I wanted to support the Cultivating Excellence campaign in some way and was looking for a contribution that would be helpful to the seminary and meaningful to me.  I am my father’s daughter, so the first thing that came to mind was, “Does the seminary have instruments for the chapel?”  My father’s all-consuming hobby was the organ, so providing an organ and piano for the chapel both honors Dad and speaks to my love of music.  To me, music is an integral part of worship, and worship is an essential part of the life of the seminary community.

 

The heart of the seminary is its worship.  Watching the construction of the chapel draws me more fully into that anticipation of thin places, places where heaven and earth touch, where God seems more readily present, more easily accessed.

 

I also watch with anticipation because I have been a student of transition, from the old toward the new.  I want to be a part of the hopeful beginning of all there is to come at Central. I have been waiting with such eagerness for completion . . . I want to do my senior chapel there before I graduate.  Such a sweet completion to my journey.

 

 

The phrase found in Hebrews 12:1, “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”has always fascinated and confused me. Some of that confusion clears when I step into a library. A library possesses and preserves witnesses both ancient and modern, and these witnesses surround us and encourage us.  Library resources are the distilled testimonies of the great cloud of witnesses. I’m looking forward to surrounding myself in the new library and following the same command heard by St. Augustine: “tolle lege.” “Take up and read.”