Rustypickup, here, reminded me of the photographs of Sally Mann which I wrote about here. Ms. Mann's work is not exclusively about old backwoods Southern churches, but she photographed a fair amount of them. Yes, they do come and go; are sanctified and (hopefully) desacralized, or just become so by neglect and decay and abandonment.
It all sets me in mind of my grandparent's church(es). They were Primitive Baptist, as were most of their children. Their church building is wherever they find it. Sometimes a building built for the purpose, but usually a different one every time I attended with them, which was infrequent. I remember many over the years. How they chose them or came to use them, I never knew. One of their sons, the youngest and my uncle, had a birthday gathering a few years back to which we call came (he has Alzheimer's, it was a chance to see him still lucid). It was in the Primitive Baptist church he now attends. A small building, hardly church-like, but clearly a church nonetheless. Enough so for them; it was one large room, suited to church dinners and parties for members, and worship on Sunday morning.
They taught me an important lesson: that, in the end, it's just a building. I have deep love for the churches of my childhood, and I have a hard time remembering that lesson. But the few people left who knew my father when I returned him to the town he'd lived in for 50+ years, to bury him, were from the church I grew up in. They are, were, the church, even if they were represented by their adult children, older than me even so.
People come and go, and form the clouds of witness that stand around us, and are evergreen in memory, and dear to our hearts, and a consolation in our loneliness. No building can do that.
I knew one of her assistants - the girlfriend of one of my nieces - who said she was a very interesting person, very complex and interesting. Her pictures are real art.
ReplyDeleteThey really are. Never heard of her until I saw the exhibit. Quite a revelation.
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