Dear St. Andrew’s Community,

I hope you enjoy these thoughts on the importance of constraints, which are adapted from the remarks I delivered on this past Saturday of Arts Weekend.

On a recent weekend, I offered a student trip to the Barnes Foundation and the newly opened Calder Gardens. I have visited the Barnes many times—but this was my first visit to the Calder. These museums left me thinking about constraints, and how art is always created within them and in response to them.

Barnes famously imposed strict constraints on the display of his collection. Even after it moved to Philadelphia, his rooms, crowded with paintings, were meticulously recreated. In each one, the viewer is set upon by entire worlds and centuries, feeling confined in the cramped quarters. The Calder features tight underground spaces housing just a few of Alexander Calder’s works. The spaces are so constrained that the motion of visitors within the room causes the mobiles to tremble or change direction. In both, constraint becomes not a limitation, but part of the art itself.

One of the great reasons to practice the arts in our schools is that art must be created within constraints. A painting has two dimensions. A sculpture must balance. Western music—millions of hours from Monteverdi to Bach, to Copland—uses only 12 notes. And theater? In Henry V, Shakespeare himself apologized for “in little room confining mighty men.”

What art teaches us is that greatness is only made within constraints.

This is a lesson we need right now. We value our own choices above all else, and if possible, we would like them to be unlimited. We sometimes believe that more choice will make us happier—and if our children have every option, they will flourish. But we are wrong. We know, from our own lives, that this is not true. Unlimited choice is bad for us. Even the illusion of it makes us unhappy and depressed. Over 20 years ago, the psychologist Barry Schwartz summed it up in the title of his book: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.

To be human is to be constrained. In 49 A.D., the Stoic philosopher Seneca reminded us how much nature limits us, and how perfect that is. He wrote, “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.” Like art, life must be made within constraints. 

Arthur Brooks, the artist and Harvard happiness expert, hypothesizes that Seneca would say we waste our lives in two ways today: we scroll, or we strive. We either dissolve into distraction, or we chase achievement so relentlessly that we neglect to live. As citizens and as humans, our education must prepare us to invest our lives well—it must prepare us for really living. This is why we do what we do at St. Andrew’s. When we live in a human-centered way our brains work better, and we experience wholeness. Brooks tells his Harvard students, “turn off the technical stuff. Go fall in love. Ask these big questions that don’t have answers, go look at the sunset. Listen to Bach. Let your brain do what it is supposed to do.” Brooks says, “we are beautifully made.”

That is why what happens at St. Andrew’s matters. Because this is what I see in our students: they are beautifully made. We use the word “formation” to describe this education—spiritual, intellectual, and moral formation. Formation implies the presence of constraints. If we imagine the critical resources of faculty and student time and attention poured out into a formless void, we can easily understand that the container is everything. Otherwise, we have only vapor to show for our efforts.

I recently drove JV girls soccer home from a match in Wilmington, and the students seated behind me in the van held forth extensively on what time of year has the best sunrises and sunsets on campus, and the best locations from which to view them. They asked big questions. They enthused about books they were reading for fun and their love of travel. They were excited about living and their lives ahead. Their brains were doing what they were supposed to do—and not only their brains, but their whole selves. They ranged easily across what is good and virtuous. They were delighted and delightful. They had signed into breakfast, had a full day of classes, they had many assignments (duly discussed) and responsibilities, they had experienced the rigors of a tough game and were about to plunge into a busy dorm cleanup and study hall before a set bedtime. And they were happily, fully themselves. 

This school embraces many constraints: a communal daily routine for prayer, learning, art, athletics, chapel, sleep; our technology and phone culture; meals; jobs period; study hall; bedtime; breakfast sign-in. The list is long. We did not choose St. Andrew’s because we do and have everything. We chose a place with rules, rhythms, expectations—with limits on time, technology, and comfort. What we sought could only be found within this routine, within the structures that direct our attention constantly to what is virtuous and good and beautiful. 

Soon, the VI Form will stand on the Front Lawn at commencement. What they will carry with them is not just what they have learned, but how they have learned to live. They know that a good life is not made by having every option, but by responding gratefully to what is given. Because they are artists, they are learning that beauty does not come from boundlessness, but from form. 

And so, on Arts Weekend, we see the evidence of something quite profound: young people learning how to take the God-given shape of their lives—and make something beautiful. Just as they are wonderfully made.

That is formation. That is the beauty and the joy of being human.