The Next Blog

I’ve moved to Chicago… but I’m still writing, taking pictures, and reflecting on the place where I live. If you’d like to follow me via my new blog, here is the link: Diary of a Downtown Priest You can sign up to receive the new blog posts by email by clicking “Follow this blog” at […]

Farewell to Bolingbrook

In a week, the moving truck will come and a crew of Chicago bruisers will load all our earthly belongings into a truck or two and haul it into the city. We’ll leave behind a bed of ripening strawberries, a renovated bathroom that still flutters my heart, a wheelbarrow, four kinds of iris, rampant mint, […]

The Suburbs: What I’ll Miss

There are many things I will love about living in Chicago again. But as I am preparing to leave Bolingbrook, I’m focusing on saying goodbye to the things I’ve loved about this place. What will I miss? Plenty of things. Wide open spaces – cornfields, soccer fields, parking lots, no buildings over 3 stories, vistas across […]

Leaving Bolingbrook

Last fall, I became “Rector” instead of “Vicar” of St. Benedict, but I left this blog title in place for artistic reasons. This spring, I am bidding a fond farewell to The Church of St. Benedict and Bolingbrook, but now I’ll really need to change the title. And the whole focus, really. I wasn’t looking for a new position, but […]

Holy Week: Dog Walk

Early spring is tough. A parishioner once said to me that it is an ugly time of year because it’s about “shaking off death.” Holy Week falls into this space, easily. Bare. Ugly. Broken. Bleak. For all that subdivisions were designed to be ideal places to live, there is a haunting, lonely look about them. They match the spareness of […]

Ashes To Go: In The Joliet Herald-News

St. Benedict and I were in the Joliet Herald-News for offering “Ashes to Go” for the fourth year yesterday, Ash Wednesday. I was glad to work with the reporter and photographer – they “got” what we were doing and did a wonderful job capturing the day. Donna Ialongo, our Priest Associate, and I got to […]

The Indian Boundary Line

Old houses have always seemed to me like chapter books of rooms: full of stories about the past, if you have time to read them. There were plenty to explore or “read” in the old Chicago neighborhood where I grew up. The apartments and houses of my parents and friends had well-worn wood floors, carved […]

Evening Falls: Exurbia, December

The landscape between our church and our house, banal but somehow beautiful. (Dusk makes everything pretty.) Sky, warehouse, driveway. Sky, streetlight,warehouse, parking lot. Sky, warehouses, semitrailer, brush. Sky, warehouse, sunset reflection, trees, fire hydrant, handicapped parking. Warehouse lights, rearview mirror, sunset reflection. Sky, young trees, asphalt, signage. Sky, subdivision, wetlands, busy road, baby trees, sidewalk, lawn. Sky, warehouses, […]

Fall in the Neighborhood

Fall photos, taken mostly while walking the dog around our neighborhood. The farm where our vegetables come from – Green Earth Institute, and the head farmer, Steve Tiwald, who greets us every other Tuesday when we come by for our pick-up. Arugula, having been inspired by its neighbor, mint, taking over a garden plot (this stuff has amazing […]

Keep Death Always Before Your Eyes

Today, at 9:39 a.m., someone shot an office worker and then shot themselves at a warehouse office between my house and my church, here in Bolingbrook. The news went out at about 11 a.m. I was at St. Benedict, meeting with a parishioner. I’m ashamed to say this, but I didn’t feel sad, or scared, […]