Planning for our Sabbatical

As we plan for our sabbatical leave, we thank you, the members of this wonderful congregation. We are grateful that both UUCB and the Unitarian Universalist Association understand the benefits for ministers, after some years of service, to have a time for renewal and respite, to break away from routine and responsibility, to experience different cultures and new learning.

We plan to spend our sabbatical leave in India. We want to experience the religions of India and visit religious sites. We want to connect with church member Frederick Shaw’s public health, preschool, and community projects in the area of Chandigarh in Northern India. We hope to visit Child’s Haven, homes for children begun by a Canadian Unitarian minister and his wife. We hope to travel some with family and friends who have relatives in India and hope to experience life separate from tourism. We long to make our travels a pilgrimage.

Questions arise for us. What does it mean to be a stranger in a strange land, a foreigner, a traveler, a tourist, a privileged rich, white person? What will we learn about material possessions, poverty, happiness? In India the tension between wealth and extreme poverty in our world will be intensified. Will we not turn away from what there is to see and will we face what we feel?

Most of the time, we will be thousands of miles from anyone we know. We will not have arrangements set up in advance. Surely we will deal with things going other than we expect and we’ll have to let go of control. How will we deal with our fears? Where we will stay? What if we run out of money?

Who will we meet along the way? How will they change us? What will we learn about simplicity, hospitality, contentment, and self-assessment? How will this be both an inner and an outer journey?

We want to share our experience with you through monthly messages that will be posted on the website and in The Beacon on the Hill. We can also share this journey to India with you through reading some of the same books. We are reading--

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Essential Gandhi edited by Louis Fischer.

During our absence, we have invited many beloved and respected ministers to lead Sunday worship, and they have generously accepted. Our dear colleague Rev. Christopher Holton Jablonski and our talented Intern Minister Lynn Gardner will provide continuity in leadership in Sunday Services. Our UUCB community ministers, chaplains, music staff, choirs, and musicians will also provide continuity and worth in the Sunday Services.

The Committee on Ministry has looked at the full ministry of the church, and includes in this handbook information on church life during the sabbatical. We appreciate the Committee on Ministry who has overseen the sabbatical planning process.

Thanks to all who are offering their gifts in service to the shared ministry of this congregation. May this be a time for all of you to strengthen our religious community.

We will return from our sabbatical leave to General Assembly in Salt Lake City in June. Then we will return to be with you for the Sunday Services on July 5. We look forward to ministry with you in the years ahead.

May we return to one another energized and committed to continuing our work together of creating loving community, inspiring spiritual growth, living with integrity, joy, and justice.

We ask you please to hold us in your hearts during this time. We hold you in ours.

Thank you for making this extraordinary experience possible.

Barbara and Bill