Some years ago, longer ago than I care to remember, me and my friend were on a photography course.
We were out taking photos, looking for the shadows: the things that other people might not notice when we came upon the remains of an old factory. Little more than a few bricks that marked the passing of a few hundred working lives: lost forever now.
And as we were taking pictures of brick piled onto brick a man approached us and tried to sell us on God, saying that it was the work of Satan that we were focussing so much on destruction and that if we followed this path then surely there could be no salvation for our souls. The only solution? Come to his church meeting next Sunday.
Now, even as a kid, I knew that this man was talking from where the sun don't shine, but I guess that I was still to young to really tell him why. So, my friend: if you're still out there - here's why.
In every abandoned brick there are a thousand grains of sand. Tiny atoms of creation that have come together in this place. In every piece of destruction there is the hope of resurrection: the birth of something new. Every abandoned building, no matter how decrepit, has a story to tell. What lives were lived in this place? What happened for the building to get into this state? If God did indeed create then surely it is equally magnificent that he can destroy.
To look on all that wonder and only see evil? Now that's what I call the loss of a soul
