Good morning, everyone! Welcome back to St. Andrew’s! Welcome to Fall Family Weekend. My husband Ty Jones, and the entire faculty, join me in welcoming you back here. And I would like to thank those faculty, who are just doing an incredible job with your children, for their tremendous efforts this weekend. You will see them in conferences, you will see them onstage and backstage, you will see them on the sidelines, and you will see them on dorm. And no, I do not know how they do it! But they are inspiring, and they are called to this work.

Thanks, too, to our parent trustees, for all you do as volunteers for St. Andrew’s, and our Saints Fund parent co-chairs, the Halls and the Odutolas. We truly couldn’t do it without your support.

I know you are tremendously excited to see your children and so I thank you for coming to hear me for a few of your precious minutes on the campus. I hope this weekend, you will discover that your child’s education is turning out to be a defining experience in their lives. My St. Andrew’s education was the most transformative time in my life—and I am lucky enough that it continues to be, thanks to my teachers, my friends, my colleagues, and your children. I hope you are finding that your children are making the most of this opportunity for a great education, one that is opening their minds, making their worlds larger. That growth, I hope they recognize, is to fulfill their promise and potential. To find out who they might be, to discover they have everything they need inside of them, and to have the courage and confidence to be that person.

You may recently have read about the passing too soon of Gavin Creel, a celebrated Broadway actor. To be honest, before he died, I did not know much about him. But, like many people raised in small towns, I am an avid reader of obituaries, and in the New York Times, I found a statement in his obituary that I’ve been thinking about a lot: he attributed his phenomenal success in life to his upbringing by Midwesterners. He put it this way, that his parents “instilled in [him] that ‘you’re a part of something, you’re not the something.’” Essentially, Gavin Creel said, this is the formula for how to be successful—how to be happy, how to make a meaningful life full of friendships and accomplishment. To understand that “you’re a part of something, you’re not the something.’”

I’ve been thinking about this a lot—that we are part of something, but we are not the something—because Ty and I, and a few of our colleagues, have recently in our travels been hosting dinners with St. Andrew’s graduates in colleges. And the main thing Ty and I noticed is that they seem—and they genuinely say that they are—happy. As one recent graduate put it, “It’s a learned skill to make something of the circumstances you find yourself in, to be happy—SAS taught us that.” We are part of something, but we are not the something. It’s a powerful thing to know, a home truth.

The qualities you have built in your children, and that we have sought to reinforce here—humility, moderation, curiosity, empathy, the giving of grace, gratitude—they circle this idea and are fundamentally connected to our ability not only to adapt to the circumstances in which we find ourselves—but to thrive in them and triumph over them. But what is in the middle of this circle? What else is present when we can be part of something, but not be the something? Agency. Choice. Power. What we might call self. What is inside us and what we have done to cultivate and strengthen it.

You have heard me say this so many times, but your children are powerful. They are. And when we hear from our graduates in college that they are happy because they can make something out of the circumstances in which they find themselves—circumstances they do not necessarily control—they are claiming for themselves who they are and the choices they will make. And doing that, yes, with humility, gratitude, moderation, empathy.

But they are also saying: it begins with me. Before we can make the world better, or even the people around us better, we must know ourselves, we must better ourselves, we must be ourselves. A friend of mine who is passionate about education often reminds me of the story of Rabbi Zusya. Rabbi Zusya was a famous 18th century rabbi who was said, on his deathbed, to be nearly as great as Moses. To these assertions, it is said he replied, “In the coming world they will not ask me why I was not Moses; they will ask me why I was not Zusya.” The ultimate judgement on a life is whether we were ourselves, whether we—meticulously, relentlessly, doggedly—did what was required to unlock our god given potential.

And so, education must serve that purpose, it must first help us learn ourselves—who we are and what we are capable of; it must develop in us the courage and confidence to be that person in whatever situation arises; and then, and only then, can we imagine what we might do in this broken world. And that is where—I think—a St. Andrew’s education is making a difference. It is so easy to criticize others, to lay blame and find fault. But it is hard—incredibly hard—to examine ourselves, to hold up a mirror, and say, can I be better? Can I do more?

What your children are doing here together with us, authentically engaging in this kind of education, takes an enormous amount of courage. We practice this in our classrooms—and you will hear from teachers about the phenomenal academic work going on this weekend. In chapel, in arts, in athletics. In person, face to face, without phones—that makes it harder. That fearless and unflinching dedication to what will make us better and make us who we are.

When we hear what Gavin Creel said of himself, how crucial it was to understand he was part of something, but not the something, we hear selflessness and generosity and empathy in that. But what is equally true is that the power of the individual and the agency of the person must first be present as well. When our young graduates say St. Andrew’s gave them the gift of finding happiness in whatever circumstances they find themselves, that to me is a great endorsement of this cultivation of self in the service of what is larger.

I am so proud of our students, your children. You all must just be bursting with pride. They are working so joyfully on themselves, and they are doing that in service to something big, and something that matters. They inspire us every day. I know you will hear that from their teachers, but I wanted you to hear that from me. We are so grateful that you share your kids with us and allow us to be part of their story. What a privilege it is to work with them. Thank you for being here, and all you do to support the school.

Have a beautiful weekend and enjoy lunch!