If you’re not already a fan of Retronaut – I cannot recommend it to you enough – it is one of the most interesting, quirky sites on the net.

In a recent edition are these pictures of an abandoned church in Buffalo, looking through them I started “feeling” a sense of loss, mourning even, for the many individuals who contributed to the life of that place.

Then I started thinking about the two churches my own family were associated with – one Old Catholic, the other Roman – both now defunct.

Nothing we do is permanent – but it is rather unsettling to view a place with so much individual and collective “spirit” invested in it – even during your own lifetime – as you would a Roman temple, or Egyptian tomb.

Stepping away from the physical building for a moment I find I’m more interested in the loss of community, identity, and with it belonging. My grandmother lived through the change of her local parish church slowly shutting down, its community dissipating, people she’d sat with and visited in church for years no longer there – having had to find another parish – and there feeling like a stranger no doubt. She often commented on how she felt the loss, how sad it was, and how odd it felt.

Indie communities have an unfortunate tendancy to be highly fluid and very impermanent. It is perhaps one of the more difficult aspects of being active in the movement; you no sooner get settled in the life of a community when it shifts or dissipates.

I’m not merely talking about change – change is a natural part of life, and to think that it would not not also be reflected in our faith communities is naive (I guess this is perhaps one of the most effective arguments against “Traditionalists”?).

Some changes are more than that however, they quickly, dramatically alter the nature of a thing. The priest moves and the community dissipates because there is no replacement. A clique within the community “makes its move” and fractures the whole. A dispute with a bishop, or within the wider synod throws everything into chaos. Many of us in the movement have seen this, or lived through this at least once.

What if we were to reflect on the images of hollowed, empty, abandoned church buildings from a generation earlier and use these as a point of reference?

Consider how people, individuals and groups, invested their time, creative talent, hard earned money, and most importantly their spiritual activity and alliance in making this “place” (community) their spiritual home.This community was an integral part of their personal and collective identity. This community was an expression of their faith and devotion. These are only a few of the points we might reflect on.

Now put it in the context of our own Indie setting. For most of us the “building” can be little more than a metaphore – an “icon” if you will – drawing our conscious thinking to bear on our actions. If we kept in our mind’s eye the most haunting shadow of a former community – such as one of the images in this photo essay – asking some of these questions not only of ourselves, but those within whom we have each invested our own time, talent, and relational energy – would we then find that we have more creative ways to overcome the challenges of the historic fluidity and impermanence of our Indie communities?

The spirit of a place, the shadow of the soul of the community that called it home, can I believe be a moving “icon” for Indie folk seeking to invest in their long-term relationship with one another, and within the tradition.