A few people have been asking me how the garden is this year. Here’s an abridged tour of the Vicar’s backyard from this past spring, and now summer. Last fall, I planted five (5!) different kinds of garlic – each with an obscure name. Here’s my very accurate and detailed planting map: Four of the five varieties produced beautiful, […]
Archives for July 2015
Suburban Cyclology 
July 22, 2015 by
When I was growing up in Chicago, my dad taught me to ride a bike in the street with the flow of traffic.If I tried that in Bolingbrook I’d get run over.
Death On Campus
July 13, 2015 by
Here at Kenyon College, there’s a graveyard on campus. I’m here this week for a writing workshop and I stumbled across it on a walk. I found gravestones from the 1830s and the 1990s, including those of professors and alums. I’d never seen a college graveyard before. It must be a great source for campus jokes. But […]
What Do Vicars Do All Day? 
July 2, 2015 by
Recently, someone asked me, “What about ministry, exactly, makes it so stressful? Is it all the counseling you do for people and their crises?” “Well, the majority of what I do actually isn’t counseling,” I tried to explain. It’s hard to explain the stresses of ministry to someone who can’t imagine it intuitively. Before I could say more she asked, […]
