Photo taken on Pentecost Sunday, 2014, in beautiful reds and oranges!
Spring Garden Tour 
June 2, 2014 by
Beautiful “golden” sugar snap peas with purple flowers! They’ll grow to be six feet tall – whew! Not sure the peas we’ll harvest this summer will finally cover the cost of my sturdy “pea fence”. But maybe next year. Sheesh. Lovely little radishes. Delicata Squash seedlings peeking through their black plastic blanket! (Absorbs heat, which squash needs and keeps […]
Mother Heidi 
May 21, 2014 by
It’s a strange thing not to have children, as a young couple. It’s even stranger when you have a house in the suburbs, flexible work schedules, a dog, and you generally like people and children. But Adam and I have decided not to become parents. We discovered we weren’t able to conceive a few years […]
Elegant Little Things
May 6, 2014 by
Every home has a miscellany of elegant, useful objects that make life better. I don’t mean big stuff, like a hot water heater, refrigerator, or sectional sofa. I’m talking about little things – often inexpensive – that enhance our everyday lives because of their simple but elegant practicality or beauty. St. Benedict says, “regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as […]
Becoming an Oblate
May 2, 2014 by
I’ve spent the last year in formation to become a Benedictine oblate, at Holy Wisdom Monastery in Middleton, Wisconsin. An oblate is someone who promises to follow a monastic rule in their life in the world, while staying in relationship with a particular monastery. Oblates don’t follow a rule – in this case the Rule […]
House Diary: April Snow, Morning
April 15, 2014 by
From my friend and colleague, Matt Gunter (bishop-elect of Fond du Lac, WI): Like a lot of folk here, I was not excited when I woke up to snow on the ground on this mid-April morning. But, I want to suggest that snow on the ground is a great way to kick off Holy Week. […]
Learning to do a funeral
April 3, 2014 by
Not many people die at my church (Lord, have mercy). Many members move away to warmer places in retirement. Most current members are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, with few folks 80 and above. So, it’s taken me a while to really learn to do a funeral. Usually, the story is that a young […]
Barber’s Corners 
March 18, 2014 by
For a long time, there was a sad and empty stone marker in the corner of a parking lot at one of the busiest intersections in Bolingbrook. For 150 years, this place was “Barber’s Corners.” You’d miss the marker if you weren’t looking for it: The Bolingbrook Historic Preservation Commission installed a plaque here in 1979. […]
Boring Suburban Houses
March 11, 2014 by
Often, people have this image of the suburbs as a bland, cookie-cutter type place where all the houses look the same. I’m lucky enough to live in a suburb like Bolingbrook, where we have enough interesting (and eccentric?) people, apparently, that this is not the case. Believe me – plenty of suburbs, and even post-war […]
Ashes to Go, 2014
March 6, 2014 by
St. Benedict did “Ashes to Go” again this year – we offer ashes and a prayer of confession to passers by, since so many people have become too busy for their spiritual lives, and because we believe church shouldn’t stay contained inside the four walls of a building. We were out from 6-9 a.m. We […]
