229: Terence Lester: Human Flourishing, Self Development, and the Common Good
No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp
Responding to Individual-Choice Critiques of Poverty
Terrence rebuts reductions of poverty to personal failure and reframes poverty as multidimensional trauma requiring compassion.
It was three days before Christmas when Terence Lester’s family dropped him beneath a bridge in Atlanta. With no change of clothes and a biting winter cold, he began a month-long experiment in solidarity with the unhoused. Strangers offered blankets, socks, even stories around a firepit. It was humbling, painful, and life-altering. And it was from this crucible that Love Beyond Walls was born—a nonprofit dedicated to restoring dignity and community for those pushed to the margins: an exploration into what human flourishing might entail among the disenfranchised.
In this episode of No Small Endeavor, Lee C. Camp sits down with scholar and activist Terence Lester, whose own journey from dropout to doctorate is as much about human flourishing as it is about survival. His book, From Dropout to Doctorate: Breaking the Chains of Educational Injustice, chronicles the wounds of generational trauma, systemic barriers, and the loneliness of feeling unseen—but also the surprising sanctuaries: a stranger’s word of courage, a teacher’s belief, and a church’s embrace, and the daily practices that sustain new ways forward.
They explore how trauma shapes education, how community makes flourishing relationships possible, and how storytelling itself becomes a form of justice. Terence Lester reminds us that poverty is not just economic—it is cultural, emotional, spiritual—and that courage and compassion are required if we are to serve the common good. It is an invitation to become people who borrow and lend courage, to create sanctuaries for others, and to live with an intention toward justice, belonging, and authentic human flourishing.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Terence Lester
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No Small Endeavor: An award winning podcast exploring what it means to live a good life, with thought provoking conversations about human flourishing, theology, politics, faith, social sciences, search for meaning, meaning and purpose, practices, common good, truth beauty and goodness, productivity, habit formation, neuroscience, science and religion, social justice, the cardinal virtues, the how of happiness, theology and culture, self development, virtue theory, being human, moral philosophy, and community. 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, interreligious dialogue, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and the social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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