The Sacred Objects of 9/11

RELIGION DISPATCHES
By S. Brent Plate

NEW YORK---Mark Schaming is the director of the New York State Historical Museum in Albany. As the National September 11 Memorial and Museum opened this past week, Schaming was interviewed about the process of collecting and showing such highly charged objects. "We secular people may not believe we are fetishists, bowing to divine sculptures for help in fertility and war, but our responses at memorials and museums show that we at least continue to be functional animists. There is an animating force at work within the material realm. Objects may or may not be living beings, but they do a very good job of conveying information, evoking emotion, and triggering memory. Which is why objects stand at the heart of the September 11 Museum, and why objects are the primary building material of religious traditions. [link]