Sabbatical Letter to the Congregation

• Posted on April 22, 2025
• by Sarah Marino
• in Latest News
• Comments Off on Sabbatical Letter to the Congregation

   “Blessed are those whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” Psalm 84

“Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.” Hildegard of Bingen

Dear Congregation,

I am writing to share with you my plans for the second part of my sabbatical this summer and fall. As you remember I took a portion of my sabbatical back in 2023 and did the Spiritual Exercises 30-Day silent retreat. Now I will be taking leave for a few months for spiritual renewal, enrichment, and rest (and some play and fun too!) after having served you here in Winchester for 10 years. I have been working with our Moderator, Dina Pradel, and a member of our Personnel Ministry, Suzy Kahl, to plan this time away and ensure that my work is covered here at the church while I am gone.   

I will be leaving after worship on Sunday, June 29th and returning Tuesday, October 14th. I am excited about my plans which connect to a few anniversaries that converge for me in 2025: 10 years as pastor of First Congregational Church in Winchester, 25 years of being in parish ministry, and 30 years of marriage to Tracy. You’ll see how this sabbatical intentionally marks these anniversaries in the account below.

You might remember during Advent a service focused on Hildegard of Bingen, the remarkable German polymath mystic of the 12th century. Soon after that service, I discovered that in Germany there is a pilgrimage route organized around the life, teachings, and paths that Hildegard tred in her lifetime. My wife Tracy and I are going to take that prayerful walk which traverses 84 miles of German countryside from Idar Oberstein to Bingen on the Rhine on an 11-day pilgrimage. As a musician, poet and theologian, Hildegard’s artistic expressions speak to my own song and sermon writing and her beautiful illuminations, painted from visions she had, speak to Tracy who, some of you might know, is one of our resident artists on the 3rd floor of the church.  

Hildegard was a Benedictine nun. My wife and I had our beginnings and in fact were formally betrothed at a Benedictine monastery in Connecticut, The Abbey of Regina Laudis. The Abbey in CT was founded by Lady Abbess who was a nun from Juarre, France, a town liberated from Nazi occupation during WWII. As the story goes, when Lady Abbess saw General Patton and his troops enter Juarre she made a commitment to God to start a monastery in the US. That is how the CT abbey came to be. General Patton’s granddaughter is a nun there even today and other of his grandchildren relate to the Abbey. So when members of our church, Suzy and Tom Kahl, heard that we were planning my sabbatical and encouraged us to consider going to one of their beloved destinations – a restored Abbey in Normandy France – Tracy and I lept at the opportunity. We plan to begin our European journey in early September at the Abbeye de Longues exploring the area of Normandy, it’s beauty and its history, for a week before we then take a train into Germany for our pilgrimage.  

Those two journeys will be the heart of my sabbatical. However, earlier in my time away, there will be one other significant excursion that I will take and this will be to the place of my birth, Louisville, KY. 

As I was making these plans over the last few months, in the midst of our church’s Open Doors exploration and in the midst of our Death and Dying Lenten series, I discovered something remarkable that I plan to explore more deeply during my sabbatical. I came across a beautiful ministry in Louisville (believe it or not, within 2 miles of where my grandfather pastored a church for 40 years!) called The Hildegard House, a comfort care home for the dying. This is different from Hospice in that it is made available to those who have no insurance or family or other means to tend their dying process. It is a beautiful home, renovated from an old convent, to care for those dying in poverty and loneliness. The founder and director, Karen Cassidy, has invited me to come and spend some time there with her at the Hildegard House as a part of my sabbatical. As I plan my trip there I am also prayerfully asking –  what if we as First Congregational Church in Winchester, converted some of our space into a comfort care home for the dying poor? Wouldn’t that be a beautiful ministry?! 

My trip to Louisville will also afford me two other opportunities: to visit with my extended family who still live there and a multi-day retreat at the Gethsemani Abbey where one of my favorite spiritual writers, Thomas Merton, lived. This is something I’ve wanted to do for many years given my appreciation for Merton but also because my maternal grandfather used to take retreats there as well.

So how does that sound for a rich and meaningful sabbatical? I very much appreciate this opportunity to take a sabbatical during my tenure with you. I will also appreciate your prayers while I go. I hope to write to you as a congregation during my time away, possibly a blog, to share at certain junctures along the way what I’m experiencing. I trust that my time is going to enrich and inspire me such that I’ll be able to draw upon my experiences and my rest to better serve you as your Lead Pastor for years to come… at least that’s the intention of the sabbatical!

Specific plans for my coverage and what that looks like for the church are soon to come. Please feel free to speak with me, Suzy Kahl or Dina Pradel if you have any questions. 

Grace and Peace in Christ,

Rev. Will Burhans