What does it mean to live a good life, and how do we start?

 On our show, we make it a habit of repeating our tagline: “Exploring what it means to live a good life.” But in this episode, we address the issue head-on, with the help of Notre Dame Professor of Philosophy Meghan Sullivan.

 We discuss her book “The Good Life Method,” which gives helpful insight about the kinds of questions philosophers and theologians have been asking for millennia: What does it mean to pursue a life worth living? What sort of end ought we keep in mind in all our doing and living and being? And how might we get there?

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 "The Good Life Method" by Meghan Sullivan

 "On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt

 “The Will To Believe” by William James

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Edith Hall: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life

 Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit

 Rebecca DeYoung: The Seven Deadly Sins

 Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz: The Good Life

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcription Link

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This is our unabridged interview with The Hillbilly Thomists.

There aren’t many Billboard-charting bluegrass bands made up entirely of Catholic Dominican Friars, who play their shows clad in white tunics and rosaries. In fact, there is precisely one such band: the Hillbilly Thomists.

 “A Thomist is someone who follows the thought and theological teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” they explain. “We combine it with a little bit of humor about our human condition.” In this episode, they talk about their theology and vocation, as well as how they manage life on the road as priests who have taken a vow of poverty. Plus, they give live performances of some of their finest songs.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 The Hillbilly Thomists’ Website

 Similar NSE episodes:

 N.T. Wright and the Bancroft Brothers: Theology and Poetry

 Edith Hall: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life

 Drew Holcomb: Fighting Dragons and Singing at Loss

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcript of Abridged Episode

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

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There aren’t many Billboard-charting bluegrass bands made up entirely of Catholic Dominican Friars, who play their shows clad in white tunics and rosaries. In fact, there is precisely one such band: the Hillbilly Thomists.

 “A Thomist is someone who follows the thought and theological teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” they explain. “We combine it with a little bit of humor about our human condition.” In this episode, they talk about their theology and vocation, as well as how they manage life on the road as priests who have taken a vow of poverty. Plus, they give live performances of some of their finest songs.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 The Hillbilly Thomists’ Website

 Similar NSE episodes:

 N.T. Wright and the Bancroft Brothers: Theology and Poetry

 Edith Hall: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life

 Drew Holcomb: Fighting Dragons and Singing at Loss

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcription Link

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

This is our unabridged interview with Audrey Assad.

“Why shouldn’t I question that?”

This was the question that started Audrey Assad on a journey away from the faith of her childhood and early adulthood. It’s a question that, years later, is still a guiding light for her towards healing and truth-seeking.

But asking such questions after years as an acclaimed singer-songwriter in the Christian music industry comes at a cost. Today, Audrey discusses her unreleased memoir “Doubt Becomes Wonder: Embracing the Loss of Everything You Thought You Knew.” They discuss healing from childhood wounds, the consequent navigation of doubt, and Audrey’s experience as a woman in the church.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 Audrey’s website

 "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Amy Grant: Fame, Vulnerability, and Staying Grounded

 Christian Wiman: The Opposite of Faith is Certainty

 Joy Oladokun: Listen, Love, and Turn the Other Cheek

 Transcript of Abridged Episode

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

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“Sometimes artists have to take a chance and be vulnerable.”

 Drew Holcomb and Audrey Assad are two such artists, whose brilliance is in large part due to their vulnerability.

 Drew was once heralded by Rolling Stone as “one of Americana’s most popular stars,” and yet he is quick to note that “the human heart was not built for notoriety.” He describes the complex road he took to full-time artistry, his relationship with his fans, the tragic loss of his brother, and more.

 Audrey found success in the Christian music industry, until her quest for authenticity and truth led her in a new direction. She shares her story, speaking honestly about traumas and doubts that brought her to where she is now.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 Drew’s website

 Audrey’s website

 "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Amy Grant: Fame, Vulnerability, and Staying Grounded

 Christian Wiman: The Opposite of Faith is Certainty

 Joy Oladokun: Listen, Love, and Turn the Other Cheek

 Transcription Link

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

This is our unabridged interview with Peter Levine.

 “In order to really move through trauma,” says Peter Levine, “we have to do that in the body.”

 As a psychologist with much of his own trauma to work through, Peter has spent his career researching ways to help himself and others come to healing and wholeness. In this episode, he discusses his memoir “An Autobiography of Trauma,” in which he uses his own life story to illustrate his findings.

 From a standing meeting with an imagined Albert Einstein, to a host of life-changing dreams, listen as he shares how both his professional research and mystical personal experience have taught him much about the ways our bodies hold trauma, and how we can learn to pay attention to our lives and find healing.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 "An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey" by Peter Levine

 "Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma" by Peter Levine

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Amishi Jha: Push-ups for Your Brain

 Kristin Neff: The Power of Self-Compassion

 Tara Brach: Radical Acceptance

 Curt Thompson: The Soul of Shame

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcript of Abridged Episode

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
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 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

“In order to really move through trauma,” says Peter Levine, “we have to do that in the body.”

 As a psychologist with much of his own trauma to work through, Peter has spent his career researching ways to help himself and others come to healing and wholeness. In this episode, he discusses his memoir “An Autobiography of Trauma,” in which he uses his own life story to illustrate his findings.

 From a standing meeting with an imagined Albert Einstein, to a host of life-changing dreams, listen as he shares how both his professional research and mystical personal experience have taught him much about the ways our bodies hold trauma, and how we can learn to pay attention to our lives and find healing.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 "An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey" by Peter Levine

 "Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma" by Peter Levine

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Amishi Jha: Push-ups for Your Brain

 Kristin Neff: The Power of Self-Compassion

 Tara Brach: Radical Acceptance

 Curt Thompson: The Soul of Shame

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcription Link

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

This is our unabridged interview with Malcolm Gladwell and Tracy K. Smith

 To prepare for family dinners and political conversations this holiday season, two guests offer us new ways of being humble and curious.

 First, well-known thinker and author Malcolm Gladwell reveals why we must learn humility if we are to understand each other. “Humility is a habit,” he says. “Habit is a really important word, because if it's a habit, it means it's something that you have to practice.” Then, former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith offers powerful poems that invite us to acknowledge the full, complex, and beautiful worth of the human beings we encounter.

 In this episode, listen closely for multiple ways we can cultivate humility, be curious, and have compassion despite our disagreements and differences.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

"The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Malcolm Gladwell: Becoming Malcolm

 Tracy K. Smith and Marie Howe: Poetry as Politics

 Thanksgiving Special: Conversation and Gratitude

 Transcript of Abridged Episode

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

To prepare for family dinners and political conversations this holiday season, two guests offer us new ways of being humble and curious.

 First, well-known thinker and author Malcolm Gladwell reveals why we must learn humility if we are to understand each other. “Humility is a habit,” he says. “Habit is a really important word, because if it's a habit, it means it's something that you have to practice.” Then, former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith offers powerful poems that invite us to acknowledge the full, complex, and beautiful worth of the human beings we encounter.

 In this episode, listen closely for multiple ways we can cultivate humility, be curious, and have compassion despite our disagreements and differences.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

"The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" by Malcolm Gladwell

 "Wade in the Water: Poems" by Tracy K. Smith

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Malcolm Gladwell: Becoming Malcolm

 Tracy K. Smith and Marie Howe: Poetry as Politics

 Thanksgiving Special: Conversation and Gratitude

 Transcription Link

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

This is our unabridged interview with Kathryn Gin Lum.

 When is the last time you heard the word “heathen”? The word was originally used to delineate between European Christians who tended to be in urban centers and pagans in rural areas. 

 “Heathen exists in the mind of the person doing the labeling, right? It's a label that one people foists onto another.”

 Our guest today, Kathryn Gin Lum, walks us through the history of the term heathen and how it has utterly shaped the world. We discuss her book Heathen: Religion and Race in American History. The idea behind the term was wielded as a weapon to justify colonization and enslavement, and though the term has fallen out of use, she says the mental map of the world it has created has not.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 "Heathen: Religion and Race in American History" by Kathryn Gin Lum

 "The Origin of Others (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)" by Toni Morrison

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Willie James Jennings: The Christian Imagination

 Eugene Cho Karen Korematsu: Fear, Home and the Asian-American Experience

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcript of Abridged Interview

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

When is the last time you heard the word “heathen”? The word was originally used to delineate between European Christians who tended to be in urban centers and pagans in rural areas. 

 “Heathen exists in the mind of the person doing the labeling, right? It's a label that one people foists onto another.”

 Our guest today, Kathryn Gin Lum, walks us through the history of the term heathen and how it has utterly shaped the world. We discuss her book Heathen: Religion and Race in American History. The idea behind the term was wielded as a weapon to justify colonization and enslavement, and though the term has fallen out of use, she says the mental map of the world it has created has not.

 Show Notes

 Resources mentioned this episode:

 "Heathen: Religion and Race in American History" by Kathryn Gin Lum

 "The Origin of Others (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures)" by Toni Morrison

 Similar NSE episodes:

 Willie James Jennings: The Christian Imagination

 Eugene Cho and Karen Korematsu: Fear, Home and the Asian-American Experience

 PDF of Lee's Interview Notes

 Transcription Link

 Want more NSE? JOIN NSE+ Today! Our subscriber only community with bonus episodes designed specifically to help you live a good life, ad-free listening, and discounts on live shows

 Subscribe to episodes: Apple | Spotify | Amazon | Google | YouTube
Follow Us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com

 See Privacy Policy: Privacy Policy

 Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: Tokens Media, LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.