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 
May 5, 2016 by
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 
April 8, 2016 by
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 […]
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.
The Suburban Life For Me
August 1, 2014 by
I’m going on sabbatical in two weeks (two weeks?!?). We’ll be visiting places like Rome, Jerusalem, and Seattle. It’s hard to promise that we won’t just stay in one of those places, right? Like, isn’t there an Episcopal Church in Rome? Do they have any openings? (Asking for a friend.) And the reason I feel […]
Yoga by the Freeway
August 21, 2013 by
On Tuesdays in the summer, I go to an outdoor yoga class at our gym. We lay our mats down by the gigantic pool, under the water slide, and do yoga as the sun goes down and the stars come out. It’s an interesting study in contrasts, and somehow encompasses how I see my suburban […]
You Know You’re A Suburbanite When…
May 27, 2013 by
You’re on a bike ride and as you approach your driveway, you reach for the garage door opener that, surely, is clipped to the rim of your helmet…? You know there are NO shortcuts through subdivisions. You never worry that you won’t find a parking place. Your most common pastime seems to be buying more […]
Two Blocks on the West Side 
May 12, 2013 by
Last week, I went to a chaplain graduation with one of my parishioners (congrats, Cindy!). The program was at Bishop Anderson House, in the Illinois Medical District, so the ceremony was nearby at one of our West Side Episcopal churches, St. Andrew’s, a historically Black church. For some, it’s downtown Chicago that fills them with pride and love […]
Spring Bike Ride at Argonne
April 27, 2013 by
Growing up I rode bikes around my city neighborhood and the lakefront with my dad and my brother, but sometime in high school I got this (hopefully false!) sense of premonition that I would get some kind of spinal injury from riding a bike. So I stayed away from them for years. Now, living out […]
