No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

What is joy? Is it equatable with happiness, or pleasure, or both? Is it to be found in a career, or a romantic partner, or a religion? And if we were to manage it, would our lives forever be free from sorrow, pain, and suffering? In this episode, two guests discuss joy, describing both what it is and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not. Author and professor Angela Williams Gorrell, who was...

This is our unabridged interview with Karen Korematsu. What is it like to be an Asian American? In light of the beginning of AAPI month, we present a re-airing of our episode from 2021 with Karen Korematsu and Eugene Cho, two Asian-Americans with unique stories of grief and hope. Karen Korematsu tells the story of her father Fred Korematsu, a famed Japanese-American civil rights activist who refus...

What is it like to be an Asian American? In light of the beginning of AAPI month, we present a re-airing of our episode from 2021 with Karen Korematsu and Eugene Cho, two Asian-Americans with unique stories of grief and hope. Karen Korematsu tells the story of her father Fred Korematsu, a famed Japanese-American civil rights activist who refused Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order to report to wh...

Today, we’re sharing a special episode from The Gist—hosted by Mike Pesca. Sir David King, formerly the UK's Government Chief Scientific Adviser, is now the Founder and Chair at Cambridge's Center for Climate Repair. He advocates carbon capture technology as part of the mix of solutions to climate change. Many environmentalists are not sold. Mike Pesca has established a seven-year connection to hi...

This is our unabridged interview with Suzanne Stabile. What is the Enneagram, and how can it help us live a good life? “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. But if that’s true, how are we to go about examining our lives, and what templates or metrics are we to use? One of the best places to start, suggests author and speaker Suzanne Stabile, is the ancient wisdom tool known as...

What is the Enneagram, and how can it help us live a good life? “The unexamined life is not worth living,” said Socrates. But if that’s true, how are we to go about examining our lives, and what templates or metrics are we to use? One of the best places to start, suggests author and speaker Suzanne Stabile, is the ancient wisdom tool known as the Enneagram. What at first glance seems like a Myers-...

This is our unabridged interview with Bill McKibben. “If we are to take heart from the really good things about American history, we have no choice but to reckon first with the dark sides of it,” says Bill McKibben, journalist, author, and activist. One of the most prominent of environmental activists and authors, McKibben also discusses racial justice, the economic impact of suburbanization, and...

Believe it or not, a 2020 PEW study revealed that the most polarized issue in the US is climate change. How did we get here? How have the warnings of climate science been ignored by half the country? How serious is the climate problem, how immediate are the consequences, and what can regular people like us really do about it? In this episode, four voices discuss the subject from all angles. We hea...

This is our unabridged interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama. What if, to be a peacemaker, one might have to wade into trouble and stir the waters oneself? What if, to be a theologian, one might have to leave some of the most troubling questions about God unanswered? What if, to be a poet, one might have to do away with flowery abstraction and accept the nitty-gritty of real life? Pádraig Ó Tuama, host o...

What if, to be a peacemaker, one might have to wade into trouble and stir the waters oneself? What if, to be a theologian, one might have to leave some of the most troubling questions about God unanswered? What if, to be a poet, one might have to do away with flowery abstraction and accept the nitty-gritty of real life? Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the podcast Poetry Unbound from On Being Studios, is...

This is our unabridged interview with Azim Khamisa. How do you forgive the man who killed your son? In 1995, Azim Khamisa’s only son Tariq was shot and killed while delivering a pizza. The killer was a 14-year-old gang member named Tony Hicks, and due to a recent change of law in the state of California, Tony was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But instead of respond...

How do you forgive the man who killed your son? In 1995, Azim Khamisa’s only son Tariq was shot and killed while delivering a pizza. The killer was a 14-year-old gang member named Tony Hicks, and due to a recent change of law in the state of California, Tony was tried as an adult and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But instead of responding with a call for outrage or revenge, Azim did the...

This is our unabridged interview with Dacher Keltner. “Brief doses…help your heart, your immune system, your stress, your reasoning, your relationships,” says psychologist and bestselling author Dacher Keltner. And believe it or not, he’s not describing some new miracle drug or medical treatment. He’s talking about the experience of awe. He defines awe as “the feeling we have when we encounter vas...

“Brief doses…help your heart, your immune system, your stress, your reasoning, your relationships,” says psychologist and bestselling author Dacher Keltner. And believe it or not, he’s not describing some new miracle drug or medical treatment. He’s talking about the experience of awe. He defines awe as “the feeling we have when we encounter vast, mysterious things.” It’s something we all have expe...

This is our unabridged interview with Philip Yancey. What do we do with the painful parts of our life story? Anybody familiar with Philip Yancey’s work knows that it has cost him more than time to be a bestselling author and journalist. It has cost him a lifetime of pain, loss, and deep spiritual struggle. Philip intentionally waited until recently to write down his story to protect some of the pe...

What do we do with the painful parts of our life story? Anybody familiar with Philip Yancey’s work knows that it has cost him more than time to be a bestselling author and journalist. It has cost him a lifetime of pain, loss, and deep spiritual struggle. Philip intentionally waited until recently to write down his story to protect some of the people in it, but now in his seventies, he’s released “...

This is our unabridged interview with Tara Brach. 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...

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...

This is our unabridged interview with Malcolm Gladwell. You may think you know Malcolm Gladwell. He is, after all, a New York Times bestselling author of “Outliers,” “The Tipping Point,” “Blink,” and other books. He’s the host of the wildly popular podcast “Revisionist History.” His work is heralded and his opinion asked by many folks on a wide array of issues. But what makes him so different that...

You may think you know Malcolm Gladwell. He is, after all, a New York Times bestselling author of “Outliers,” “The Tipping Point,” “Blink,” and other books. He’s the host of the wildly popular podcast “Revisionist History.” His work is heralded and his opinion asked by many folks on a wide array of issues. But what makes him so different that he has become one of the most successful journalists of...

This is our unabridged interview with Tim Alberta. At No Small Endeavor, we try to talk about the things that really matter to people. Two such things - politics and religion - are notoriously tricky to discuss without generalizing, proselytizing, or stoking division. But in an election year, we can’t ignore a sub-group in the United States that is adamant about combining faith and nation: Christi...

At No Small Endeavor, we try to talk about the things that really matter to people. Two such things - politics and religion - are notoriously tricky to discuss without generalizing, proselytizing, or stoking division. But in an election year, we can’t ignore a sub-group in the United States that is adamant about combining faith and nation: Christian Nationalists. In this episode, we called in Tim...

This is our unabridged interview with Eboo Patel. “Diversity is a treasure,” says President and Founder of Interfaith America Eboo Patel. But what does “diversity” really mean? The term is found these days in public discourse and political debate, in boardrooms and on athletic fields. But Eboo argues that the way it plays out in the United States often misses the point entirely: instead of honorin...

“Diversity is a treasure,” says President and Founder of Interfaith America Eboo Patel. But what does “diversity” really mean? The term is found these days in public discourse and political debate, in boardrooms and on athletic fields. But Eboo argues that the way it plays out in the United States often misses the point entirely: instead of honoring identity and leaving room for disagreement, we s...

Sharing an episode of Your Mama’s Kitchen, a podcast about cuisine and culture, ingredients and identities, and the meals and memories that make us who we are. Every week, host Michele Norris talks to guests like Michelle Obama, Glennon Doyle, José Andrés and more. Together they explore the complexities of family life and how their earliest culinary experiences helped shape their personal and prof...