Saturday, August 21, 2010

Signage


"Society evolves not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other."
~ Lewis Thomas • The Medusa and the Snail

For a long time, years even, I've wanted to take pictures of the messages that churches choose to post outside their doors. Most are trite. Some are ugly. Many are just innocuous and make the institution seem irrelevant to most who might be search for God, or searching for hope. The majority of these messages make me wonder what the church envisions the outcome of their sign might actually be. Or maybe wonder if they even care.

My original idea for the pictures may be flawed, but I've always thought that if I collected enough of them, placing them side-by-side, I could find messages that are completely contradictory – you know, "God Loves You" next to "God Hates Fags" for example.

Now that my camera is my constant companion, it might be the right time to start my little project. Maybe I will even be surprised to find that mainline denominations aren't exactly the religious equivalent of Fox News.

But I'm not holding my breath.

4 comments:

Frank Wilson said...

I was listening to Catholic radio in Georgetown last week and it sounded exactly like Fox (non)News. Democrat bashing was the order of the day. I've come to realize that the Republican Party hates: Blacks, Gays, Hispanics, Educated (elite), liberated women, the unemployed, Islam and any religion other than Baptist.

Frank Wilson said...

ALSO . . . This is just a great photograph. Very well shot!

bob said...

would you mind if i reposted this photo on facebook? i will caption it with credit to your name!

Tanya said...

Bob - no problem! you don't need to credit me. . .