Matthew T Lee - A restless and beautiful mind on flourishing
Matthew T. Lee uses science, philosophy, medicine, and the humanities in his work to renew ancient conceptions and imagine anew what flourishing is for this young century. He is a fascinating face of a scientist flourishing in spaces outside of disciplines and of someone capable of discoveries for the betterment of our world that are possible there.
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Matt has achieved the impossible - he's everywhere at once. He's lecturing at Harvard, stewarding faculty at Baylor to bring human flourishing into their courses, holding dialogues in the Vatican, all while seemingly writing perpetually. He's Professor of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, Research Associate and Director of the Human Flourishing Program’s Flourishing Network at Harvard, Visiting Scholar at Stony Brook and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Every time I talk to him he's on a plane or in a car and has just submitted a new manuscript.
But I also think this is sometimes a harmful narrative — the single individual doing everything. To talk with Matt is to meet the idea of the unthinkably productive person with someone who is unhurried and thoughtful and present. To talk with him is to encounter a deeply caring human being and to be immediately in generative discussion. An extraordinary gift to receive and experience.
In his writing and in his life, he explores flourishing as inextricable from love, something involving 'whole human well-being in Beloved Communities and thriving ecosystems.' His scholarship, a deep integration of social science, quantitative analyses, and the wisdom of the humanities has been a part of profound discovery about the factors that contribute to a flourishing life. He is a member of the research team for the remarkable Global Study of Human Flourishing.
So, yes, this is a conversation about what flourishing is, but it is more an open and ongoing dialogue about what the question of flourishing works in us, perhaps the way a life moves in thinking about and working on flourishing.