Presence Obscured

This series explores the shifting culture of Christianity in the American South and my own experience of faith.

It was during a difficult pregnancy followed by a miscarriage, that I first felt as if God was still there, somewhere, but off in another room. I experienced a similar feeling during the pandemic of 2020 when many churches closed their doors, That disorienting sense of presence obscured remains, even as I recall times when I felt drenched in possibility and light.

Still, I find peace when I enter an empty sanctuary, a space hushed and full of the echoes of conversations and prayers which have lingered through the years. I sit and listen to the creaks, touch the hymnals frayed from use, and experience a depth of solitude. Photography becomes a prayer.

I step outside and see reminders of God everywhere: on bumper stickers, yard signs, and telephone poles. In the wider landscape, out under the sky, I feel small and begin to think we are like little children wearing tinsel halos and catawampus wings.

A while later, I turn down a red dirt road and see closed doors and curtained windows of an abandoned church. Will it be lovingly restored; will hand-cut details or wooden cladding be covered with shiny vinyl siding, or will this church be forgotten and crumble to the ground?

I want it to be remembered as it is now, these weathered walls, this door, that humble steeple. There is something here, resilience, memory, a whisper coated in peeling paint.

“The Song of Songs” comes to mind. It is a love poem, a story of adoration, searching, and wistfulness.

Through these photographs, I share what I perceive as an ethereal sense of presence alongside themes of longing and loss.

The project is personal, yet also an open-ended offering to the viewer to ponder varied experiences of faith, whatever that might mean for the individual, especially in trauma or crises such as the world is enduring now.

©Karen Bullock 2024

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