from · the porch · toward · the back wall · duration · the time it takes the eyes to adjust
you stand at the door, which is ajar, and look in. you do not enter. the looking is from outside the room, into the room, and is therefore not the kind of looking the room is for. the room is for sitting in. the door is for standing at.
what is seen: the long shaft of amber light falling across the floor between the pews. the small candle at the far altar, lit by someone earlier and not yet by you. the door behind you, which would have to be closed if you went in, and which you do not close.
what is not seen: any person inside. whether the candle is for you or for someone else. the side aisle, where someone may be kneeling, whom the door does not reveal.
field-note · margin the kind of looking that is also a not-entering. there is a courtesy in stopping at the threshold and a question in stopping at the threshold and you cannot decide which is which.