No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

How do we learn to live with grief when healing takes longer than we hoped?

Author and advocate Marisa Renee Lee learned about grief early, watching her mother move through years of illness before losing her to cancer. Years later, after becoming a mother herself and developing long COVID, Marisa found herself facing a new kind of uncertainty. One that reshaped her body, her work, and her understanding of hope. In this conversation, she reflects on grief, chronic illness, faith, joy, and the healing that becomes possible when we stop pretending we can carry everything alone.

Key ideas in this episode:

Choose Realistic Hope Hope does not have to mean pretending everything will be fine; it can mean committing to the next faithful action toward a better place.

Make Space to Heal Marisa challenges a productivity-driven culture by reminding us that grief, illness, and uncertainty require time, attention, and real support.

Ask for Help Healing becomes possible when we name our limits honestly and let other people carry pieces of the burden with us.

Let Joy Do Its Work Laughter, beauty, concerts, television, family stories, and small daily pleasures can create room for the brain and body to process pain.

Honor the Body’s Grief Loss is not just emotional; grief can affect the brain, weaken the immune system, and make ordinary tasks feel impossible.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Marisa Renee Lee⁠⁠

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, religion and spirituality, 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 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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This is our unabridged interview with Hunter Prosper.

What happens when caring for others costs you the ability to feel?

During the COVID pandemic, Hunter spent his days caring for critically ill patients in the ICU. Over time, the emotional weight became overwhelming. He found himself pulling away not only from patients, but from friends, family, and even his own emotions.

Then one day, desperate to reconnect with the world, he walked outside and struck up a conversation with a stranger. That simple interaction eventually became the viral project Stories From A Stranger, a series built around honest conversations with ordinary people about love, fear, meaning, loss, and what it means to be human.

Key Ideas

Silence Can Heal Hunter explains why meaningful listening often requires resisting the urge to interrupt, fix, or fill the silence.

Connection Requires Vulnerability After COVID burnout left him emotionally numb, Hunter discovered that healing meant risking closeness again instead of avoiding it.

Every Person Wants To Be Seen From ICU patients to strangers in the park, Hunter’s work reveals how deeply people long to feel heard and understood.

Shared Emotions Unite Us While our stories differ, Hunter argues that emotions like grief, anxiety, love, and hope connect every human being.

Authenticity Builds Confidence Hunter reflects on how embracing vulnerability — rather than performing strength — made him more grounded and secure in himself.

Conversation Can Restore Humanity Through thousands of interviews, Hunter has learned that authentic conversation can transform loneliness into community and fear into compassion.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Hunter Prosper⁠

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, religion and spirituality, 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 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 ⁠⁠⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a cage fight lands on the White House lawn, it's worth asking… what exactly are we celebrating?

On June 14, 2026 (Flag Day, Trump's 80th birthday, and the eve of America's 250th anniversary) the White House South Lawn will host something it never has before: a UFC cage fight. We're going beneath the spectacle to ask what it actually means when the symbols we use to celebrate a nation reveal something uncomfortable about who that nation has become.

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

Kin by Tayari Jones

Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok

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What happens when caring for others costs you the ability to feel?

During the COVID pandemic, Hunter spent his days caring for critically ill patients in the ICU. Over time, the emotional weight became overwhelming. He found himself pulling away not only from patients, but from friends, family, and even his own emotions.

Then one day, desperate to reconnect with the world, he walked outside and struck up a conversation with a stranger. That simple interaction eventually became the viral project Stories From A Stranger, a series built around honest conversations with ordinary people about love, fear, meaning, loss, and what it means to be human.

Key Ideas

Silence Can Heal Hunter explains why meaningful listening often requires resisting the urge to interrupt, fix, or fill the silence.

Connection Requires Vulnerability After COVID burnout left him emotionally numb, Hunter discovered that healing meant risking closeness again instead of avoiding it.

Every Person Wants To Be Seen From ICU patients to strangers in the park, Hunter’s work reveals how deeply people long to feel heard and understood.

Shared Emotions Unite Us While our stories differ, Hunter argues that emotions like grief, anxiety, love, and hope connect every human being.

Authenticity Builds Confidence Hunter reflects on how embracing vulnerability — rather than performing strength — made him more grounded and secure in himself.

Conversation Can Restore Humanity Through thousands of interviews, Hunter has learned that authentic conversation can transform loneliness into community and fear into compassion.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Hunter Prosper⁠

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠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, religion and spirituality, 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 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 ⁠⁠⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is our unabridged interview with Norman Wirzba.

How does the pursuit of independence distort our understanding of the good life?

Before Norman Wirzba became a theologian, philosopher, and public intellectual, he was a farm boy in Southern Alberta, waking before sunrise to tend to the land and animals in his care, and he says that these early experiences working with the natural world taught him one essential lesson: life does not exist on our terms.

Now a professor at Duke University working at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and agrarian studies, Norman argues that modern culture has trapped us in an illusion of self-reliance, when the key to a good life may simply require a deeper understanding of our place in what he calls the meshwork world. 

Key Ideas:

See Beyond Self-Sufficiency Norman challenges the modern myth of the isolated individual and invites us to recognize how deeply our lives depend upon others.

Let Care Shape Your Life Farming taught Norman that flourishing begins with patience, attentiveness, and responsibility toward living things.

Rediscover the Sacred Ordinary Everyday realities, from baking a pie to tending animals, become windows into gratitude, beauty, and shared human creativity.

Resist the Culture of Control The pursuit of frictionless living and technological mastery can erode our capacity for compassion, humility, and wonder.

Practice Rest Rest is not just about stopping work, but making time to cherish one another.

⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Norman Wirzba⁠

The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit ⁠IGottaAsk.com⁠ to learn more!

⁠⁠⁠⁠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, religion and spirituality, 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 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 ⁠⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices