The Mosque Next Door

I wrote an article for The Christian Century about our church’s growing relationship with our Muslim neighbors here in Bolingbrook, a relationship that means a lot to us, but that is also as ordinary as any suburban worshipping communities who happen to be neighbors. “…we visited the congregation’s Eid al-Fitr festival, held at the end […]

Images of America: Bolingbrook

I bought the book Images of America: Bolingbrook at Village Hall last week. It was put together for the 50th anniversary of the village this year. I was pretty excited to look through it – but I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t as many images of people of color as I was expecting. This may be because when […]

Loving Your Neighbor (in the Suburbs)

Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In my subdivision, we just kind of wave. We wave as we come and go – as we drive in and drive out. As we work in the yard. As we get the mail. We wave and we sometimes ask, “How are you?” The other day, I was […]

Grocery Geography

I often tell people that Bolingbrook is a diverse community. We say things like, “My block is like the United Nations!” Another fun place to see this is at one of our big box grocery stores: Daikon radish, yucca root, a melon (?), wheatgrass, leeks, carrots… But let’s start with some hard data. 2010 census […]