With deep gratitude to everyone who contributes in countless ways
In development the word “reach” is most often associated with reaching a fundraising goal. But “reach” is also about our aspirations, our hopes, our best intentions.
Bexley Seabury is in the midst of a season of reaching, aspiring. As we approach consolidating operations the Chicago area, our Board has been prayerfully, creatively and boldly considering the vocation of a seminary. At its February 2016
meeting, the Board discussed several far-reaching proposals about partnerships, curriculum, and future leaders of The Church. Your support of the Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation reaches into those far-reaching issues.Reach is a part of our spiritual life. Think of the reach of worship—back in time, joining us with Christians of past millennia and forward in history, to our heirs in the faith. Worship reaches across the Church, recognizably to our Episcopal sisters and brothers, to our Anglican family, our Lutheran full-communion partners, to all Christians. Worship reaches into congregations gathered; and into the heart, soul, mind, and body of each person there. It reaches out, through church doors, to those unable to join the gathered body, and into the surrounding communities. Worship reaches to all creation, giving voice to and joining all that God has made as we offer prayer and praise. By its essence, worship reaches to and from heaven.
So your support reaches far. It is part of a long, spiritual chain.
De Profundis
By Christina Rossetti*
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scatter’d fire
Of stars, or sun’s far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
Conrad Selnick
Vice President for Advancement and Church Relations
*Christina Rossetti: 1830–1894
Of all Victorian women poets, posterity has been kindest to Christina Rossetti. Her poetry has never disappeared from view. Critical interest in Rossetti’s poetry swelled in the final decades of the 20th century, a resurgence largely impelled by the emergence of feminist criticism; much of this commentary focuses on gender issues in her poetry and on Rossetti as a woman poet. In Rossetti’s lifetime opinion was divided over whether she or Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the greatest female poet of the era.
Source for Rossetti poem and bio: Poetry Foundation website