Church of the Transfiguration | full of nightmares and misgivings

there were too many of us -
too many sick and poor and tired and ignorant.
it was overwhelming. the cacophony was deafening.
we were all talking at once, and nobody was listening - nobody,
not to each other, not to the world around us,
not to god.
at a certain point, maybe some of us noticed He was not with us any longer
and in our arrogance we assumed He had left us, forsaken us
and not that we had moved so far away from Him.
there was too much bustle, too many things competing for our attention:
television, music, games, the internet, politics, health problems, kids -
the list was endless, and with our focus on their clamor
we let them take precedence over His quiet ways.
some of us lied and told ourselves we walked with Him,
but we wouldn't admit the reality to ourselves -
that He bored us, inconvenienced us, that in a world
that shoveled instant gratification and indulgence down our throats
we found His emphasis on responsibility and sacrifice passe.
we wanted to eat as much as we could, see as much as we could,
take as much as we could, use as much as we could.
there was always something else to work toward, to achieve! -
and we were so intent on these things i don't think we noticed
they were all in the wrong direction.
even now and again some of us awoke briefly from our shared delusion
and we saw that it was all wrong, all backward.
but it was terrifying and overwhelming. we had lost control,
and while we could see the abyss yawning ahead,
we had no idea how to turn away from it.
and so we distracted ourselves with our dancing images again
and we went back to sleep. it was a troubled sleep,
full of nightmares and misgivings,
but it hurt less than being awake.

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Church of the Transfiguration, Philadelphia PA.

If you'd like to learn more about this location, it is a featured chapter in the book "Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences," which you can order signed copies of here. It's also available (unsigned) through Amazon and other booksellers across the globe.

Photographs/unattributed text by Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America.