Brunswick, Missouri

Last year, the saints at Brunswick Baptist Church in Brunswick, Missouri, invited me to preach the Word of God in their gathering. What a joy it was to see a town and people that otherwise I would not have met this side of eternity.

Brunswick is a charming town in north central Missouri. Surrounded by vast farms, Brunswick has many of the attractive features you'd expect in a small community: a soda fountain, some shoppes, and a giant pecan.

Okay, so Brunswick's pecan isn't "real," but the townsfolk boast that Brunswick is the "Pecan Capital of the World." It was in Brunswick that I discovered my enjoyment of pecans.

Walking the streets is a peaceful enjoyment and the people are warm to say hello and wave as you pass by.

Brunswick has a bit of history. The trial of tears of the Potawatomi tribe had an encampment here.

Also, the Corps of Discover with Lewis and Clark camped here by the Grand River in modern Brunswick.

The railroad in Brunswick is still vitally important to this agricultural community.

The highrises in Brunswick are grain elevators.

The fields of Brunswick are a peaceful ocean of land, leaving the vastness of the sky above and incredible distance to the trees a graceful boundary to the sky. Finding myself in the large farms of Brunswick gives peace to the mind wrapped in my feldeinsamkeit.

The road leaving Brunswick cannot remove the stamp upon my heart of the joys and kind memories I delight in to this day.

Abandoned Methodist Church in Gestville

A while ago, I crawled into this abandoned church in Gestville, KY. I am fond of abandoned structures, yet most partial to photographing abandoned churches. This perhaps is the original Catholic church built in the early 20th Century, and later utilized by Methodists when the Catholics abandoned the structure. As far as locals recall, this building housed Gestville Methodist Church.

View from near the entrance of the building

Gestville Methodist apparently thrived during the course of the middle 20th Century, but the aging congregation dwindled in numbers until only three regular attendees continued to show up and eventually the structure was abandoned. In the photograph to the right, the desolate pulpit bids farewell to the setting sun as the piano and stove rests in the shadows by the stage.

The church piano rests quietly

The stagnant air and muffled sounds of nature filtering through the walls gives a sense of isolation. There is an odor of aged hardwood and a mixture of dust and dirt from a long human absence. Only a few items remain in the building. An old piano (which does not play) sits lonely in a diagonal position near the stage. A few bookshelves containing some hymnals and random papers sits quietly toward the entrance doors. The pews have been removed and refurnished for Grub Ridge Church.

The stage is littered with broken glass and the letters and numbers used for church attendance and hymn boards. Only the padding from beneath the carpet remains from where the center aisle once led people to the stage. The building is hollow, silent, and at rest. No longer are these walls echoing the sounds of singing. No longer are these walls echoing the sounds of preaching. There is a deathly silence.

What force drives a church structure to become abandoned? What disease grows until the life inside such buildings breathe their last breath, turning the voices from shouts to whispers to silence? Standing on the stage where the pulpit once stood and viewing out to where the pews once rested a full congregation, it becomes clear that silence does not speak. Silence does not echo. Silence is not living. Silence is the absence of life, the absence of speaking. Death is silent. This building is silent.