As usual, Beyoncé has it right. Her call to stand up for what’s just and prophetic is exactly what we need.

And before the Queen made history with Formation, the word and its meanings were with us - centuries old, yet under-explored in popular, especially secular, culture. We’ve been particularly influenced by Disciplines of the Spirit by Howard Thurman and Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit by Henri Nouwen. There are many more words on the matter, and we explored the question of spiritual formation in depth as part of the project.

It’s worth noting the relative absence of this category in our contemporary public life: whether in religion, education, politics, medicine, finance, or even leadership development.

In Ancient Greece, if you were a young man of status, you could choose which philosophical school aligned with your particular quest to live in alignment with virtue. The project of these schools was formation, and you went to live in community with other novices, sitting at the feet of a master as you practiced living a worthy life. A similar premise was true of the Gurukula residential schooling system in ancient India, as well as, of course, the many Catholic, Buddhist, and other Christian religious orders that continue to this day.

Where do most of us go, to learn to live in alignment with virtue? In 2018, a Yale University class on Psychology and the Good Life made headlines for becoming the largest in the university’s history at 1,200 students, or nearly one-fourth of undergraduates, because it promised that students would learn to live a better life. Why must we be so hungry for this? Our hope is to help us become less so.