No one hears the wind chimes. The parking lot stays empty.
By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
I call it the Roll Call of The Waiting. Inactive churches in need of friends. Friendship, Dothan Methodist, St. Simon’s Episcopal Church, Halfway Creek, Workman Methodist, Graham’s Methodist . . . the roll goes on, and now I add Shiloh, a name that has been haunting me.
On a cold, clear February 24 I made my way to Jenkinsville to meet supporters of Shiloh Methodist Church. Naked limbs filtered a cobalt sky and there she sat beneath all that blueness. Lonely but beautiful. No feet tread her steps and her doors stay locked. Her cemetery holds family members whom the living hope to rest alongside. Amy King hopes to find new life for the church where her family members rest. She could use a helping hand. Shiloh could use a helping hand.
Gleaming white Shiloh stood beautiful in winter light. Double front doors could have used kickplates where the congregation scuffed them up. They testify, “Yes, people came to worship and share fellowship, to rejoice and grieve, and simply believe.”
I walked the grounds and cemetery. Fine old stones leaned just so as if gentle winds had bent them to their will. A handmade cross here and there, and blue granite among pastel marble markers.
Inside I saw a portrait of Burrell Brown Crook. He gave the church its land. The pulpit’s three chairs were burgundy and plush. A portrait of Jesus hung nearby. A gas space heater stood between the piano and a pew. A good place to stand on a cold winter’s day. Well, used to be.
After taking some photos, I left, vowing to work on this story right away. Between ongoing projects, events, and travel plans, 51 days slipped by. But a strange thing happened. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, “Shiloh” kept following me.
On a back-road journey I came across Shiloh Road. Later I passed two other Shiloh churches. If I said I came across a fine shorthaired pointer named Shiloh I would be making it up, as I just did. But a friend, Dennis McCarthy, having read something I wrote about peach trees emailed me. “Here is the passage you’re thinking of from Shiloh by Shelby Foote.”
Foote’s novel, Shiloh, gives us a poetic, beautifully disturbing description of the Shiloh battlefield.
“The air was filled with smoke and dust and sound . . . and through it all the peach blossoms kept falling, shaken from the trees by the concussion of the guns, drifting down continuously, as though it were snowing . . . The ground beneath the trees was covered with them, and still they fell, white [pink] and soft, in contrast to the harsh crash of musketry and the screams of the wounded.”
Shiloh . . . 24,746 casualties . . . 3,428. Petals, white or pink, that clung to trees had to be a deeper pink, bathed in blood as they were.
My haunting exorcised, I write now. Shiloh stands across Highway 215 from the Jenkinsville Post Office. It’s a 1902 Carpenter Gothic clapboard church. Its cemetery holds two graves of Revolutionary War soldiers. It began as a brush arbor. I found it difficult to learn much more about the church, but I surmise it took its name from the Bible.
“Shiloh,” is a word of beauty and significance. Shiloh was pivotal to the Israelites in the Promised Land for 300 years. It housed the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant from Joshua’s time until the Philistines captured the Ark, after which it was destroyed.
Small, rural churches suffer hard times. Things change. Old members die. Young members move. Preachers come and go. The younger set prefers churches with non-traditional ways and music. One day those left behind turn around and find themselves alone. The church becomes inactive. Dormant as a shoals lily in February.
Shiloh, from high to low. Loyal supporter Amy King hopes to save her. Hopes to find her new purpose and strike her from the Roll Call of The Waiting. I hope she succeeds. You should too.