Happy Spooky Season! Here is a little post to get you in the spirit.
I shared it last year on our Mighty Network but thought my Substack readers might enjoy it as well.
When I was a young girl, my parents lived in a huge old Victorian home, complete with two balconies, an interior basement, an outdoor root cellar, and, of course, your customary ghosts.
My parents purchased this creaky old home with big dreams of fixing it up, which in the mid-1970s meant covering the hardwood floors with carpeting, ripping out the solid wood central fireplace mantel, and putting in a wood-burning stove.
My sister and I were given the entire second floor, consisting of four huge bedrooms, a kitchen, and a tiny bathroom. In a former life, this upper floor had served as a dwelling when the house was carved into three rental units.
My mother worked long hours in a neighboring town an hour away, and Dad was part-owner of Storm’s Drive In, an expanding and iconic Central Texas restaurant chain, which left two young girls, ages 8 and 10, home alone with two other, more ancient sisters, Mina Kay and Virginia, whose father had built this home in the 1880s.
At first, the presence of these two ghostly sisters was more a feeling…the feeling of not being alone.
Over time, the sisters became bolder – perhaps provoked by our so-called “renovation” of the house.
They would cause the enormous 10-by-20-foot solid wood sliding doors that separated the rooms of the main floor to glide across their tracks while my sister and I were watching after-school cartoons.
They caused the curtains to jump off the rod and over the head of my uncle, who scoffed at the idea that the house was haunted.
They left the locked front door wide open and removed the attic panel while we were away at school.
But their favorite parlor trick was to get inside the refrigerator and knock until we let them out.
My friends loved our house because my parents rarely came upstairs, and with four entrances, it was easy to sneak boys upstairs and easier still to find a hiding place for them in this behemoth of a home if my dad did pop in.
However, few of my friends ever wanted to stay the night, except, of course, on Halloween on a dare.
We discovered the names of our phantoms when my mother started working at a title company and learned to research land abstracts. She made a copy of all the deeds, all the way back to the original family.
What piqued our interest was that when the house was handed down, only one sister received an inheritance, and the second, Mina Kay’s, interest was put under the guardianship of her sister, Virginia.
Both sisters were adults then, so our sleuthing and young imaginations conjured all sorts of possibilities.
Perhaps Mina Kay was mentally unstable and had been locked in the attic, where she eventually died?
We were never brave enough to venture up there to look for her bones, but we could hear her pacing most every night.
A Spirited Church
I have spent the past year traveling in search of communities in bloom.
During a trip to Norfolk, VA, I was invited to tour an abandoned historic church. Those childhood memories came flooding back. It was built in the late 1800s, the same time period as my childhood home.
Walking through that enormous church, the largest one I have ever explored, felt like a scene out of the 1990s book series Left Behind.
This once prestigious, wealthy, and thriving congregation closed its doors for good in December of 2024.
The Christmas tree still stands on the stage, and Advent décor hangs on the balcony as though the rapture happened and took them all to glory in that final service.
As I walked the halls of the education wing, most recently used as a preschool, the empty cribs seemed to cry out, “Where have our babies gone?”
We peeked outside to see a playground with rusting equipment, and I could see echoes of generations of children laughing and playing.
Beside the fellowship hall where many a meal was shared, a huge industrial kitchen still had dishes stacked up by the sink.
There was another room, a large men’s Sunday School room, a place where three female pastors—myself and my two companions—would have been banned from entering.
As we passed the dusty monogrammed blazers still hanging in the closet, there was a feeling of foreboding, as though the spirits of old were intent on holding the secrets of that room from the prying eyes of the living.
The faces of the all-white congregation staring out at us from the picture frames along the hallway walls told a story of a church shaped by more than a patriarchal spirit.
It also appeared to be a church that had failed to embrace the growing diversity of the community surrounding it.
Sadly, this is no Hollywood movie scene, and the disappearance of this congregation did not happen in the blink of an eye.
It was a slow, agonizing death, ending with the painful decision by the handful of remaining congregants to close the doors.
This experience made me wonder: do places have a spirit?
Do the spiritual energies of those who have gone before us remain in some way for those who come next?
Or is that energy only felt or discerned when place meets story?
The faith community that called this place home is no more, but on the walls I could see their portraits.
I found myself longing to know their stories and wondering how the life they had poured into this place might contribute to its next chapter.
What parts of their legacy might bring spiritual energy, hope, and healing to the emerging story of this place?
I came to this city in search of communities in bloom, but this church is a reminder that sometimes new life is preceded by death.
The Hallowed Halls of our Origin Story
As I shared in my first chapter in my Power Shift Revisited series, Embrace’s own origin story can be traced back to an enormous, old, largely abandoned church where we were granted use of the old education wing, free of charge. The loss of one community gave rise to a new kind of community.
It was the birthplace of Embrace, the place where Stephanie's dream, my calling, and the gifts of our early community cultivating team came to life.
The building carried the memories of the congregation that had occupied it before us, but it also became a place where new relationships were formed, new stories were written, and a different expression of community began to take root.
I do not believe this is the end of the story for the Norfolk church building I toured last year.
It is simply in a season of reimagining.
I hope to report back as the next chapter begins to take shape.
Stories of Healing and Hope
As we approach All Hallows’ Eve, a day we traditionally associate with not-so-friendly spirits, I want to draw our attention to the following day, November 1, All Saints’ Day on the Christian calendar.
All Saints’ Day is a day of remembrance for all the saints, both known and unknown, who have gone before us.
I know very little about the saints who built and occupied the now-abandoned and soon-to-be-vacant church buildings across our nation. But I suspect that, collectively, they left a lasting imprint on their communities.
Their stories, their relationships, their acts of generosity, and even their unfinished work remain woven into the fabric of the places they once called home.
Part of that legacy is likely rooted in a spirit of exclusion (racism, patriarchy, and homophobia), and that part of the story should not be whitewashed or excised from the full telling. I suspect it may have contributed significantly to their demise.
But all communities are complex. They carry both saintly spirits and the spirits of their own brokenness. Both are part of their story.
It is in the fullness of the story that the narrative of redemption and resurrection is born.
I hope the future inhabitants of these buildings carry the life-giving parts of their stories into the next chapter and lament those parts that inflicted harm.
I pray that, through healing and hope, commUnity will bloom in these places once again.
I am curious: how would you answer this question?
Do places have a spirit?
Is that spirit something left behind by those who came before us, or something that emerges when place meets story?
Where are you seeing the death of one form of community giving new life to another?
Concerned for my Mental Health?
If you have read my haunting story and are concerned for my mental health, perhaps I should also share that when I originally wrote it, my daughter Kristen and I had been binge-watching the Paramount+ series Ghosts. Perhaps that also enlivened my sensitivity to the possibility of spirits inhabiting places. Kristen and I highly recommend both the UK and US versions for those looking to get into the haunting spirit of the day. :)
Have a Ghost or CommUnity Story to Share?
Please share your thoughts, questions, and stories in the comment section below.