So Where’s The Church?

Rock Hill Church Road was once a state-maintained road with a county road number (714 I think) that is now in VDOT limbo status of not abandoned but not maintained. There are three full time residences on a half mile of single lane gravel road.

That said, it is named for a church that presumably once stood somewhere along this short single-lane path–most likely near Roberson Mill Road, the “main” artery of travel for the community near the Blue Ridge Parkway.

And so, as I do the work of re-placing myself after 20 years embedded by head and heart on Goose Creek, I begin anew to get my bearings and find my relationships within this new and not unpleasant but not familiar dot on the surface of the Third Rock.

We are learning when and where to look for wildlife and enjoying the proximity to town that makes this location more convenient for drop-in masked visitors for a porch sit. I suppose these surroundings are as familiar as we should expect at just a little more than two weeks in place.

But now that we’re mostly out of cardboard, I’m looking around wondering what in the world am I? Why is this road a “church” road is there is not somewhere along here the foundation of that building?

I feel certain somebody knows the answer, and when I find out, I’ll let you know (the tension for you must be terrible not knowing!)

Meanwhile, we are keeping our eyes open. I see on the topo maps a “path” that at some point paralleled the existing road and turned west. At just that point today exists a copse of fairly mature trees between pastures north and south, with within those trees lies a large mass of rocks.

In fact there are two masses of rocks–those larger ones in place long enough to be covered in lichens; and a second pile of apparently newer baseball to grapefruit sized rocks much smaller than those typically culled from a tilled pasture. I can’t explain them.

But there does not seem to be a foundation (old steps etc) that would suggest a building ever stood there. At least now we have explored that spot we see every day on our walk down to the mailbox.

And I’m thinking somebody in the community can at least tell us what denomination the church was, so we can research it that way, if they don’t know exactly where it stood. And when we find out, we will be better “placed” in the time continuum of the current WHERE of our lives. And that life-context is part of what I refer to as my “personal ecology” that extends from MY space and place to be grounded on the globe, in the now and then, and in Earth’s life-systems, starting at home.