist Amishi Jha has dedicated her career to studying this question, and the results are in. In this episode, she describes the practice of mindfulness meditation - why it can work for everyone (not just the spiritual folks), and how it only takes 12 minutes each day to reach one’s “Peak Mind.”
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Amishi Jha
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
AquaTru: Go to AquaTru.com and use promo code NSE
Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at piperandleaf.com
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.
Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a profe…
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244: Unabridged Interview: Malcolm Gladwell
16 januari 2026 · 1 uur 9 min
This is our unabridged interview with Malcolm Gladwell. Lees meer
What causes suffering in our society? Intentional evil? Or something less apparent and possibly more unsettling—indifference?
In this conversation, master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell and host Lee C. Camp explore the moral power of storytelling in light of Gladwell’s latest Revisionist History series, The Alabama Murders. What begins as a devastating true crime account of a 1988 murder in northwestern Alabama unfolds into something far more unsettling: a decades-long moral failure cascade marked not by villainy alone, but by indifference.
Malcolm corresponded and interviewed Lee for the series to understand the religious and cultural context of the narrative. Together, they examine how stories can awaken our capacity to see, care, and imagine a different world.
Key Ideas:
How Story Can Awaken Moral Vision Stories do moral work by helping us see what we have learned to accept as normal—and revealing it instead as a distortion.
Good Stories Betray Expectations Well Powerful stories disrupt our predictions about the world, forcing us to imagine alternative possibilities for justice and goodness.
Take Indifference Seriously Drawing on the insight that “sin is often a failure to bother to care”, Gladwell argues that indifference may be the defining moral danger of modern life.
Honor Beauty Without Blindness Truthful storytelling can hold together love for communities and traditions while honestly naming the harm they sometimes produce.
Forgiveness Should Have an Action Is forgiveness without action actually forgiveness?
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Malcolm Gladwell
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
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The Subtext: Secret Episode of Stranger Things
14 januari 2026 · 44 min
What do Stranger Things conspiracy theories, failed prophecies, and religious history have in common? A deep human struggle to face disappointment without rewriting reality. Lees meer
After the finale, many Stranger Things fans convinced themselves a secret ninth episode was hiding in plain sight. In this episode, Lee and Savannah use “Conformity Gate” as a surprisingly rich case study in how humans respond to disappointment and unmet expectations. From the Great Disappointment of 1844 to classic research on cognitive dissonance, we explore why people so often reinterpret failure instead of accepting it.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter
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244: Malcolm Gladwell: What a True Crime Reveals About the Sin of Indifference
12 januari 2026 · 51 min
What causes suffering in our society? Intentional evil? Or something less apparent and possibly more unsettling—indifference? Lees meer
In this conversation, master storyteller Malcolm Gladwell and host Lee C. Camp explore the moral power of storytelling in light of Gladwell’s latest Revisionist History series, The Alabama Murders. What begins as a devastating true crime account of a 1988 murder in northwestern Alabama unfolds into something far more unsettling: a decades-long moral failure cascade marked not by villainy alone, but by indifference.
Malcolm corresponded and interviewed Lee for the series to understand the religious and cultural context of the narrative. Together, they examine how stories can awaken our capacity to see, care, and imagine a different world.
Key Ideas:
How Story Can Awaken Moral Vision Stories do moral work by helping us see what we have learned to accept as normal—and revealing it instead as a distortion.
Good Stories Betray Expectations Well Powerful stories disrupt our predictions about the world, forcing us to imagine alternative possibilities for justice and goodness.
Take Indifference Seriously Drawing on the insight that “sin is often a failure to bother to care”, Gladwell argues that indifference may be the defining moral danger of modern life.
Honor Beauty Without Blindness Truthful storytelling can hold together love for communities and traditions while honestly naming the harm they sometimes produce.
Forgiveness Should Have an Action Is forgiveness without action actually forgiveness?
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Malcolm Gladwell
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
AquaTru: Go to AquaTru.com and use promo code NSE
Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Cal…
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243: Unabridged Interview: Carlos Whittaker
9 januari 2026 · 1 uur 5 min
This is our unabridged interview with Carlos Whittaker. Lees meer
Carlos Whittaker was spending the equivalent of 100 full days a year on his phone.
You might not be far behind.
Carlos—an author and social media influencer who has raised millions for charity online—realized he was scrolling his life away. So he tried something drastic. In his book Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human, he recounts the experiment that changed everything: seven weeks completely unplugged.
The results were startling. According to before-and-after brain scans and cognitive testing from Dr. Daniel Amen, Carlos’ cognitive performance shot from the 50th percentile to the 99th, and his cerebellum showed the equivalent of five years of healing. But the deeper transformation happened in the quiet space that screens had been drowning out.
He relearned how to wonder—at a monk’s prompting to “behold,” he climbed a mountain, then later found himself lying on the ground studying a single roly-poly. He picked up life-altering questions from Amish communities about when to embrace or reject new technology. He rediscovered the simple joy of savoring a cup of coffee.
If you feel fogged, distracted, or numb from living through a screen, this episode might be the reset you need.
Key Ideas
How do you decide whether to adopt new technology? The Amish ask one clarifying question: “Will this bring us closer together or drive us further apart?”
When was the last time you wondered about anything? With answers always seconds away, we’ve lost the mental and spiritual muscle of curiosity—along with the connection and clarity it creates.
Tech isn’t neutral. It’s shaping our brains. After seven screen-free weeks, Carlos’ memory score jumped from the 50th to the 99th percentile, and his cerebellum showed dramatic healing.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Carlos Whittaker
Thank you to our sponsors:
K…
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The Subtext: Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man
7 januari 2026 · 51 min
In the first episode of 2026, we are diving into Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what it reveals about faith, leadership, hypocrisy, presence, and how competing visions of Christianity shape real people and communities. Lees meer
In this episode of The Subtext, we dive beneath the mystery of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to explore what the film exposes about faith, church culture, power, and human nature. Through the contrast of Father Jud’s vision for self-giving love and Monsignor Wicks’ manipulative, rage-driven religiosity, we unpack themes of projection and hypocrisy, insecure versus secure spiritual leadership, and how love shows up through presence. We also read critiques that the film presents two “toothless” versions of Christianity and ask what the story ultimately suggests about God, church, and culture wars.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
The Gospel Coalition "2 Corrupted Christianities in ‘Wake Up Dead Man’"
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen
Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing by Hillary L. McBride
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243: Carlos Whittaker: How to Get Off Your Screen and Into Your Life
5 januari 2026 · 52 min
Carlos Whittaker was spending the equivalent of 100 full days a year on his phone. Lees meer
You might not be far behind.
Carlos—an author and social media influencer who has raised millions for charity online—realized he was scrolling his life away. So he tried something drastic. In his book Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human, he recounts the experiment that changed everything: seven weeks completely unplugged.
The results were startling. According to before-and-after brain scans and cognitive testing from Dr. Daniel Amen, Carlos’ cognitive performance shot from the 50th percentile to the 99th, and his cerebellum showed the equivalent of five years of healing. But the deeper transformation happened in the quiet space that screens had been drowning out.
He relearned how to wonder—at a monk’s prompting to “behold,” he climbed a mountain, then later found himself lying on the ground studying a single roly-poly. He picked up life-altering questions from Amish communities about when to embrace or reject new technology. He rediscovered the simple joy of savoring a cup of coffee.
If you feel fogged, distracted, or numb from living through a screen, this episode might be the reset you need.
Key Ideas
How do you decide whether to adopt new technology? The Amish ask one clarifying question: “Will this bring us closer together or drive us further apart?”
When was the last time you wondered about anything? With answers always seconds away, we’ve lost the mental and spiritual muscle of curiosity—along with the connection and clarity it creates.
Tech isn’t neutral. It’s shaping our brains. After seven screen-free weeks, Carlos’ memory score jumped from the 50th to the 99th percentile, and his cerebellum showed dramatic healing.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Carlos Whittaker
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use co…
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242: Unabridged Interview: Charles Duhigg
2 januari 2026 · 55 min
This is our unabridged interview with Charles Duhigg. Lees meer
What if the biggest lever to your happiness isn’t found in your big decisions, but in the small, automatic things you do every day?
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg joins Lee C. Camp to explore how habits quietly shape our character, our choices, and our capacity for authentic human flourishing. Drawing on Aristotle, neuroscience, and his book The Power of Habit, Duhigg unpacks the classic “cue–routine–reward” loop, keystone habits, and why willpower alone so often fails us. He then turns to his book Supercommunicators to show how changing the way we speak and listen can transform our relationships, our communities, and our search for meaning and purpose.
Key Ideas:
Habits shape character: How Aristotle’s vision of virtue and excellence as “what we repeatedly do” connects with modern habit science and the quest for a flourishing, ethical life.
The roadmap of habit formation: The habit loop of cue, routine, and reward—and why lasting change comes not from white-knuckled willpower, but from redesigning our cues and rewards to support authentic living and habits for happiness.
Keystone habits lead to other better habits: Keystone habits like exercise, making your bed, or food journaling that trigger chain reactions in finances, procrastination, self-control, and our sense of identity and agency.
Classifying types of conversations can help you connect: From Supercommunicators: the three kinds of conversations (practical, emotional, social), the “Matching Principle,” and the looping-for-understanding practice that can heal conflict, deepen empathy, and nurture flourishing relationships.
Understanding cues for connection: How laughter, curiosity, and deep questions signal “I want to connect with you,” and why Duhigg believes anyone can learn practices of communication that contribute to the common good and true happiness.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcrip…
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242: Charles Duhigg: Why Habits Matter More Than You Think for Meaningful Living (Best of NSE)
29 december 2025 · 51 min
What if the biggest lever to your happiness isn’t found in your big decisions, but in the small, automatic things you do every day? Lees meer
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Charles Duhigg joins Lee C. Camp to explore how habits quietly shape our character, our choices, and our capacity for authentic human flourishing. Drawing on Aristotle, neuroscience, and his book The Power of Habit, Duhigg unpacks the classic “cue–routine–reward” loop, keystone habits, and why willpower alone so often fails us. He then turns to his book Supercommunicators to show how changing the way we speak and listen can transform our relationships, our communities, and our search for meaning and purpose.
Key Ideas:
Habits shape character: How Aristotle’s vision of virtue and excellence as “what we repeatedly do” connects with modern habit science and the quest for a flourishing, ethical life.
The roadmap of habit formation: The habit loop of cue, routine, and reward—and why lasting change comes not from white-knuckled willpower, but from redesigning our cues and rewards to support authentic living and habits for happiness.
Keystone habits lead to other better habits: Keystone habits like exercise, making your bed, or food journaling that trigger chain reactions in finances, procrastination, self-control, and our sense of identity and agency.
You should experiment with your life: The difference between stated and revealed preferences: why we can sincerely want to live with purpose and yet keep acting against our own values—and how gentle “self-experiments” help align our behavior with our deepest commitments.
Classifying types of conversations can help you connect: From Supercommunicators: the three kinds of conversations (practical, emotional, social), the “Matching Principle,” and the looping-for-understanding practice that can heal conflict, deepen empathy, and nurture flourishing relationships.
Understanding cues for connection: How laughter, curiosity, and deep qu…
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241: Unabridged Interview: Sharon McMahon
26 december 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
This is our unabridged interview with Sharon McMahon. Lees meer
Have you ever wished someone would explain the inner workings of America’s political landscape — without taking sides or fueling the outrage machine?
With over 1.3 million Instagram followers, Sharon McMahon, known affectionately as “America’s Government Teacher,” has spent her career doing exactly that. Drawing from her roots in public education, Sharon rose to prominence on social media during the chaotic 2020 election season. Her clear, fact-based explanations of complex government processes have garnered her a loyal following of self-proclaimed “Governerds,” and today, her teaching reaches millions through her acclaimed podcast, Here's Where It Gets Interesting, her best-selling book The Small and the Mighty, and The Preamble, one of America's most widely-read nonpartisan newsletters. In this thoughtful conversation, Sharon reflects on the transformative power of education, the urgent need for informed civic participation, and the hopeful possibilities that emerge when we approach politics not as partisan warriors but as compassionate, curious learners.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript for abridged episode with Sharon McMahon
Thank you to our sponsors:
Ka’Chava: Go to https://kachava.com and use code NSE for 15% off your next order
Boll and Branch: Get 20% off plus free shipping by visiting BollAndBranch.com/NSE
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Piper and Leaf: Get a 10% off discount to the Advent Calendar by using my code 'NSE' at piperandleaf.com
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241: What Stayed With Us: Conversations That Shaped 2025
22 december 2025 · 53 min
Some moments stay with us long after the episode ends. In this special episode, Lee C. Camp and Jakob Lewis revisit the conversations from 2025 that changed them—clips that still echo with courage, tenderness, and the invitation to live well. Lees meer
Key Ideas:
Focus on What You Can Do. Sharon McMahon reminds us that while none of us can fix everything, each of us can meaningfully contribute to the common good through small, faithful actions.
Reclaim Trust in Your Body. Jen Hatmaker’s story shows how healing from spiritual shame begins with listening again to our intuition, our bodies, and the wisdom we were taught to doubt.
Let Small Words Change You. Terrence Lester’s life was redirected by a single affirmation from an unhoused stranger—revealing how everyday encounters can spark courage, purpose, and justice.
Stay Human in an AI World. Baratunde Thurston and Astro Teller explore how technology invites us to ask what is uniquely human—and why deep community and local practice matter more than big “moonshot” fixes.
Rewrite Your Inner Story. Sheryl Crow’s vulnerable reflections show how naming early wounds and dismantling shame can help us live more authentically, with freedom and grounded joy.
Tend Your Own Small Garden. In previewing The Subtext, Savannah Locke and Lee C. Camp offer a hopeful vision: in a complex world, flourishing begins with the corner of the world that’s ours to steward.
Show Notes, Resources and Transcript
Thank you to our sponsors:
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240: Unabridged Interview: Munther Isaac
19 december 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
This is our unabridged interview with Munther Isaac. Lees meer
Imagine you're in charge of pastoring a congregation amidst a war. What does it mean to love your enemies when violence is outside your window, and visceral images of your congregation’s devastation fill your phone? How would you find hope and carry on?
Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac joins Lee C. Camp from his home in the West Bank to discuss his book Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza. Drawing from his experience shepherding congregations through two years of war, Munther reflects on grief, anger, and the moral danger of becoming numb to suffering, while still insisting on nonviolence, justice, and the stubborn call to love of enemy. This conversation wrestles with the collision of politics and theology, the misuse of religious language, and what authentic human flourishing, meaning, and courage can look like in the midst of rubble.
Key Ideas:
Christ also asked where God was amidst suffering. Munther insists that, in Gaza’s devastation, God is not distant but present “under the rubble,” with the oppressed, displaced, and grieving.
Nonviolence and creative resistance are needed to break cycles of violence. What it means for a Palestinian pastor to reject terrorism and militarism, yet still speak of “creative resistance in the logic of love” as a practice of justice, courage, and meaningful living.
Language can be used to warp our imagination. How labels like “terrorism” and “self-defense” can distort moral vision, and why Munther believes reclaiming moral language is essential to the common good and the search for meaning and purpose.
To stop loving is to lose our humanity. Munther’s insistence that true happiness and well-being require refusing to dehumanize even one’s enemies.
Religious imagination has real-world implications. Theological worldviews often shape policy, war, and public imagination. Munthers asks, what might it mean for theology and culture to serv…
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The Subtext: We Are (Estranged) Family
17 december 2025 · 48 min
Family estrangement is rising, but the cultural story behind it is far more complex than “cutting off toxic people.” In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack the social, psychological, and technological shifts that quietly reshaped our expectations of family. and why forgiveness, repair, and humility might be the most countercultural practices left. Lees meer
In this episode, Savannah and Lee dig into the cultural forces behind the surge in family estrangement, from postmodern distrust of authority to therapy-speak, safetyism, digital overwhelm, and the luxury of disconnection. Drawing on Rachel Haack’s Substack newsletter, they explore how concept creep, para-connection, and wealth have shaped our expectations of parents, children, and in-laws, and why privilege can make cutting off family easier than repairing them. Together they reflect on the emotional weight, legitimate complexities, and real pain inside estrangement, before ending with a conversation on forgiveness…not as excusing harm, but as a courageous path towards freedom.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Labubu Pendant Blind Box
James by Percival Everett
Why Everyone’s Cutting Everyone Off: The Cultural Story Behind Family Estrangement
David Schnarch's books
That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation by David Bentley Hart
The Pastor: A Crisis by Bradley Jersak and Wm. Paul Young
Why Concepts Creep to the Left by Jonathan Haidt
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Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
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240: Munther Isaac: Palestinian Christian Pastor on War, Hope, and Love
15 december 2025 · 52 min
Imagine you're in charge of pastoring a congregation amidst a war. What does it mean to love your enemies when violence is outside your window, and visceral images of your congregation’s devastation fill your phone? How would you find hope and carry on? Lees meer
Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac joins Lee C. Camp from his home in the West Bank to discuss his book Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza. Drawing from his experience shepherding congregations through two years of war, Munther reflects on grief, anger, and the moral danger of becoming numb to suffering, while still insisting on nonviolence, justice, and the stubborn call to love of enemy. This conversation wrestles with the collision of politics and theology, the misuse of religious language, and what authentic human flourishing, meaning, and courage can look like in the midst of rubble.
Key Ideas:
Christ also asked where God was amidst suffering. Munther insists that, in Gaza’s devastation, God is not distant but present “under the rubble,” with the oppressed, displaced, and grieving.
Nonviolence and creative resistance are needed to break cycles of violence. What it means for a Palestinian pastor to reject terrorism and militarism, yet still speak of “creative resistance in the logic of love” as a practice of justice, courage, and meaningful living.
Language can be used to warp our imagination. How labels like “terrorism” and “self-defense” can distort moral vision, and why Munther believes reclaiming moral language is essential to the common good and the search for meaning and purpose.
To stop loving is to lose our humanity. Munther’s insistence that true happiness and well-being require refusing to dehumanize even one’s enemies, guarding the heart from numbness, and insisting that we are created to love one another.
Religious imagination has real-world implications. Theological worldviews often shape policy, war, and public imagination. Munthers asks, what might it me…
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239: Unabridged Interview: Jeff Chu
12 december 2025 · 58 min
This is our unabridged interview with Jeff Chu. Lees meer
Change can come in the most unlikely places. For Jeff Chu, he found meaning and purpose in a pile of compost.
At the peak of his journalism career — writing for Time and Fast Company, perched 29 floors above Manhattan — Jeff Chu stared out his office window and asked a question he could no longer avoid: “What is this all for?” That moment of vocational and existential reckoning set him on an unexpected journey — one that led to Princeton Theological Seminary, a plot of farmland known as the Farminary, and ultimately, to the compost pile that led him to write his book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, which we discuss in today’s episode.
Key Ideas:
The long, honest work of vocational discernment: rage, anxiety, hard conversations with his husband, and the slow dawning realization that questions of calling and authentic living are often answered over years, not days.
Life at the Farminary: learning theology with his hands in the dirt, discovering in the compost pile that what looks like waste and failure can, through community and time, become good soil for new life, faith, and hope.
The practice of attention and slowing down—walking land after a snowfall, watching purple martins swirl over downtown Nashville, greeting a backyard mulberry tree—as a quiet path into wonder, gratitude, and the psychology of well-being in a distracted age.
What gardening teaches about relinquishing control and embracing interdependence: we can plant and tend, but we cannot make a seed grow—an agrarian lens for habit formation, spiritual practices, and surrendering our illusion of power.
Jeff’s journey of belonging as a gay Christian and Chinese American—learning to claim his story, honor his ancestors (and his grandmother’s fried rice), trust that he belongs to God, and extend that belonging outward through friendship, hospitality, and communal care.
Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and find more conve…
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The Subtext: Your Favorite Musician Isn't Real
10 december 2025 · 57 min
AI is reshaping the music industry at a breakneck pace. AI musicians are topping charts, landing record deals, and attracting massive corporate investments. What does this mean for artists? How might this challenge us to think about embodiment, creativity, labor, and what it means to actually be human? Lees meer
When AI musicians start topping the music charts, we’re not just talking about technology. We’re deciding what makes art human, what makes labor fair, and what makes a person irreplaceable.
AI musicians are breaking into the charts, labels are investing heavily in machine-generated artistry, and Christians, creators, and consumers are wrestling with what it means to open ourselves (and industries) to something that isn’t human. In this episode, Savannah and Lee unpack the rise of AI “artists” like Solomon Ray and Breaking Rust and ask how AI might transform our view of embodiment, truthfulness, and creativity.
Listen to our playlist featuring real, human artists:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35w8gz81cYShmsf6T2hshQ?si=t0Ae38obT7q0SSfQfMuo6A
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-subtext-recs/pl.u-6mo44y8imzGlYq
Things we mentioned in this episode:
No Small Endeavor Podcast Recommended Episodes
Lee's books
Jesse Welles
Hillbilly Hymn by Nathan Evans Fox
Savannah's music
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
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239: Jeff Chu: Finding Meaning, Courage, and Beauty in the Dirt
8 december 2025 · 52 min
Change can come in the most unlikely places. For Jeff Chu, he found meaning and purpose in a pile of compost. Lees meer
At the peak of his journalism career — writing for Time and Fast Company, perched 29 floors above Manhattan — Jeff Chu stared out his office window and asked a question he could no longer avoid: “What is this all for?” That moment of vocational and existential reckoning set him on an unexpected journey — one that led to Princeton Theological Seminary, a plot of farmland known as the Farminary, and ultimately, to the compost pile that led him to write his book Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, which we discuss in today’s episode.
Key Ideas:
How Jeff’s successful journalism career left him asking, “What is work for?” and wondering how to live with more meaning and purpose rather than producing a “luxury product” that might vanish without changing anyone’s life.
The long, honest work of vocational discernment: rage, anxiety, hard conversations with his husband, and the slow dawning realization that questions of calling and authentic living are often answered over years, not days.
Life at the Farminary: learning theology with his hands in the dirt, discovering in the compost pile that what looks like waste and failure can, through community and time, become good soil for new life, faith, and hope.
The practice of attention and slowing down—walking land after a snowfall, watching purple martins swirl over downtown Nashville, greeting a backyard mulberry tree—as a quiet path into wonder, gratitude, and the psychology of well-being in a distracted age.
What gardening teaches about relinquishing control and embracing interdependence: we can plant and tend, but we cannot make a seed grow—an agrarian lens for habit formation, spiritual practices, and surrendering our illusion of power.
Jeff’s journey of belonging as a gay Christian and Chinese American—learning to claim his story, honor his ancestors (and his grandmother’s fried rice), trust…
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238: Unabridged Interview: Hillary McBride
5 december 2025 · 1 uur 8 min
This is our unabridged interview with Hillary McBride. Lees meer
At sixteen, Lee C. Camp drove five miles over the speed limit and was seized by terror. In his mind, if he died breaking the law, he was going to hell. That childhood fear, shaped by a theology steeped in shame and judgment, is the kind of spiritual residue clinical psychologist Hillary McBride sees in her work every day.
Clinical psychologist and researcher Hillary McBride joins Lee C. Camp to explore spiritual trauma: how religious ideas, communities, and leaders can wound our deepest sense of self — and how healing becomes possible through embodiment, grief, and honest meaning-making. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma therapy, and her book Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing, Hillary helps us name religious gaslighting, purity culture, and fear-based images of God while offering a path toward authentic human flourishing and more compassionate faith.
Key Ideas:
How Hillary defines trauma as “too much, too fast, too soon” combined with “not enough of what we needed” — and what makes spiritual trauma uniquely complex, especially in high-control religious environments that normalize harm and call it “God’s will.”
The dynamics of spiritual gaslighting: when leaders tell you your heart is deceitful, you can’t trust your own experience, and they alone can interpret God for you — often reinforced with images of hell and eternal punishment as tools of control.
How trauma fragments our sense of connection — to our bodies, to others, to the earth, and to God — and why embodiment, nervous system awareness, and somatic practices are essential for healing, not just “right beliefs” or spiritual practices that bypass our pain.
Why deep therapeutic work is not self-indulgent but a form of love: as we heal perfectionism, shame, and spiritual wounds, we become more able to live with purpose, practice courage and compassion, and participate in the healing of our communities and culture.
…
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The Subtext: Wicked: For Good
3 december 2025 · 55 min
What if the real magic of Wicked isn’t the spells, but the way friendship, shame, and belonging shape who we become? Lees meer
In this episode, Savannah and Lee dive into the deeper themes of Wicked: For Good, from dreams that come true but don’t satisfy, to the power of propaganda, to the power of shame with an in-group/out-group mentality. They also unpack Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship: how Elphaba gives Glinda moral courage and authenticity, and how Glinda gives Elphaba trust, confidence, and a place to be known without performing.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? by Dr. Joshua Bowen
Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr
That All Shall Be Saved by David Bentley Hart
The New Testament: A Translation David Bentley Hart
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
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238: Hillary McBride: Healing the Hidden Wounds of Spiritual Trauma
1 december 2025 · 52 min
At sixteen, Lee C. Camp drove five miles over the speed limit and was seized by terror. In his mind, if he died breaking the law, he was going to hell. That childhood fear, shaped by a theology steeped in shame and judgment, is the kind of spiritual residue clinical psychologist Hillary McBride sees in her work every day. Lees meer
Clinical psychologist and researcher Hillary McBride joins Lee C. Camp to explore spiritual trauma: how religious ideas, communities, and leaders can wound our deepest sense of self — and how healing becomes possible through embodiment, grief, and honest meaning-making. Drawing from neuroscience, trauma therapy, and her book Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing, Hillary helps us name religious gaslighting, purity culture, and fear-based images of God while offering a path toward authentic human flourishing and more compassionate faith.
Key Ideas:
How Hillary defines trauma as “too much, too fast, too soon” combined with “not enough of what we needed” — and what makes spiritual trauma uniquely complex, especially in high-control religious environments that normalize harm and call it “God’s will.”
The dynamics of spiritual gaslighting: when leaders tell you your heart is deceitful, you can’t trust your own experience, and they alone can interpret God for you — often reinforced with images of hell and eternal punishment as tools of control.
How trauma fragments our sense of connection — to our bodies, to others, to the earth, and to God — and why embodiment, nervous system awareness, and somatic practices are essential for healing, not just “right beliefs” or spiritual practices that bypass our pain.
Why deep therapeutic work is not self-indulgent but a form of love: as we heal perfectionism, shame, and spiritual wounds, we become more able to live with purpose, practice courage and compassion, and participate in the healing of our communities and culture.
For more conversations like this, subscribe to No Small …
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237: Unabridged Interview: Tara Brach
28 november 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
This is our unabridged interview with Tara Brach. Lees meer
How do you accept yourself fully, just as you are? And if you did, would you ever grow?
“Being at peace with how we are in the moment is the precondition to transformation,” says psychologist and meditation teacher Tara Brach.
In this episode she provides us with a simple practice to find peace and transformation known by the acronym RAIN.
“We have amazing potential to change some of the habits that cause ourselves or others harm,” she says, “but we won't be able to access that if we're at war with ourselves.” Hear Tara’s stories from a life of practicing mindfulness, putting on display the wisdom and healing that come from pausing to accept the world as it is.
This episode contains a brief mention of disordered eating. If you are in need of support, contact the National Alliance for Eating Disorders at 1-866-662-1235
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Tara Brach
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No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life groun…