So many of our churches occupy the edges. The liminal spaces. Clinging to crumbling coastlines, sinking into saltmarshes, up a mountain hanging, literally, between heaven and earth. Their landscape is ancient and brand new all at once. It’s everchanging and constant.

#thread

Time doesn’t stop. Or stand still. The landscape is fresh and plunging forward in time. But within the church memories hang from the walls, echoes of murmured prayers hang in the air. Names of the beloved fade into the past, out of reach

2/6

A cocktail of damp, dust and mould fills your nostrils. The tang of a cold vestry fire tickles your tongue. A crunchy mat of bat-eaten butterfly wings and ladybird carcasses is laid along the aisle. The cold nips your ankles. An offering of pebbles is laid at the altar.

3/6

The landscape is fresh and new. The church is decaying. Slipping back in time. It’s barely perceptible, but it’s constant. Slipping into molecular disorder.

Or just a new order.

4/6

And perhaps that frisson, the friction between past and future, experienced from the present, is one of the things that makes these places so remarkable.

5/6

Special thanks to @LadyLiminal1 (for her liminal spaces) and @SimonGuy64 (portal spotter) for their tweets that inspired this thread.

And yes, I have seen @TENETFilm recently. Can you tell?